kubuntu and windows boot problems

[abbottsam1]

Hey everyone,
i am quite new to Linux / Kubuntu
I installed it on my Main Desktop and found it great!, i could choose between windows and Kubuntu with the boot manager.
i decided to do the same on my laptop, i installed it and everthing worked fine.. but the only thing wrong now is i cant see the window in the boot manager on my laptop. there is only kubuntu.??

what can i do to make the windows os show up again.

i know all the files are still there as i can see them through kubuntu.


thanks in advance.
Samuel Abbott

[Jonathan183]

Welcome to the forums Samuel

Post the output of

sudo fdisk -l
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

and someone should be able to post the entry to add to grub.

[sarlacii]

Hi abbottsam1... you'll be missing the menu entry in the grub config file (/boot/grub/menu.lst mentioned in Jonathan183's post) that points to your windows install. Your linux install should have automatically added the proper menu entries - as it did on your other system... . Post the info requested by Jonathan183, and check it for the following lines:

title windoze
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

If the above is missing, then just append it to the menu file (if your win install exists on your first HDD) and away you go.

[abbottsam1]

ok , i copied and pasted it in..

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb3d4b3d4

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3824 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3825 7296 27888840 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 3893 7296 27342630 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 3825 3891 538114+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

this is what i got ?

what i also done is i deleted linux, installed vista to see if that boot manager worked.. upon seeing that there was a solution to my problem , i deleted vista and reinstalled kubuntu... now i have a vista option in my boot menu.. is there anyway to delete it as it does nothing lol...???

[Jonathan183]

If your current fdisk -l output is as your last post then adding the code sarlacii posted should allow Windows to boot.

If you deleted the Windows partition and want to remove it from the menu then just open a terminal and type

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

and remove the title and subsequent lines for Windows boot. If you are unsure of what to change then post the output of

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

and we can post section to change.

[abbottsam1]

may seem like a really Nooby question ..

but how exactly do i add it

[yancek]

It's not clear to me what you have now. Do you stil have vista and kubuntu? Did you overwrite vista with Kubuntu?

If you still have vista and it is on the first partition then take Jonathan183's suggestion:

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Open a terminal and type the above in it. nano is a text editor. You need to be root user so you need the 'sudo'. This should open the menu.lst file and you should be able to edit that file.

From you previous post, you indicate you have an entry for vista but does nothing so I'm wondering if you still have vista? You may need to post 'fdisk -l' output again.

[abbottsam1]

oh.. sorry if I wasn't clear.

i had problems with linux.. so i installed vista over the linux partition . after i noticed there was a solution i installed linux back over vista (both untouching my first partition which is winblows xp)

now my grub(or what ever it is ) is showing windows vista as an option (when what i really want is the xp one showing so i can boot into it)

when i click on the vista option it just comes up with the vista troubleshoot console thing (as i removed vista) it must be in the MBR..

so with this code that SarlacII posted, will this allow me to boot into the xp partition.

[yancek]

so with this code that SarlacII posted, will this allow me to boot into the xp partition.

It should. Your fdisk output above shows one windows partition on sda1, first hard drive, first partition. Since Grub numbers from zero that would be equivalent to (hd0,0) in Grub. You should not need the 'makeactive' line as that partition is already marked active/bootable.

when i click on the vista option it just comes up with the vista troubleshoot console thing (as i removed vista) it must be in the MBR..

Don't know what this is so I don't know if it will be a problem. There isn't room for much in the mbr? While you are in the menu.lst file, change the 'title' entry for windows to 'xp'.

[abbottsam1]

h++p://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8168/helpcwk.png
this is what it looks like at the moment.
it is saying vista is on 0,0 ?
which i know it isnt