Can't access XP Home edition after Ubuntu nstallation

If you saw the Windows XP screen, then your boot is fine (we could confirm but...), the problem lies in a crash related to XP. You should see if you can boot to safe mode and determine the problem. Whether this is related to Ubuntu depends on your install. How did you install Ubuntu, please be specific as possible.

Good luck.

Do you have a Windows Xp Cd? Often they have a "recovery" or "repair" mode if you use that as a boot Cd. There was a question yesterday or something where someone detailed how to use the Xp Cd for this. As already stated this looks like a Windows problem and not a linux one. I would be tempted to get a shop to fix the Windows side of things.

You might need this guide after the Windows side has been repaired
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot#Recovering%20GRUB%20after%20reinstalling%20Windows

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hello Jeruvy,
I tried to boot into safe mode and that didn't work either.
Basically I downloaded Ubuntu, then copied it to a CD. Left the CD in the
drive then re-booted the computer. When it came up it asked if I wanted to
boot from CD and then proceeded to install Ubuntu. By my account it was a
flawless install and that works just fine. It's when I re-boot or sign out
of Ubuntu that I run into problems trying to get back to my Windows XP. Hope
this helps and thanks very much for your reply.

Bruce

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 12:42 AM, Jeruvy <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #77816 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> Jeruvy proposed the following answer:
> If you saw the Windows XP screen, then your boot is fine (we could
> confirm but...), the problem lies in a crash related to XP. You should
> see if you can boot to safe mode and determine the problem. Whether
> this is related to Ubuntu depends on your install. How did you install
> Ubuntu, please be specific as possible.
>
> Good luck.
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816/+confirm?answer_id=0
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

Hello Jeruvy,
Just thought of something else which may or may not be relevant to my
situation. The update manager has a long list of updates it says I need to
install. About 319 mb I believe but they can't be installed because the
partition doesn't have enough storage which I find interesting given that my
hard drive is about 120 Gb and when I was running just windows on my
computer I was only using about 10% of my capacity. Don't mean to muddy the
waters but thought this may be useful to know.

Thanks again,

Bruce

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 12:42 AM, Jeruvy <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #77816 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> Jeruvy proposed the following answer:
> If you saw the Windows XP screen, then your boot is fine (we could
> confirm but...), the problem lies in a crash related to XP. You should
> see if you can boot to safe mode and determine the problem. Whether
> this is related to Ubuntu depends on your install. How did you install
> Ubuntu, please be specific as possible.
>
> Good luck.
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816/+confirm?answer_id=0
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

HI

Please can you make a cd of another gnu&linux distro called Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix
and boot up from it, just press enter at the splash screen and login with "root" password "toor". This should get you to a working desktop. The Wolvix Control Panel should easily help you access your internet and then the firefox web-browser should be able to get you into here.

Find the gparted partition editor and please let us know what gparted shows in the bottom pane as we might be able to help you work out which partitions to shrink and which to increase to get Ubuntu working better on your machine.

Many other distros would be good for this but i find WolvixHunter is small enough that it makes good cds, it has good hardware detection and support for a wider range than most and crucially it's one of the fatest booting and able to get you into gparted much faster than almost any other distro. Whichever distro you choose doesn't matter too much - the important thing is getting the partitions sizes and used and free space available into here for us to help you sort this out.

When you boot into Ubuntu it might be worth booting up with the Ubuntu option that has "recovery mode" at the end of it's line as that takes you to a disturbingly blue screen that has helpful menu items such as "Clear some space" "Fix broken packages" and "Resume normal bootup"

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

I'm still not clear on how you installed Ubuntu. You say:

"...boot from CD and then proceeded to install Ubuntu."

If you booted from CD then Ubuntu loads a liveCD environment. If you clicked 'install ubuntu' from here, what did you do?
If you selected Install from the boot menu, then it would install normally.
Which method did you use, normal or wubi? It's sounding a lot like a wubi install.

To see what OS's are detected at startup, boot the system normally (no cd in the drive) and hit escape to get the grub menu. This should list all your boot options. Please list off all the choices you have.

