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Is it possible to set my system up so that I can have the choice of
booting up into either WinXP or Linux? WinXP was already on my master
drive and I installed Ubuntu on my slave drive, and it set up partitions
on my master drive and that's all I can boot up with now. The NTFS
partition is still there, all my windows programs, files, everything is
still there on my master drive and I can access it no problem. Is this a
Vmware thing? Trying to read up on that but it's kind of a lot to go
through and I'm hesitant to guess my way through it and really mess things
up. (Of course, all the important stuff is either burned to cd or will
be).

I'm really starting to like Linux, most everything is working out good,
but I wasn't quite ready to dump Windows altogether. There's still a
couple windows programs I need to use on this system.

Thanks!

Mike

"Mike" <somewhere@zerivon.net> wrote in message
news:B1XAi.118$Lz5.5@trndny04...
> Is it possible to set my system up so that I can have the choice of
> booting up into either WinXP or Linux? WinXP was already on my master
> drive and I installed Ubuntu on my slave drive, and it set up partitions
> on my master drive and that's all I can boot up with now. The NTFS
> partition is still there, all my windows programs, files, everything is
> still there on my master drive and I can access it no problem. Is this a
> Vmware thing? Trying to read up on that but it's kind of a lot to go
> through and I'm hesitant to guess my way through it and really mess things
> up. (Of course, all the important stuff is either burned to cd or will
> be).
>
> I'm really starting to like Linux, most everything is working out good,
> but I wasn't quite ready to dump Windows altogether. There's still a
> couple windows programs I need to use on this system.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mike

Did Ubuntu not install GRUB?

I installed Ubuntu on my WinXP Laptop on a 2nd partition using a Ubuntu 7.04
LiveCD and after installation it runs GRUB on bootup and you select with OS
to run.

Have you searched on the ubuntuforums.org for similar problems from other
users?

--
Gerry (The MOTH)

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:31:22 +0100, Gerry \(The MOTH\) wrote:
>
> What are the 4 options its showing?
>
> Also see this thread to see if it helps
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351



Sorry, that's 5 options:

Ubuntu, Kernal 2.6.20-16-Generic
Ubuntu, Kernal 2.6.20-16-Recovery Mode
Ubuntu, Kernal 2.6.20-15-Generic
Ubuntu, Kernal 2.6.20-15-Recovery Mode
Ubuntu, Memtest86+

On boot-up I caught "GRUB Loading Stage 1.5" for a split second.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:59:34 +0000, Mike wrote:

> While browsing through the forums for a solution I found a couple
> references to VMware. I downloaded it and have looked through it but
> have not done anything with it. I don't dare, at least not until I know
> a lot more about it and what it all does.

Hello.

Don't bother yourself with VMware now. It lets you e.g. run Windows "from
inside" Linux, but as you're not yet proficient with Linux I'd recommend
you to just boot the two systems alternatively. It's simple, safer, no
needless magic involved.

And for your booting problem - are you still booting from the master
drive, or have you changed BIOS settings to boot from slave drive (where
Ubuntu resides)?

Guys, is it reasonable to ask Mike that he posts his /boot/grub/menu.lst
file here, or is there any easy-to-use GRUB configuration app in Ubuntu
(I'm using Debian, so the config files are similar, but I never used any
special app to edit my menu.lst)?

--
Krzysztof Lubanski

Mike wrote:

> Is it possible to set my system up so that I can have the choice of
> booting up into either WinXP or Linux? WinXP was already on my master
> drive and I installed Ubuntu on my slave drive, and it set up partitions
> on my master drive and that's all I can boot up with now.

Please be more specific.

What can you do now, and what can you not do?
How is VMware related to your problem?
Do you want an boot manager for your physical (host) system, or for your
guest system(s)?

You cannot have different OS types (Windows/Linux) in one virtual
machine. Unless you specify "Other OS" when you create the VM, what were
a bad choice. Once you have installed your systems into the appropriate
VM's, you can boot any of these, by specifying that machine, which
should start VMware for that "document". Just as when you doubleclick
any other file or link, whose file type is connected to a specific
application.

DoDi

Krzysztof Lubanski <luban@nerdshack.com> wrote:
> Don't bother yourself with VMware now.

I'll second that! VMware is a great tool but don't touch it before you
feel more comfortable with Linux and especially unless you have a clear
idea why you want to use it instead of dual booting.

> Guys, is it reasonable to ask Mike that he posts his /boot/grub/menu.lst
> file here, or is there any easy-to-use GRUB configuration app in Ubuntu
> (I'm using Debian, so the config files are similar, but I never used any
> special app to edit my menu.lst)?

Running Debian myself, I don't know if Ubuntu offers a configuration
tool.

Addressing Mike again: it would be interesting to see that file and also
some information about the various devices: Where does Linux live, where
did you find the Win partitions etc.

