[ale] error booting XP after dual boot install of Ubuntu 7.10

[aaron]

A possible solution that worked for me when Mafia$oft
and their corporate minions screwed me over a couple
of  weeks back...  (** below for the short version) 

I had just finished my second ever Ubuntu 7.10 dual
boot install. The first had worked perfectly and painlessly
with a custom built workstation that had been installed with
a fresh dump of Xcrement Pile Pro(blems).  This second
install was a favor to a friend with an HP consumer laptop.
It was good fun spending a couple hours fine tuning the
Linux side and installing oodles of Open Source software,
but wasting several hours trying to pull the stink out of an
pre-installed Xcrement Pile Harm Edition? ...not so much.

When my friend and I got together for an unveiling of her
new laptop I decided to boot into windblows just to show
her that I had made it semi-functional.  At this point, the
HP / Compaq re-crapify program proceeded to totally
fSCk us over by blowing away Grub and the linux install
partition.  Furious doesn't begin to approach a hint of a
whisper of a description of my state of mind.

I consulted with the windblows weenie wise guy at the
neighborhood PC quarantine shop (where the slogan is
"Don't let the vista blind you with rage:  upgrade to a
fresh disk of Xcrement Pile!").  Not surprising, but he
couldn't provide any new avenues for restoring the
partitions so I just went back to square one.

**
I rebooted to the Ubuntu Live CD and re-ran the install.
THIS TIME I chose to manually repartition the drive. I left
the existing (previously resized and still in tact) windblows
partition alone, but REMOVED the special "re-crapify"
partition and expanded the Linux Ext 3 allocation to
include that previously wasted disk space.  I believe
the re-recapify partition also holds the (re-crapifying
software).

After proceeding with the rest of the Ubuntu installation, I
had a new /boot and Grub config where both systems would
start up without problems. I repeated the fun part of fine
tuning the Linux side and installing oodles of freedom friendly
software and delivered the machine to my friend.
**

The lesson is that, when installing Linux as a Dual Boot on a
consumer machine that has been pre-installed with Mafia$oft,
you should manually partition the drive and OVERWRITE ANY
KIND OF RE-CRAPIFY PARTITION as a critical early step in
the install.

My friend has had the machine for week a now.  We had to
forgo the Linux training until we find time, but she told me she
still hasn't wanted or needed to boot into windoze yet. For any
future shared install of Ubuntu or Linux I want to constrict
Mafia$oft to strictly being accessable as a virtual machine
under the Linux boot -- provide some REAL virus protection.

To that end, I noticed that the commercial Parallels product
that's become popular for setting up both Linux and M$ VM's
on Intel Mac's is now promoting a dedicated Linux version
-- a 30 day trial install is available from the Ubuntu Software
repositories, but purchase cost is about $70.  There is also
a free virtualization package available in the Ubuntu repository,
and I'd be curious if anyone here has explored that with Gutsy.

peace
aaron
 . 





On Tuesday 08 April 2008 21:00, Daniel Howard wrote:
> Well, I tried to do my first dual boot install tonite on my dad's Win XP 
> machine, and although the GRUB loader works fine and boots into Ubuntu 
> just fine, and sees the Win XP and HP Recovery partitions just fine, 
> when I select Windows XP to boot to, it reports Disk Error, hit 
> CTL-ALT-DEL to reboot.  I can boot into the HP recovery partition, and 
> can run the recovery, but it then wipes out the GRUB loader and still 
> won't boot into windows.  I reinstalled Ubuntu, and I'm back to square 
> one: I can boot Ubuntu and see Windows partitions, but can't boot into XP.
> 
> Could my repartitioning of my drive during Ubuntu install have altered 
> the hd(0,0) location specified for Windows XP, and hence the GRUB loader 
> can't find the location of XP?  How can I find where Ubuntu's 
> repartitioner put it and then do I change the boot.ini file in the 
> Windows XP partition (seen just fine by Ubuntu) or the menu.lst file of 
> the GRUB loader?
> 
> TIA,
> Daniel
> 
> -- 
> Daniel Howard
> President and CEO
> Georgia Open Source Education Foundation
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