Now one of them should be your windows install. Select this. Depending on configuration this should eventually load the OS Splash screen, and then a welcome/login, and then a desktop. If it fails here, then it's likely Windows that has a problem, my guess would be a corrupt disk. You should run CHKDSK on your hard disk (not ubuntu disks...) that has windows on it. Typically C:.

Caveats to WUBI installs:

1. Need to partition an NTFS volume for a virtual disk. Done by the installer.
-- If the disk has low free space (I deem less than 50% or 40GB low...even if you don't :) then you're going to cause the hard disk stress by adding another large file (virtual disk) for the WUBI installer. Should not be the end of the world, but on older hard disks this could be the breaking point. Remember, windows really likes to see 15% free space in order to not have large performance issues or worse problems.

2. Fragmentation and existing disk errors are not checked before the WUBI installer runs.
-- Heavy fragmentation means your virtual disk may be all over the place and performance will suffer as a result. Any errors may get allocated and cause either OS to crash or experience weird problems. This could be the end of the world :)

So if you install WUBI then you need to make sure your disk is in really good shape first. Run CHKDSK /f before to make sure no errors on the disk. If you only have a C: drive (one hard disk, one partition) then make sure you have LOTS of free space. Defragment the drive before installing WUBI and if you are using the built in defragmenter in Windows, run it several times since it's not very good. Commercial defragment tools will do this job much better. Then when you get to running the WUBI installer create at LEAST ONE partition for Ubuntu that is 8GB 'just for the system and OS' and another one for your files and stuff, I'd recommend 20GB for the second one, however if you just want to make one partition, make it at least 20GB. This should allow you to do updates without running out of space and allow you to download stuff (cause you will :)

HTH,

I'm not sure about that WUBI thing, but when the computer booted up it
recognized the CD and asked if I wanted to install Ubuntu and I selected yes
and it just loaded onto my computer.I checked the OS's as you asked and
these are the options:

Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
Ubunto 9.04, memtest86+

Other operating system:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

I selected XP which took me to a second screen:

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Ubuntu

as I've been down this road before I selected the following option from the
bottom of the second screen -
"Press F8 for advanced options (I pressed F8 while the XP operating system
was highlighted)
and this gave me the following screen options:

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Enable Boot Logging
Enable VGA Mode

Last known Good configuration (your most recent setting that worked)

Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows domain controller only)

Debugging Mode
Disable automatic restart on system failure

Neither Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Networking did not work to get me to
Windows
Last Known Good config did not help either.

I tried the CHKDSK you suggested at the grub> prompt but nothing happened so
I'm not doing that correctly I guess.
Tried to do this under the Safe Mode Command Prompt and no results there
either, so need more guidance from you on that feature.

Hope there is something in the above that will be useful to you in helping
me to resolve this issue.
As before whenever I select the Windows OS option at boot I get the normal
Windows XP splash screen but after about a second or two it fails to load
and takes me back to the boot screen and prepares to start up Ubuntu.

Bruce

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Jeruvy <<email address hidden>
> wrote:

> Your question #77816 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> Jeruvy proposed the following answer:
> I'm still not clear on how you installed Ubuntu. You say:
>
> "...boot from CD and then proceeded to install Ubuntu."
>
> If you booted from CD then Ubuntu loads a liveCD environment. If you
> clicked 'install ubuntu' from here, what did you do?
> If you selected Install from the boot menu, then it would install normally.
> Which method did you use, normal or wubi? It's sounding a lot like a wubi
> install.
>
> To see what OS's are detected at startup, boot the system normally (no
> cd in the drive) and hit escape to get the grub menu. This should list
> all your boot options. Please list off all the choices you have.
>
> Now one of them should be your windows install. Select this. Depending
> on configuration this should eventually load the OS Splash screen, and
> then a welcome/login, and then a desktop. If it fails here, then it's
> likely Windows that has a problem, my guess would be a corrupt disk.
> You should run CHKDSK on your hard disk (not ubuntu disks...) that has
> windows on it. Typically C:.
>
> Caveats to WUBI installs:
>
> 1. Need to partition an NTFS volume for a virtual disk. Done by the
> installer.
> -- If the disk has low free space (I deem less than 50% or 40GB low...even
> if you don't :) then you're going to cause the hard disk stress by adding
> another large file (virtual disk) for the WUBI installer. Should not be the
> end of the world, but on older hard disks this could be the breaking point.
> Remember, windows really likes to see 15% free space in order to not have
> large performance issues or worse problems.
>
> 2. Fragmentation and existing disk errors are not checked before the WUBI
> installer runs.
> -- Heavy fragmentation means your virtual disk may be all over the place
> and performance will suffer as a result. Any errors may get allocated and
> cause either OS to crash or experience weird problems. This could be the
> end of the world :)
>
> So if you install WUBI then you need to make sure your disk is in really
> good shape first. Run CHKDSK /f before to make sure no errors on the
> disk. If you only have a C: drive (one hard disk, one partition) then
> make sure you have LOTS of free space. Defragment the drive before
> installing WUBI and if you are using the built in defragmenter in
> Windows, run it several times since it's not very good. Commercial
> defragment tools will do this job much better. Then when you get to
> running the WUBI installer create at LEAST ONE partition for Ubuntu that
> is 8GB 'just for the system and OS' and another one for your files and
> stuff, I'd recommend 20GB for the second one, however if you just want
> to make one partition, make it at least 20GB. This should allow you to
> do updates without running out of space and allow you to download stuff
> (cause you will :)
>
> HTH,
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816/+confirm?answer_id=5
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

