Booting win2003 from grub

my systems got several partions and several os/s - im trying to get organised to a point where I can just run them under XEN.

my win2003 partion is on sda5 (i.e. not first partition, which has 64bit XP). unbelievable as it sounds - when you have 2 windows systems, they can only be booted by the windows boot manager! which means I cant get it to boot from xen.

I figure if I can boot the partion directly from grub, then I can work out how to do in in xen - ive asked in windows forums, but BIG silence, - they just have no idea.

someone here must have hit that problem? any ideas?

maskedbeagle

is grub ur boot loader.

yep - the machine starts at grub. atm if I want to run windows, I select the windows boot loader, from where I pick the windows partition. I want to:
a) By pass the windows boot loader and set up grub to boot any partion
b) my thinking is that once I can do that, I can also start that same win partition from xen

the catch is when windows installs a 2nd or greater partition, it seems to put the boot 'stuff' for that partion onto the first partition - meaning that the 'new' partition cant boot independent of the first 1 (which has ms boot manager on it I think)

ok, to use grub to boot other OS, simple add this lines to your grub.conf file.

1. title < name of OS you want grub to boot>
2. rootnoverify (hdx, x)
3. chainloader +1

The (hdx, x) stands for the partition the OS you want to boot is. eg . the first harddisk is hd0 and the first partition is 0.

let me know if this was able to help

thanks for reply - I tried that what it actually does is start the windows boot manager, instead of booting the windows installation.

My guess is that the windows installation needs to be modified so that it can boot, but I dont know what

ok ....this is bcos windows is servering as the bootloader.

try this now ..i bet u it has just got to work

simple reinstall the linux bootloader with this command: grub-install < the hd where linux is>

e.g grub-install /dev/hda which is the first hd

hey yawe_frek
grub is the boot loader, it just chains to the windows boot loader - so " grub-install < the hd where linux is> " is already the case. First grub boots, then offers the windows boot loader to boot either of the 2 windows partitions. I want to eliminate the 2nd step if that makes sense.
so now:
grub -> windows boot loader -> windows
I want
grub -> windows

And once I get that I reckon I can also get
grub -> xen -> windows (as hvm)

thanks
maskedbeagle

ok i get u.

i guess i cant be of help.
but if you get it pls let me know k
thanks

by the way how did u incorporate windowsbootload into grub

sure will do :D

ubuntu install does it automatically, but i'll send you the section from menu.lst if your're interested.

I havent sorted it yet, but after 4 hrs sleep am a lot closer to understanding many of the issues relating to partion tables, windows, xen etc

will get back to you - ciao