Ubuntu Dual Boot Problem

[alphalogan]

I have dual booting on my PC, XP and Ubuntu but following some remedial work on XP I have lost the ability to boot into Ubuntu when I want to. It has been suggested that I download supergrub and create a boot disk which should overcome my problem. However, can anyone explain in simple terms what steps I should take in downloading, saving the file to my HD and then burning to create a boot disk.

[kewlharsh]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Super grub disk should solve all your problems regarding dual booting.

What you basically need to do is -
1) Download the grub disk iso from the internet to your computer.
2) Then burn the iso on a disc using your dvd burner
3) The cd that you burn will be a bootable cd.
So that when you restart your computer with the cd in the cd drive, and your BIOS settings changed to boot from the cd first, you will be able to boot into the grub disk menu and not windows xp.
4) Once in, have a look around and you should be able to fix the problem with all the tools provided.
5) Once done, remove the cd and restart again and you should get a menu to boot windows or ubuntu and you can then choose.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask any other questions you may have.

[alphalogan]

Many thanks, but when I download it saves to my "My Downloads" - auto_super_grub_disk_1.5 if I run it, it then asks me to reboot and whilst I get the option to boot into supergrub (as well as XP) if I then select supergrub it does not work If I try to burn auto_super_grub_disk_1.5 onto a DVD as a boot disk I get the message the program does not recognize the format. Can you help me further to create the boot disk?
Many thanks,

[larryfroot]

Hi, I remember using supergrub in this way:

Start machine, pop supergrubdisk into your dvd/cd drive. Then reboot. Before grub starts, go into the bios and change the 1st boot device from whatever it is now to your dvd/cd drive. Then reboot. That way you can access supergrubdisk on its own as it will be sitting in the first boot device.

if you are uncertain about changing your primary boot device via the bios, please say so and I will see what I can come up with. It would help though if you knew the make and/or model of motherboard you are using. Trouble with helping out with bios situations is that there are more than one type. So instructions can be a bit generalised as a result. But don't worry, it is doable and you will also have the opportunity to set the bios back to the default state, as well as to exit the bios without saving any changes. Also the worst that could happen in changing boot devices is that selecting the wrong one means you have to go back and select the drive you really want to make primary boot.

[alphalogan]

Please see previous questions and answers regarding my inability to load Ubuntu after formatting my HD and reinstalling XP. By following advice and creating super grub CD I can boot into Ubuntu again but unfortunately when I select the option to but into XP it tells me that NTLDR is missing and therefore I cannot get back into XP. URGENT help please.

Moderator Note: This post was originally its own thread. I see no reason for this. Added to existing (and aftorementioned) thread. -TM

[Dann]

You say you just reinstalled XP. Did you install XP first, then Ubuntu?

Windows is kind of a spoiled child about booting and doesn't like to give up it's boot area. So XP needs to go on first, then linux can happily work with it.


I googled missing ntldr, and came up with a few links
Windows may not start and you may receive an "NTLDR is missing" error message if Windows is not up-to-date and there are too many files in the root folder

ntldr is missing in Windows XP

NTLDR is missing

And about a million more.

But if you put windows on 2nd, I would just start over and save yourself a headache or two.

[alphalogan]

Copy of message I posted on my ISP Forum as a matter of interest.
Well strange things have happened I reformatted my HD and did a clean reinstall of XP - everything fine. However, I checked my boot sequence and added as choice 1 USB intending to try booting in to Ubuntu using a memory stick. I then booted up the system and up came the option of booting into Ubuntu which worked fine. I then tried XP as an option and got the message NTL missing, so back into bios, removed the USB choice, rebooted and straight into XP without any choice. Position is now I can boot straight into XP but if I want Ubuntu I must change the BIOS settings as above and it will then boot into Ubuntu. Long way round but at least I have the options but do not understand at all what has happened. Computers are certainly strange things that work in mysterious ways!!

[devils casper]

Long way round but at least I have the options but do not understand at all what has happened. Computers are certainly strange things that work in mysterious ways!!

Something is wrong in menu.lst file only.
Post the contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst file and output of sudo fdisk -l command here.

[alphalogan]

I am not sure how to get to /boot/grub/menu.1st file but using sudo fdisk command the following showed up:
Usage:fdisk [-1] [-1] [-b SSZ] [-u] device
E.g.: fdisk /dev/hda (for the first IDE disk)
or: fdisk /dev/sdc (for the third SCSI disk)
or: fdisk /dev/eda (for the first PS/2 ESDI drive)
or: fdisk /dev/rd/0d0 or: fdisk /dev/ida/c0d0 (for RAID devices)
Does this mean anything?

[devils casper]

Its small L in fdisk -l and menu.lst.

sudo fdisk -l

For contents of menu.lst file, execute this

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst