Completly Stuck in a rut!

[HighDensity]

Hi all!

I thought i would try my hand at Arch Linux, i have been using Kubuntu now for a few months, but i really dont like half the stuff it gives me, so i figured a light weight distro, and built it up myself right?

Ok so i have Vista on here too, and here's how i set my harddrive up

/dev/sda1 Vista 140gb (got all my uni work on it)
/dev/sda2 ext3
/dev/sda3 swap

ok i set that all up with paragon partition manager on the vista side, thats what i done to install kubuntu.

Now firstly can i just say that Arch Linux has installed fine!

but i can't get to my Vista, firstly it would'nt even show up on Grub, now i have followed some guides and it shows but.....it won't boot.

Secondly, i think i may have installed Grub on the vista partition, and the Arch partition aswell, is this what is messing things up?

I have tried editing the /etc/fstab file to no avail, and quite frankly i am back at uni tomorrow and i need all my work, (need to be able to boot into vista)

I have even tried gparted live cd, but it won't boot into that either? how weird it has always worked before, it gets stuck at the line:-

io scheduler cfq registered

and then no more, no matter what option i choose, and how long i wait.

Basically if you can decifer my manic writing, as i am beyond sane at the point, i have already torn my hair out.

I would just like to be able to boot into my vista partition so i can actually do some work for tomorrow

thanks in advance

ps. please spare me from ppl saying how stupid i am for doing **** like this on my uni laptop, i know....i know.

[Jonathan183]

I'd get a copy of the SuperGrub CD before you start playing with the bootloader. You can use this to fix Windows and Linux boot problems.

Once you have the SuperGrub CD you have two ways of going ... (option 1 gives you the best solution but option 2 will give you a short term fix if you need it).

option 1 - try to get grub to load Vista correctly. First step for this is open a terminal and try

su
fdisk -l

and post the output here ...

if that does not work try

sudo fdisk -l

in both cases the l is a small L.

Then post the output of

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

option 2 - Use the superGrub CD to fix the Windows boot. Once you have got Vista to boot ... you then swap things back using the SuperGrub CD to re-install grub to the MBR. Then continue with option 1 (you will have a bit more confidence that Vista works & you don't need to re-install).

[HighDensity]

Thanks, trying you suggestions now

[HighDensity]

Ok, i have SuperGrub CD, but i still can't get Vista to boot

For a temp fix (although i have tried pretty much everything else) i have hidden sda2, sda3 (swap and ext3) partitions, went into fix windows boot partition, and follow intructions, all seemed to work, but now, when i boot, i get nothing but a blank screen, a little progress as grub is not there, but it's still not loading vista.

After that i tried a slightly different approach, i choose the option "Boot Windows" you select the partition blah blah, and it should boot windows there and then right? well not for me, it puts me into a grub command line, and i'm not sure what i can do there?

Last but not least when i go to fix the windows partition, and it lists operating system your suppose to choose before you installed grub, i can't see Windows? just Syslinux! where's windows and whats Syslinux?

i will just boot into Arch linux now, and give you the information you asked for before to see if that helps.

thanks in advance

[Jonathan183]

I expected Supergrub to be able to boot windows. If you only have a single hard disk drive this sounds like a problem with windows ... do you have a windows install disk you can use to fix windows boot?

Now you have the Supergrub CD you can always re-install grub later.

[HighDensity]

Now you have the Supergrub CD you can always re-install grub later.

Hehe yea!

I am looking for the windows disc now, anyways just incase heres the contents of fdisk

Device Boot Start End Blocks ID System
/dev/sda1 * 1 16859 135418893 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 16948 19458 20164126 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 16860 16947 706860 82 Linux Swap /


and /boot/grub/menu.lst

# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.jpg

# (1) Windows
title Vista Ultimate
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader (hd0,0)+1



It all looks normal to me, but i guess i will find out more once i find the bloody vista disc!

[HighDensity]

oh, one more thing when i press Vista Ultimate on the boot menu, it comes up with the contents of the /boot/grub/menu.lst (windows part)

then says Grub Stage 2.0 then goes back to boot loader?

it seem it can't finds the windows image right?

[Jonathan183]

My grub menu is fairly similar but does not have the makeactive entry, I doubt that is the reason why it will not boot ... you can try but installers are usually pretty good at getting these things right.

Ed:at the grub menu press escape, select the windows boot entry, e to edit - then I think you select the makeactive line and press d to delete, followed by entry then b to boot.

My approach would be get windows to boot then re-install grub to the MBR.

[HighDensity]

Just thought i'd let you know, it's all sorted now, ready for me to screw up again.

I found the windows disc, and restored the MBR successfully.

Thanks Jonathan183 for all your help,

If anything good has come out of this, i atleast undertsand boot loaders alot better :P

Cheers

[Jonathan183]

Good to hear its all working again ... keep hold of the Supergrub CD you may find it comes in handy.