GRUB takes me to Windows Recovery instead of to Windows XP

[jharry]

I am a new comer to Ubuntu. I have a HP Pavillion desk top running Windows XP. After acquiring a second hard drive, I installed Ubuntu 10.04 on the second hard drive. But when I boot the machine, the GRUB presents me with the following 5 boot options.

Ubuntu with Linux 2.6.32-21-generic
Ubuntu with Linux 2.6.32-21-generic (recovery mode)
Memory test (memtest86+)
Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)
Windows NT/2000/XP (on /dev/sda1)

If I choose the 5th option, it takes me to Windows Systems Recovery instead of to the normal Windows XP. I quickly backed out, since I have a lot of programs installed in Windows XP, I do not want to go back to the factory version of XP. How can I let GRUB allow me to boot the Windows XP OS that I had prior to installing Ubuntu? Any help is greatly appreciated.
By the way, the original boot.ini file in my Windows XP contains the following:
[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

[yancek]

To see what partitions you have for windows, boot Ubuntu, open a terminal and enter this command: sudo fdisk -l (Lower case Letter L in the command). This will give your drive/partition information.

You might try running sudo update-grub to see if your xp system partition is detected. If not, someone should be able to help you after you post the partition information.

It looks like xp is on sda2.

[jharry]

Thanks Yancek. The fdisk -l command returned the following information:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 619 4679608+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2 * 620 10336 73460520 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb1 * 1 262 2096679+ 82 Linux swap/Solaris
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sdb2 262 7476 57953281 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 262 7476 57953280 83 Linux

The update-grub command returned the following information:
Found Linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-21-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Windows NT/2000/XP on /dev/sda1
Found Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition on /dev/sda2

[yancek]

Found Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition on /dev/sda2

That should have put an entry in the Grub menu for xp. Did it? Does it boot? If not, post all entries for windows from your Ubuntu /boot/grub/grub.cfg file.

[jharry]

Thanks Yancek. Yes, it did. as an added 6th option. Now I can boot into Windows XP Home Edition. That was GREAT! Thanks a lot. Now, how do I get to make Windows XP the 1st option?

[yancek]

In your Ubuntu /boot/grub/grub.cfg file, you will have a line near the top which says: set default="0"

Change the number from zero to whatever entry your windows partition (sda2 is). Grub counts partitions from zero, so if it is the 6th option put a 5 there.

[jharry]

Thanks again Yancek. That worked. In order to edit the grub.cfg file, I had to learn a new trick -- sudo, which I gathered from the instructions in your previous replies. I suppose I can consider this thread closed, can I?