repair win xp

[hermanaa]

On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 08:57 -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> steve wrote:
> > John Heinen wrote:
> >> Matthew Flaschen wrote:
> >>> John Heinen wrote:
> >>>   
> >>>> Wind xp crashed.Tried to restart with win xp disk but machine want to
> >>>> start ubuntu
> >>>>     
> >>> Are you sure the machine's BIOS is set to boot first from CD?
> >>>
> >>> Matt Flaschen
> >>>
> >>>   
> >> Yes as strange as it may be, ubuntu's grub takes over execpt if I use
> >> another linux cd for example linux mint then it will start mint linmux
> >> but a win xp cd is plainly ignored?
> >>
> > does the xp disc boot on any other computer?  xp sounds like a bad cd to
> > me, if you can get other cd's to boot on the same computer OR, its not
> > an install cd.
> 
> If you're saying that you're putting in the XP cd and it's trying to 
> boot grub from the hard disk instead, and the BIOS is set to boot from 
> the CD before the hard disk, then either the CD is bad or the CD drive 
> is bad.

XP (XP Professional in my case) is not following standard
 'boot from CD' behavior:
 --to start from XP bootable CD, you have to touch a key.
 --without touching a key, the CD in the CD-drive will be ignored,
 the system (with XP CD in drive) will try to start the XP OS
 instead.

I used that behavior to get XP started when GRUB did not show XP
 in the menu.
My incomplete GRUB was the result of a failed Ubuntu installation.

Herman in PHL.