Can't get grub to boot Windows anymore!

a10waveracer · 08-23-2005, 08:40 AM

Okay, I am having problems with grub. I had it working a few weeks before, but recently I decided to mess around and try Windows Vista. So to accomplish this I reformatted part of my hda so I could have 2 good partitions for Windows. Now my old hda1 partition is now hda5. Well, since then, Vista overwrote my MBR and I couldn't get into Gentoo (never bothered, had too much to do). Well, last night I went and used the live CD to chroot and whatnot into my gentoo installation and re-installed grub in my mbr. Now when I try to boot into XP (I reformatted my Vista partition) I get the dreaded '12' error.

My grub.conf

Code:

# Which listing to boot as default. 0 is the first, 1 the second etc.
default 1
# How many seconds to wait before the default listing is booted.
timeout 30
# Nice, fat splash-image to spice things up :)
# Comment out if you don't have a graphics card installed
splashimage=(hd1,2)/grub/biosplash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux
# Partition where the kernel image (or operating system) is located
root (hd1,2)
kernel /kernel-2.6.13-rc6 root=/dev/hdb4

# The next four lines are only if you dualboot with a Windows system.
# In this case, Windows is hosted on /dev/hda5.
title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
makeactive
chainloader +1

My Drives/Partitioning

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               2       17480   140400067+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda2               1           1        8001   83  Linux
/dev/hda5   *           2       17480   140400036    7  HPFS/NTFS

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/hdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1               1       16008   128584228+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb2           16014       16076      506047+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb3   *       16009       16013       40162+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb4           16077       19457    27157882+  83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

When I installed grub, I did this:

Code:

grub> root (hd1,2)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd1,2)/boot/grub/stage
2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.

Anyone have any suggestions?

harken · 08-23-2005, 09:24 AM

Change

Code:

root (hd1,2)
kernel /kernel-2.6.13-rc6 root=/dev/hdb4

to

Code:

root (hd1,2)
kernel /kernel-2.6.13-rc6 root=/dev/hdb3

See if that works.
Error 12 means:
" Invalid device requested
This error is returned if a device string is recognizable but does not fall under the other device errors. "

a10waveracer · 08-23-2005, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by harken
[B]

Code:

root (hd1,2)
kernel /kernel-2.6.13-rc6 root=/dev/hdb3

See if that works.

I tried that, and all it gave me was a kernel panic. Let me explain my disk layout.

/dev/hda5 = Windows XP
/dev/hdb1 = Storage (NTFS)
/dev/hdb2 = Swap
/dev/hdb3 = /boot
/dev/hdb4 = /

It loads gentoo fine, it just won't load windows.

harken · 08-23-2005, 09:52 AM

Sorry, I'm used to "I can't boot Linux because of Windows..." and I wrote that without paying much attention. But doesn't Windows require to be installed on a primary partition and not on a logical one?

a10waveracer · 08-23-2005, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by harken
Sorry, I'm used to "I can't boot Linux because of Windows..." and I wrote that without paying much attention. But doesn't Windows require to be installed on a primary partition and not on a logical one?

I don't believe so, because if I put in my XP Pro CD and boot into the recovery console, it will overwrite the MBR and I can get into XP just fine.

xushi · 08-23-2005, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by harken
Sorry, I'm used to "doesn't Windows require to be installed on a primary partition and not on a logical one?

Depends on which Boot loader you're using. But in this case, it shouldn't matter.

a10waveracer · 08-23-2005, 04:11 PM

Okay, I just tried moving my /boot to hda, I read something about how the /boot had to be on the same partition as windows, but it didn't work.

harken · 08-24-2005, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by xushi
Depends on which Boot loader you're using. But in this case, it shouldn't matter.

Maybe I'm mistaking, still, I knew that, even if you can install WindowsXP on a logical partition, it still requires a primary partition which is to be used as a system partition. To make myself more clear, read the second paragraph "Windows XP Directory Structures" in this article: http://www.quepublishing.com/article...e.asp?p=101731
Check these two Microsoft articles that state the same thing: http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=k...d=1173&sid=312
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/