Grub not booting to Windows XP

[TheDash]

I recently installed Ubuntu 9.10 and when i rebooted, GRUB fails to boot to windows. What exactly happens is that when i select Windows, it simply goes to a black screen with GRUB at the top, and a blinking cursor (that accepts no input)

Summary:

• I am running Windows XP Professional
• No, i do not have the Windows disk
• My hard-drive has been partitioned between Ubuntu and Windows
• I have Ubuntu 9.10, which boots normally
• Windows failes to boot, and hangs on a screen that says GRUB _
• I am a total linux noob

Can someone please help me?

I dont want to simply rewrite the mbr as i still want to be able to dual boot. I have important data on the windows partition that i want to keep.

If you want any logs/info, you'll have to tell me EXACLY how to view/capture them

[yancek]

Before you can get any specific help, we will need more specific information. Boot into Ubuntu and navigate to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file to see if you have an entry for windows and post it here if you do. Also post your partition information, log in to a terminal and run the command: sudo fdisk -l (Lower Case Letter L) and post the output here.

[TheDash]

Relevent part from grub.cfg

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)" {
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set d464bf9064bf7438
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###



From fdisk:

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003c326

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 6970 55986493+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 6971 7296 2618595 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 6971 7274 2441848+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 7275 7296 176683+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

[bknorr]

Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Change the line

set root=(hd0,1)

to your Windows partition:

set root=(hd0,0)

[TheDash]

There is no /boot/grub/menu.lst ?

Do you mean edit the grub.cfg? or should i create the file?

Changing that at boot time (Pressed 'e' at grub menu) didn't help anything. Still has the same problem

[Lostfarmer]

You are using 'grub 2' , so do not edit or add anything to /boot/grub.
if you need to edit the menu, the file to edit is '/etc/grub.d/30_os-prober' ,then run 'grub-update' in a root terminal. If you edit the file would first make a back up.

I do not know enough about grub 2 yet ,but there are a lot of hits doing a search for 'grub 2'. I'm sure someone with knowledge will drop by.

Disregard above and read link provided by "yancek" at post below.

[yancek]

Here is a link to a Grub 2 tutorial for Ubuntu:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

and here is a general one:

GRUB 2 bootloader - Full tutorial

I don't use Grub2 so have no familiarity with it. Good Luck.