Lost XP boot after installing Ubuntu 8.04

Asked by Guhan

Hi,
Complete Newbie to Ubuntu - used to live on XP Home Edition. Had been flirting along the sidelines with a Hardy Heron LiveCD from a friend and finally decided to install ubuntu 8.04 LTS

During install, the only options for partitioning I got were Use Full Disk (160GB), so I skipped that and picked the manual option. I had a D: drive, that I had already created (37GB) when I used to dual boot with Vista, which I removed long ago. So, I selected that drive, or so I thought and asked Ubuntu to use it. It warned me about a swap drive, so I created one for 3GB. All went well, and after installation, I cant see a dual boot option, that I had when before when running ubuntu from the CD drive.

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst looks like this
================================
# 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=424db901-b33b-41e0-aa2e-61f348545617 ro

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

## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=(hd0,4)

## 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

## should update-grub create memtest86 boot option
## e.g. memtest86=true
## memtest86=false
# memtest86=true

## should update-grub adjust the value of the default booted system
## can be true or false
# updatedefaultentry=false

## should update-grub add savedefault to the default options
## can be true or false
# savedefault=false

## ## End Default Options ##

title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=424db901-b33b-41e0-aa2e-61f348545617 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=424db901-b33b-41e0-aa2e-61f348545617 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04, memtest86+
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### 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 Dell Utility Partition
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda2
title Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
root (hd0,1)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
=======================================

sudo fdisk -l looks like this
=======================================
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd0f4738c

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 6 14180 113860687+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 14181 19028 38941560 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 19029 19429 3221032+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5 14181 19028 38941528+ 83 Linux
==========================================

Can someone advise as to what I can do, to get the dual booting option back?

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Guhan
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Revision history for this message
Martin Kaufmann (martin.kaufmann) said :
#1

Doesnt show you Grub the Entry for the Windows-Partition at the startup?

Revision history for this message
Guhan (guhan-ramanan) said :
#2

Nopes, it doesnt. So, I ended up adding this code in menu.lst

title Windows XP Home Edition
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
no savedefault

which seemed to solve my problem.. so, I can see the boot options now.
I really dont know why it worked.. picked it off a forum post in ubuntuforums, so, if you can guide as to why it worked, that would be very useful.

many thanks for responding.

Revision history for this message
Martin Kaufmann (martin.kaufmann) said :
#3

Well, this Code you Copy and Paste into your menu.lst is the normal Setting to boot Windows:

title - The Title which is Display at the Startmenu
root - the Partition of the OS
makeactive - Set the active partition on the root disk to GRUB's root device. This command is limited to primary PC partitions on a hard disk
chainloader +1 - Load file as a chain-loader. Like any other file loaded by the filesystem code, it can use the blocklist notation to grab the first sector of the current partition with `+1'. If you specify the option --force, then load file forcibly, whether it has a correct signature or not.

(makeactive and chainloader Description are taken from the official Grub Manual (see: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/)