GRUB won't load winxp; again =)

[albester]

Hi All!
Yesterday, I was required to switch my networkcable from the router directly to the cablemodem. As a result for that brief switch (prob. 10mins) my spyware/trojan/spamware free winxp installation was flooded with unknown applications who refuse to terminate themselves
So, I've had it. With windows in particular and M$ in general. The reason I sticked with it for all those years is probably just the momentum of tradition. And so, partly because of the moral rightness of the Linux OpenSource philosophy and because of a giant monopolist who refuses to take their customers seriously (closed format standards, uncountably many 'windows annoyances' etc etc) I decided to break with that tradition and install Linux (SuSE 9.1). I do quite a lot of programming in Perl/C++/Pascal, mainly for scientific bussiness, but also for general purposes, so I'm no complete know-nothing when it comes to computerinternals.

I'm very impressed with linux, and I'm going to stay with it this time. But I still have one or two things to take care of under winxp, but, here is the key of the message, I can't get it to boot anymore (strangely, wasn't really upset when it failed the first time i tried it :D)

Here are the details: Primary HDD=80GB NTFS (winxp previously) and Seconday HDD =120GB FAT32 (no OS, and not relevant to the problem)

1) SuSE install complained there wasn't enough diskspace to install (even tough I freed up to 20gb) so I want back into winxp and resized & partioned it into primary NTFS and extended (unallocated) disk space.
2) Back in SuSE (it still hadn't done things right) I assigned the primary linux partition & linux swap myself. Install performed flawless.

3) In SuSE i can access all my data on the windows partition of both hard drives, and nothing seems to be wrong. However,

4) When I try to boot Windows, it hangs. So i went to GRUB console mode and typed the following commands

5) rootnoverify (hd0,0) {here is the winxp position, linux is on the same drive but on the end of it}

makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

and then it hanged again, no message whatsoever. What can i do to boot xp again? I did search trough this forum for solutions and looked up the help for GRUB before i posted, so I'm not lazy...

Best regards & thanks for reading,

Al.

[leonpmu]

I recommend that you post your grub.conf file (normally in /etc/)

SO that the guys who know grub can help you.

Or alternaltively you can boot off youe Suse cd go to installation, repair, and then ask it to auto repair you boot loader config. Or even both.

[albester]

OK. This is the grub.conf file

root (hd0,5)
install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) /boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 (hd0,5)/boot/grub/menu.lst
quit

and this in the menu.lst (the part about windows)

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I first intend to search for a solution, there must be one since i can read from the partition...but when all fails i'll try your suggestion!

[leonpmu]

Something else I could suggest is convert the boot loader to LiLO, I personally could help you better.

It is quite easy, use the same method as I said before but simply choose edit under boot loader, choose Lilo -> propose anew configuration, then edit configuration files and under the metest area insert comments (#) in front of the memtest lines and then use that.

if you get stuck, let me know.

L

[albester]

SOLVED.

I changed the access mode from 'auto' to 'LBA' in the bios, and it boots both OS's perfectly. Something to do with how disc-specs are being reported to the kernel (http://www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/fc2.shtml)
I hope this will help any other newbie who has the same problem.

Thanks for your time leonpmu!

-Al

[leonpmu]

Glad you sorted it out, I actually thought GRUB assumed LBA32 mode if unspecified, like Lilo does.

Great stuff, keep loving the penguin dude!

:cool: