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Here is my situation: I have a netbook with an 8gb SSD as its first drive and a 32gb drive as its secondary drive. I was hoping to install windows xp on a 20gb partition and then share the remaining 8gb drive and 12gb partition from drive2 for my linux experimentation.

When I boot Windows XP from the first drive, it works perfectly. When I boot a clone of the same Windows XP install from the SECOND drive, it hangs, showing the words "Starting Up ...". The cloning of the drive was accomplished using a linux utility called partimage, but I had the same results when I used dd to copy the partition contents.

Ubuntu works fine (currently booting off the second drive).

After lots of installation and reinstallation and juggling of drives via ubuntu I've got the following setup according to fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 8069 MB, 8069677056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 981 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x294a294a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda2 * 336 973 5120028 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(1023, 17, 4) logical=(335, 37, 55)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(1023, 17, 4) logical=(972, 143, 27)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 981 981 8032+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 32.2 GB, 32279224320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3924 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00021104

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 638 5124703+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 * 2466 3924 11719417+ 83 Linux

Here is the relevant section of grub's menu.lst:

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

title Windows XP (disk 2)
root (hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

Anyone have any advice?

Thanks!

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2 Answers 2

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2

What if you installed and got XP running on the 20gb partition, then went back and installed linux after xp was up and running. I am not an expert with Grub but this is how I have done it in the past. Partition all your drives first to how you prefer, install xp on the preferred partition then linux on the preferred, during the linux setup grub should detect the different drives and automatically add entries for XP and linux.

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  • I was considering this, but I'd really like to understand why booting won't work. From my understanding, windows' only unusual requirement is that it believes it is the first partition of the first hard drive.
    – Gegtik
    Jun 28, 2009 at 20:50
  • Yea I would think so too. But when you mentioned this "SECOND drive, it hangs, showing the words "Starting Up ..." It makes me think that Grub is configured correctly but something is not loading correctly in windows after the clone and move.
    – user10711
    Jun 28, 2009 at 20:56
  • I've decided to attempt to reinstall windows with the second drive listed as the first boot device in the BIOS; (un)fortunately I ended up trying to run Paragon Software's Partition Manager 10 because I was under the impression from some other searching that it would present me with the windows ArcName path ( ie. Multi(x)rdrive(y)drive(z)partition(w) ) for the drive.. instead it installed its own boot manager, and when I asked for it to remove itself it totally destroyed everything.. grub doesn't recognise any drives, I've got to start allllll over now :)
    – Gegtik
    Jun 29, 2009 at 13:21
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Sounds like you should fix the boot sector on the second drive. I'm sure there is a linux tool to do just that, however I don't know any off the top of my head.

If you use a Windows CD and boot to Recovery Console and run "fixboot", it will likely overwrite GRUB on your first drive as well, but Windows should boot from the second drive. If you go that route, just re-install GRUB after you fix the Windows drive.

You may also need to reconfigure your windows installations from the Recovery Console, since the install has changed partitions. You can do this with the "bootcfg" command, or by editing the boot.ini file in the root of your windows partition. However, you will need to know how Windows will enumerate the partition.

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  • Although I accepted the other answer, I believe this one led me closer to the truth as to why windows wasn't booting -- I think you were onto something with the boot.ini's enumeration of the drives. Pity I won't get to experiment with my setup any further
    – Gegtik
    Jun 29, 2009 at 13:22

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