Also, my /boot/grub/menu.lst contains a commented out example of a
windows entry:

# title Windows 95/98/NT/2000
# root (hd0,0)
# makeactive
# chainloader +1

cu
Philipp

--
Dr. Philipp Pagel Tel. +49-8161-71 2131
Lehrstuhl f. Genomorientierte Bioinformatik Fax. +49-8161-71 2186
Technische Universität München
http://mips.gsf.de/staff/pagel

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:08:00 +0000, Krzysztof Lubanski wrote:
>
> Hello.
>
> Don't bother yourself with VMware now. It lets you e.g. run Windows "from
> inside" Linux, but as you're not yet proficient with Linux I'd recommend
> you to just boot the two systems alternatively. It's simple, safer, no
> needless magic involved.
>
> And for your booting problem - are you still booting from the master
> drive, or have you changed BIOS settings to boot from slave drive (where
> Ubuntu resides)?


I never bothered with changing the boot order in the bios settings, except
when I needed to boot up with the Live Cd. Afterward I put it back in the
order it's always been in:

1st - Floppy
2nd - Primary Master (Where XP is)
3rd - cd-rom

>
> Guys, is it reasonable to ask Mike that he posts his /boot/grub/menu.lst
> file here, or is there any easy-to-use GRUB configuration app in Ubuntu
> (I'm using Debian, so the config files are similar, but I never used any
> special app to edit my menu.lst)?
>

Do you want to see the WHOLE file? :-)

Mike

Mike <somewhere@zerivon.net> wrote:
> 1st - Floppy
> 2nd - Primary Master (Where XP is)
> 3rd - cd-rom

OK - can you show us the respective linux devices, too? I mean something
like this:

device fs mount point
/dev/hda1 NTFS
/dev/hdb1 ext3 /
/dev/hdb2 ext2 /home

As you say you can see your windows data from Linux it's probably all in
/etc/fstab.

> Do you want to see the WHOLE file? :-)

I think the result from the follwing command should be enough:

grep '^[^# ]' /boot/grub/menu.lst

cu
Philipp

--
Dr. Philipp Pagel Tel. +49-8161-71 2131
Lehrstuhl f. Genomorientierte Bioinformatik Fax. +49-8161-71 2186
Technische Universität München
http://mips.gsf.de/staff/pagel

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:57:45 +0000, Philipp Pagel wrote:

> Krzysztof Lubanski <luban@nerdshack.com> wrote:
>> Don't bother yourself with VMware now.
>
> I'll second that! VMware is a great tool but don't touch it before you
> feel more comfortable with Linux and especially unless you have a clear
> idea why you want to use it instead of dual booting.
>
>> Guys, is it reasonable to ask Mike that he posts his /boot/grub/menu.lst
>> file here, or is there any easy-to-use GRUB configuration app in Ubuntu
>> (I'm using Debian, so the config files are similar, but I never used any
>> special app to edit my menu.lst)?
>
> Running Debian myself, I don't know if Ubuntu offers a configuration
> tool.
>
> Addressing Mike again: it would be interesting to see that file and also
> some information about the various devices: Where does Linux live, where
> did you find the Win partitions etc.
>
> Also, my /boot/grub/menu.lst contains a commented out example of a
> windows entry:
>
> # title Windows 95/98/NT/2000
> # root (hd0,0)
> # makeactive
> # chainloader +1
>
> cu
> Philipp
>


I was just reading my menu.lst file under boot/grub, I can see the entries
for Ubuntu but there is no entry for XP. Now if I'm reading this right,
all the Ubuntu entries are on my slave drive, first partition.

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=95fbb720-8f62-4fba-aaed-438b8050d2f6 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
quiet
savedefault

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=95fbb720-8f62-4fba-aaed-438b8050d2f6 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=95fbb720-8f62-4fba-aaed-438b8050d2f6 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic
quiet
savedefault

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=95fbb720-8f62-4fba-aaed-438b8050d2f6 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic

title Ubuntu, memtest86+
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet


This is the example shown in the menu.lst file (except I edited it to say
XP instead of 95/98/2000). Which is also the same example on the GNU GRUB
manual web page. Which reads as master drive, first partition, where WinXP
is and boots from.

title Windows XP
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


Mike

BTW - Forgive me if the word wrap is messed up on this - Not use to Pan
just yet.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:12:46 +0000, Philipp Pagel wrote:

> OK - can you show us the respective linux devices, too? I mean something
> like this:
>
> device fs mount point
> /dev/hda1 NTFS
> /dev/hdb1 ext3 /
> /dev/hdb2 ext2 /home
>
> As you say you can see your windows data from Linux it's probably all in
> /etc/fstab.
>
>> Do you want to see the WHOLE file? :-)
>
> I think the result from the follwing command should be enough:
>
> grep '^[^# ]' /boot/grub/menu.lst

Right, after we see where is your Windows partition it will be easy to
say what you should put in the file to enable booting Windows. No need to
see the whole file - it's quite long and maybe even security-critical.

--
Krzysztof Lubanski