I did as you said and was able to "disable automatic restart on system
failure" which brought up a blue screen which said that "A problem has been
detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."

I then loaded the Win XP CD and elected Recovery Console where I could run a
chkdsk. Errors were found and fixed and HOORAY I can now load Windows from
the boot menu or work in Ubuntu if I choose. In other words, things are
working normally, THANK YOU for all your help !!!

Bruce

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Jeruvy <<email address hidden>
> wrote:

> Your question #77816 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> Jeruvy proposed the following answer:
> If I read this correctly, you have two ubuntu installs, one wubi and one
> normal. Very bizarre.
>
> Chkdsk must be run from within windows or a recovery console session
> (typically from booting your Windows CD)
>
> This time around get to the same F8 safe boot menu, and select "Disable
> automatic restart on system failure"
>

> This should result in a proper BSOD. From here you can document the
> error and determine what is the problem with your Windows.
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816/+confirm?answer_id=7
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

Thanks to all who contributed in helping me to resolve this issue.

Bruce

Brilliant, nicely done :))
Do you still get the boot menu offering several choices of booting into Ubuntu or do you just get 1 line for Ubuntu now?

Yes, but I did change all that.

I only see Windows XP and Linux in my options now. I don´t want to see
the other things.

I know what to press when I need it.

If you only get 1 option for Ubuntu and 1 for Windows then you are only booting into the Wubi install of Ubuntu - that's the one that sits onto top of Windows and depends on Windows working properly in order to have a chance of working. It's made as a temporary demo of Ubuntu and is a bit like a house built on shifting sands. To get the proper install back please follow this guide

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot#Recovering%20GRUB%20after%20reinstalling%20Windows

Then get back into your Wubi version of Ubuntu to copy all the data and stuff from there onto the proper Ubuntu partition and then follow section 4 in this guide
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Just 1 line

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:00 AM, Tom <email address hidden>wrote:

> Your question #77816 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/77816
>
> Tom posted a new comment:
> Brilliant, nicely done :))
> Do you still get the boot menu offering several choices of booting into
> Ubuntu or do you just get 1 line for Ubuntu now?
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

Elpap, as before - you are only booting into the Wubi install of Ubuntu - that's the one that sits onto top of Windows and depends on Windows working properly in order to have a chance of working. It's made as a temporary demo of Ubuntu and is a bit like a house built on shifting sands. To get the proper install back please follow this guide

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot#Recovering%20GRUB%20after%20reinstalling%20Windows

Then get back into your Wubi version of Ubuntu to copy all the data and stuff from there onto the proper Ubuntu partition and then follow section 4 in this guide
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi :)

Have you been able to try the new Ubuntu 10.04 before it gets officially released?
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/testing/lucid/beta2
Trying it as a LiveCd or as an extra dual/multi-boot would be ideal. Developers and everyone are keen to try to iron out any problems before 10.04 gets officially released so you might find faster & more effective answers to your bug reports which would make 10.04 work better on your system for you

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)