[warriorscot]

Right ive done some minor messing around with linux mostly live CDs and some stand alone installs but never really as a promary OS but i need it for my studies so i thought i would finally get round to dual booting with the ubuntu disks i have. Now i started it up the 32bit live CD and using some space that i had resized from the windows partition created a linux swap and a ext3 primary for ubuntu then installed. Now this went on fine and i booted straight up to ubuntu now here is to problems the ubuntu documentation was supposed to automatically detect and configure GRUB to work with the exisiting windows OS, it was also supposed to prompt me to instsall the thing but it didnt, so now i have grub in my MBR instead of the boot folder where i wanted it and could use the windows loader.

Now since that happened i cant boot to windows, now ive altered the grub menu.lst file to contain the windows boot info. But when i try to boot up i get an NTLDR missing message presumably from when grub installed itself in my MBR. Now what i need to do is get windows up and going because while i love ubuntu its not playing well with my wireless and locks up when i activate it(problem for another day i guess but if i can fix that i would be fairly happy) but i need access to the internet to research and get files and its akward as im using the downstairs PC now and i hate this thing soo slow.

Now my current plan of action is to use my XP disk(whichever one i can find i think im on my 4 or 5th ne now ive lost that many) and rewrite my MBR now this should as far as i know return windows to its former self but leave ubuntu un bootable, and if the replacing of the MBR doesnt work i may have to reinstall or rebuild windows and i dont want to particularly reinstall windows i can move anything i need to keep to my data partition from ubuntu but i dont want to reinstall windows at the moment i really cant be bothered and i have it just as i like it at the moment.

But i also want to keep ubuntu although i dont mind reinstalling it im fine with that if i do even if i fix it it will break my MBR and windows AGAIN.

What im asking anyone who has possibly encountered this or is linux leet enough what can i do that could perhaps get XP to boot from GRUB without reinstalling windows and will basically get it to where it should have been to start with.

If nobody knows dont hassle yourself im sure i can figure it out im just wanting to get it done tonight or tommorow but ive not got much tonight left.

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What did you add to the menu.lst file?

This is the entry I have:

title Windoze
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

There should be a means of configuring grub through the admin tools. I don't use Ubuntu, so I can't tell you what it is, but most distros have such tools.

What is your complete /boot/grub/menu.lst file?

[Kemasa]

What did you add to the menu.lst file?

This is the entry I have:

title Windoze
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

There should be a means of configuring grub through the admin tools. I don't use Ubuntu, so I can't tell you what it is, but most distros have such tools.

What is your complete /boot/grub/menu.lst file?

[warriorscot]

ooh not got it on me but its straight from the ubuntu wiki, same as yours except i have save default and makeactive just before the chainloder +1 bit.

Iv been reading and while i think what i have is correct some also use rootnoverify instead of root wonder if that might work shall try it i think before bed.

Ive been raking through the tools its poosible i just havent found it yet you would think something as important as the bootloader would get more attention but ubuntu has always been infamously weak when it comes to booting and installing.

[warriorscot]

FIXED, because my data partition is set as a primary partition it was designated as partition 0 because it was the largest this kicked back my windows partition which i was expecting to be on partition 0 so it was really in fact 1 so i simply changed root (hd0, 0) to (hd0, 0) and it seems to have worked as im on windows now.

Now i just need to get ndiswrapper on and working to get my wireless on the go.