Re: Dual boot issue

["Adam Shirey" <aeshirey@xxxxxxx>]

The problem is that I can't boot my Windows CDs yet. If I can get to that
point, I would imagine I can get everything back to normal.

What's strange is that absolutely nothing changed on my system to prompt
the issue. I turned the computer on Saturday morning, worked on it for a
bit, shut it down, turned it back on Saturday evening, and at that point
it failed.


-Adam
dingostick.com

> I experienced something similar with my XP partition and linux as well,
> and my temporary fix was to boot from the XP install disk, and enter the
> recovery console, from there I would run the commands "fixmbr" and
> "fixboot", finally I would have it regenerate the boot.ini file
> --However, after a while that install went haywire with the whole
> "make-believe scsi cd" thing that I posted about before.  Since then I
> have re-installed windows XP from scratch [Linux too--need a fresh start].
>
> Dunno if any of that rambling makes sense, but that is all I have to
> say.  Enjoy attempting to make windows work!
>
>
> Adam Shirey wrote:
>
>>Hey all, I've got a dual boot issue on my laptop like none other, and I
>>can't tell if it's a grub problem or Windows:
>>
>>A few days ago, my laptop randomly stopped booting to XP Home. When I
>>select it from grub's menu, the screen goes black and sits there. I can
>>CTRL-ALT-DEL it fine, but can't get into safe mode or any other options
>>there. Booting from my recovery CD or from a bootable XP SP1a disc does
>>the same thing, except it first prompts for any key to boot, then says
>>Windows is checking my system configuration.
>>
>>However, Gentoo boots without a problem, as does LNX-BBC and probably any
>>other Linux live-cd.
>>
>>I poked around with grub a bit and then any time I select XP it will tell
>> me:
>>
>>    Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format
>>
>>It also does this if I go to a grub command line and type:
>>
>>   rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>>   makeactive
>>   chainloader +1
>>
>>I have only one HD, which has hda1 as my former NTFS Windows drive. (I
>>rewrote it with cfdisk as a Linux partition and ran mke2fs on it in hopes
>>that it would remove grub. Wrong again.) hda5 is my shared vfat drive,
>>hda3 my swap, and hda4 my ReiserFS drive. No hda2.
>>
>>If I had a FDD, I'd boot from a Windows boot disk and use fdisk /mbr,
>>reinstall Windows, then reload grub. But I don't, so I can't. I'd rather
>>not try and redo the entire system's partiton table (notice I said I run
>>Gentoo).
>>
>>Any ideas out there? Going without Windows isn't a good option, either,
>> as
>>my wife uses my laptop as well, and she wants it on there.
>>
>>
>>-Adam
>>dingostick.com
>>
>>
>