So I'm making a template for the school computers in one of the labs, k? I installed Windows XP in partition 2; fine. Then I installed Ubuntu; it took partition 3 for / and 6 for swap. Fine. Then I restarted and got grub. Weeeee. Finally, I chose WinXP. Now it's complaining, "can't find /windows root/system32/hal.dll ZOMG ROFL". What gives? I suspect the Ubuntu install accidentally wrote over something.

I would doubt that ubuntu did anything. Just try re-installing windows - if it boots just fine with just windows, then go back into ubuntu and JUST install GRUB (usually you can just run 'grub-install /dev/hda' as root, not sure if that works in ubuntu LiveCD or not)

otherwise, other disks can also do it.

On thinking about it more (unfortunately I already went ahead with the reinstall), Windows is on drive D, which could be the problem - the bootloader probably assumed drive C. Ah well.

You can edit the boot commands using grub. It's a bit of a pain, but if you think the drive is the problem, that could be an easy fix.

Kerm, yes, Windows assumes ntldr and all that fun stuff is on the C:\ drive, but the Windows directory can be on any drive (case and point, my desktop before I redid it). Check the boot.ini

No, but it was working fine being on the D: drive before I installed grub. Therefore GRUB is issuing a different kernal command than ntldr.

please please please refer to the drives using the *nix style of hd**, as it makes it perfectly clear whether or not its a different physical disk, or just another partition

BUT I'm fairly certain that your problem lies not with GRUB, as if it did, then windows wouldn't be booting at all. GRUB only launches the windows boot loader (that windows installs), NOT windows itself.

My XP install doesn't even have a C: drive labeled. Every now and then, a flash drive will be labeled as C:, and ntldr is found fine on D:. And I too can't get GRUB to boot XP. It just sits there with chainloader +1 on the screen.

What does your grub.conf or menu.lst look like? What is your harddrive setup? What is the output of 'fdisk -l /dev/hda'? (or whatever the drive you have these installed on is)

And my mom's XP install is working just fine with everything installed to her E: drive. Windows stupidly decided to map C: to her zip drive - lord knows why Windows definitely does not care at all where this stuff is located in terms of on what partition, so long as it is all in the %WINDOWS% folder

hda0 is some random 300mb partition
hda1 is NTFS, 50gb, Windows
hda2 is ext3, 40gb, Ubuntu
hda3 is swap.

Ok, then why did you say that Ubuntu was using partition 6 for swap? there is no 6th partition... Just try re-installing windows and then reinstalling GRUB and you should be fine

I did that, but it only worked on about the third time after I removed the 300mb partition as hda0. Anyway, I seem to be having trouble finding grub documentation. How would I set the Windows XP partition as the default if no one presses anything? Right now Ubuntu is default.

edit /etc/boot/grub.conf (or menu.lst depending) and change the big ol' DEFAULT line

My very first line of the grub.conf looks liks this


Code:


just change that to whatever entry you want to be the default (remember, it starts counting at 0, so if windows XP is your second option, change default to 1, not 2)