WinXP/Linux boot crash

First: Your question is unclear and asking a lot of questions, so I'll address them one at a time.

your mbr: This was probably not the problem if you are getting a windows splash screen.. it will be your graphics drivers.

If you have something in linux that affects windows it is very likely a hardware issue, for example the new graphics card. The other option is your boot loader (Grub or Lilo). So I don't understand how installing the "candy" under could have affected your windows installation.

What I would strongly recommend is you do a fresh install of both windows and linux. There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to do this so I won't bother mentioning it here. Just make sure you have backups of everything on external media, and when you install windows - install the latest drivers for your graphics card.

For linux, leave out the candy for now. Compiz/Beryl etc are very cool, and a good reason to switch to linux, however the chances of them just working under linux are small, be prepared to do a lot of configuring and a lot more fixing.

Do keep looking at linux, I cannot stress how rewarding it is to use once you have mastered the basics. However you have to be prepared to get your hands dirty and do a lot of googling to get everything working exactly how you want it to.

alzeih - thank you for your answers. The reason I thought my mbr was corrupt was because I could not get the windows install disk to work nor could I get the Norton Gost V10 to boot up. Windows wouldn't boot either, as I mentioned. After much thought I really believe you are correct about the new graphics card. I didn't have problems with Ubuntu until I gook that "path" with the tempting "candy."

Since I have submitted my "question-statement" I have indeed reinstalled WInXP and updated my system. Actually I had to because nothing would boot. Be as it may, these past two years I have used Ubuntu for everything except photo, backup, banking and my scanner. Everything else was strictly Ubuntu - and yes, I have all my documents on a separate hard drive plus backup disks. Whew! Do you know of an easy backup program to back up - restore my hard drive?

I have learned a lot about linux these past two years but I guess I just got stumped. Once again - Many thanks. Ubuntu will be up and running this afternoon.

Pleased to hear it!

Not sure about the backups... what your doing is more than I manage to do. I generally keep docs centralised in my home directory and copy important stuff across the network or to dvd before a format. I'm sure i'll get bitten someday by it though. Have a search through your package manager (Synaptic or Apt) - I know I've seen some backup solutions there. For everything else (bookmarks, email) I have it web based which saves a lot of hassle.

If you want to try getting the candy working again, start with graphics drivers:
http://www.albertomilone.com/latest_nvidia_udsf_feisty.html or
http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

And then you'll probably need to edit your xorg (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) , this is really a case of trial and error most of the time. There are plenty of tutorials out there and forums for compiz/beryl (I can't remember what comes with default with ubuntu sorry)

Best of luck, anyway.

Hello,

Tom, just a suggestion - ubuntu has an alternate cd that will give you full control of installation -partition creation, formatting etc and, most importantly, toward the end of install gives you the choice where to install grub -either mbr or partition. For your dual boot machine you would like to keep win and linux completely separate so I would suggest to install grub on linux partition for many reasons. Obviously win must be installed first; grub is very smart and detect win installation and give you the choice to boot either one.

As far your second problem -backups- take a look at

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

It has v nice utlities that allows one to take and restore full partition images to whatever media you desire -CD, DVD, other HD's. I use them for years; it can be had for nominal amounts. Hope these tips help you.

peter b

Thank you, peter b and alzeih for your assistance. True, I did have quite a
few issues at the same time. I believe part of it was getting my Nvidia
card to work. Fiesty recognizes the card so I'm not going to mess with it
for now. Also, due to the fact that I couldn't start windows I assumed it
was the mbr. I now suspect it was not but still not sure why the boot
sequence for winxp was corrupted. I am using advice from both of you. I am
leaving the desktop effects alone. I have gotten Norton Ghost 2003 to work
quite well now to backup and restore on my spare internal hard drive.
Peter, I installed Fiesty as you suggested. It reminded me of the first
time I tried to install Ubuntu and (then) got to the partitioning screen and
was stumped. I was successful this time, put grub on the linux partition.
When my system was about where I wanted it, I went to winxp and tried to
make a backup with Ghost. It couldn't find the mbr. I am now going to
check the link you sent for backup software. I'll keep you informed!

On 9/4/07, peter b <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Your question #12685 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/12685
>
> peter b posted a new comment:
> Hello,
>
> Tom, just a suggestion - ubuntu has an alternate cd that will give you
> full control of installation -partition creation, formatting etc and,
> most importantly, toward the end of install gives you the choice where
> to install grub -either mbr or partition. For your dual boot machine you
> would like to keep win and linux completely separate so I would suggest
> to install grub on linux partition for many reasons. Obviously win must
> be installed first; grub is very smart and detect win installation and
> give you the choice to boot either one.
>
> As far your second problem -backups- take a look at
>
> http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/
>
> It has v nice utlities that allows one to take and restore full
> partition images to whatever media you desire -CD, DVD, other HD's. I
> use them for years; it can be had for nominal amounts. Hope these tips
> help you.
>
> peter b
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

Tom,

Happy to hear that you you can now boot either one. I'm not familiar with ghost at all; lots of people told me about it -I'm going to stck to my good faithful BootitNG of Terabyteunlimited that gave me years and years of fantastic service and v importantly simplicity of achieving tasks in a very logical way; it's a very sharp mgr/utility

 -totally OS independent and does miracles on many fronts -create/format/resize/slide/delete/backup/restore etc partitions and customize your boot sequence to your heart desire. Just for your info -BootitNG installs itself on its own partition and all tasks mentioned are done within it ==> you don't have to go into win or linux to backup/restore mbr's or partition contents, you do that within this utility.

If you decide to give it a try I'm sure that you'll notice immediately the advantages of being able to do these essential tasks OUTSIDE of any OS. The other backup only utilities on the site mentioned is Image for DOS, ....for windows, and .... for linux. BootitNG has all and much more contained in one single package; that's the one I'm using.

And one more thing, I'm not associated in any way shape or form with Terabyte, I just like their approach and utility. Best of luck in your endeavours. Keep me posted - I like to help if I can.

peter b

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