[csaenemy]

Hi,
New poster here. My wife found this site. She says I'm a geek and thought it would be ideal for me, she may be right
I'm a relative newcomer to the world of linux, I experimented with Red Hat years ago, but gave up. Recently I've tried Puppy, which I quite liked and Ubuntu, which I like a lot.
Last week my motherboard died on me, so I went out and bought a new pc, which came complete with Vista. I installed my two hard drives from the previous set up, and can access all from Vista. A change to the boot sequence within the BIOS allows me to boot into Ubuntu, from which I can also access all drives. My only issue is that the Ubuntu boot menu is the second option after XP, my previous OS, but now XP will not boot whatever drive sequence I use. I'm not bothered about XP not booting, but find it a minor irritation that it's there as the first option on the boot menu, and therefore, left unattended the pc will always try to boot into it. Can I remove the XP option from the boot menu from within Ubuntu and make it boot into Linux alone.

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yes - its just a matter of removing the entry from your boot/grub/menu.lst,

do you know how to do this ?

[hawklord]

yes - its just a matter of removing the entry from your boot/grub/menu.lst,

do you know how to do this ?

[csaenemy]

No, would be grateful if you could talk me through thanks

[hawklord]

ok - first i need to look at your menu.lst,

can you navigate to boot/grub/menu.lst (lst as in list not first) and copy the contents here so i can have a nosy

[csaenemy]

# menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
# grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
# grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
# and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/.

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default 0

## timeout sec
# Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry
# (normally the first entry defined).
timeout 10

## hiddenmenu
# Hides the menu by default (press ESC to see the menu)
#hiddenmenu

# Pretty colours
#color cyan/blue white/blue

## password ['--md5'] passwd
# If used in the first section of a menu file, disable all interactive editing
# control (menu entry editor and command-line) and entries protected by the
# command 'lock'
# e.g. password topsecret
# password --md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/
# password topsecret

#
# examples
#
# title Windows 95/98/NT/2000
# root (hd0,0)
# makeactive
# chainloader +1
#
# title Linux
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro
#

#
# Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST

### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below

## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs

## ## Start Default Options ##
## default kernel options
## default kernel options for automagic boot options
## If you want special options for specific kernels use kopt_x_y_z
## where x.y.z is kernel version. Minor versions can be omitted.
## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro
## kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro
## kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro
# kopt=root=UUID=1020-F0E3 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro

## Setup crashdump menu entries
## e.g. crashdump=1
# crashdump=0

## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=()/ubuntu/disks

## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. alternative=true
## alternative=false
# alternative=true

## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. lockalternative=true
## lockalternative=false
# lockalternative=false

## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the
## alternatives
## e.g. defoptions=vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5
# defoptions=quiet splash

## should update-grub lock old automagic boot options
## e.g. lockold=false
## lockold=true
# lockold=false

## Xen hypervisor options to use with the default Xen boot option
# xenhopt=

## Xen Linux kernel options to use with the default Xen boot option
# xenkopt=console=tty0

## altoption boot targets option
## multiple altoptions lines are allowed
## e.g. altoptions=(extra menu suffix) extra boot options
## altoptions=(recovery) single
# altoptions=(recovery mode) single

## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst
## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the
## alternative kernel options
## e.g. howmany=all
## howmany=7
# howmany=all

[hawklord]

ok, do you want/need to keep xp,

or do you just want ubuntu to boot first,

i would suggest opening a terminal and typing

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

then set the default to 1 (one) instead of 0 (zero)

this will still leave your windows boot option as a 'just in case'

Edited by hawklord, 07 June 2009 - 01:06 PM.

[hawklord]

any chance i could see the end bit of your menu.lst ? the last, maybe 5 entries

[csaenemy]

I tried this, but still the XP option is at the top of the list. I'm really not bothered about losing XP completely, as I said in the original post, I have the Vista option if all else fails.

[hawklord]

ok, i need to see the end of your menu.lst, the part under this line

## ## End Default Options ##

also can you give me the output of

sudo fdisk -l

from a terminal

[csaenemy]

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, kernel 2.6.24-24-generic
root ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-24-generic root=UUID=1020-F0E3 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, kernel 2.6.24-24-generic (recovery mode)
root ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-24-generic root=UUID=1020-F0E3 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, kernel 2.6.24-23-generic
root ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-23-generic root=UUID=1020-F0E3 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-23-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, kernel 2.6.24-23-generic (recovery mode)
root ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-23-generic root=UUID=1020-F0E3 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-23-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic
root ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=1020-F0E3 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic (recovery mode)
root ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=1020-F0E3 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.2, memtest86+
root ()/ubuntu/disks
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Windows XP Media Center Edition
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
chainloader +1


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdb1
title Windows NT/2000/XP
root (hd1,0)
savedefault
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdb2
title Windows XP Media Center Edition
root (hd1,1)
savedefault
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

----------------------------------------------

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xec070660

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1698 13631488 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 1698 19458 142657368 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbe08d558

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 764 6136798+ 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sdb2 765 10079 74822737+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3 10080 19457 75328785 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdc: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1f148204

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 19457 156288321 7 HPFS/NTFS

[hawklord]

how did you install ubuntu ?

is it installed within xp ? (using wubi)

[csaenemy]

probably. I used the live disk and I can't be sure, but think that may have been the route I took.

[hawklord]

ah - that would explain why all your partitions are ntfs and fat32 - no ext2 or 3 or swap space,

i have no experiance with ubuntu installed inside windows, so i can't offer any help on that point,

and i don't believe you can have ubuntu as primary boot choice (but i could be wrong)

all i can suggest is do a clean install of ubuntu 'on its own' on the xp drive/partition (saving all you personal data first)

sorry

maybe someone else will offer a solution

[csaenemy]

thanks very much for trying. I guess you're right that a fresh install of ubuntu is the answer. This will have to wait a couple of days, for reasons that I shan't go in to. I may well be seeking your help with other matters at that point. Nice to know that you're here. Much appreciated.

[hawklord]

no problem - i'll be around