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I have an IBM T30 laptop that came with Win XP Pro on which I also
installed Linux (Libranet 2.8.1). That included the GRUB bootloader,
and it WORKED FINE FOR MONTHS until last Saturday when GRUB wouldn't
proceed past stage1.5. I got some help on the net and was able to
redo the GRUB setup and boot the PC.

Once.

After the successful boot, and an hour of pentup use of computer (work
emails at 1am, woooo), I shut it down. Then when I restarted it the
next day, I had the exact same problem.

I played with it for an hour (booting Gentoo and redoing GRUB several
times) and determined that as long as I boot into Linux, everything
stays fine. But booting into WinXP is the kiss of death and ruins the
GRUB install -- I can boot into WinXP *once*, and then the next time I
boot GRUB will be hosed -- hanging at stage1.5 as before.

I normally leave this laptop up and running WinXP all week (Mon-Fri)
with no shutdowns, so last Saturday's failed boot was the first time
the laptop had been booted in nearly a week. This happens to be a
work laptop, spending its days on the work network, where our IT
admins (at my colossally huge corporation) keep a very tight grip on
the patch state of all computers. If MS issues a critical update, not
only are there suddenly panic-y IT drones running around making sure
machines are patched, but the next time I log in, it gets patched
automatically.

My theory is that a critical update went out from Redmond-land in the
past week or two and was installed on my laptop by corporate IT, and
since then every time I boot it hoses GRUB. That's my only theory
because I haven't changed anything else on the machine recently.

If this is true, then word of this trouble is only going to start
trickling in as WinXP dual-booters apply this recent update and
discover their GRUBs are hosed *and* connect the dots about the
update. So I'm probably on the bleeding edge on this. I hate that

Anyone else out there A) running WinXP, B) patched it up in the last
two weeks, C) running the GRUB bootloader and D) tried rebooting it
recently?

It might just be an IBM T30 thing ...

- Chris

P.S. Note, if you match A, B and C, but not D yet, go make rescue
disks before you reboot

On 14 Nov 2003 08:27:59 -0800, Chris Campbell wrote:
>
> My theory is that a critical update went out from Redmond-land in the
> past week or two and was installed on my laptop by corporate IT, and
> since then every time I boot it hoses GRUB. That's my only theory
> because I haven't changed anything else on the machine recently.

I have XP Home with all updates and my boot loader does not get dinked
up.

Now, I did seem to have a problem with something getting screwed up after
running the M$ defragger.

My SWAG was that I did not use M$ tools to create the space for linux.
Maybe the defrag tools assumed a M$ block size and defrag just moved
the goal posts.

That would not account for the mbr to be restored to M$ loader. Could
be a IT batch job or anti-virus feature which checks for M$ mbr, if
not pop in a new one.

I would see if I could not contact the IT support people (not the
helpdesk), and see if they know anything.

Always helps to know people that group.
ALso those people lurk in these groups and might see IT drones and
Chris and decide as a drone, they only support the Ruling OS for Chris.

There also can be some "IT drones" lurking here who decide to let you
keep your problem because they do not like being called drones.

PS:
I am not a drone, I am one of "those damn stupid users"

On 14 Nov 2003 08:27:59 -0800, chris-google@pobox.com (Chris Campbell) wrote:

> and was installed on my laptop by corporate IT,

.... maybe your corporate IT pushes an overwrite to
replace the MBR, if it appears "defective"?
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
Broad-mindedness, n.: The result of flattening high-mindedness out.

Try this just for kicks, I dont normally recommend it, in fact, i ususally
recommend just the opposite. but in your situation it may provide the info
you want.

Fix your machine so the boot sector is the way you want. Then reboot and go
to BIOS setup. Select the antivirus bootsector protection thing and turn
the protection on.

Now reboot and proceed with your normal use. Perhaps you will be notified at
the time the bootsector is being overwritten and then you will know what is
happening.

Again, I only recommend this as a debugging tool to determine how your boot
sector is getting overwritten. Once you know, turn that thing back off.

Eric

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 08:27:59 -0800, Chris Campbell wrote:

> I have an IBM T30 laptop that came with Win XP Pro on which I also
> installed Linux (Libranet 2.8.1). That included the GRUB bootloader,
> and it WORKED FINE FOR MONTHS until last Saturday when GRUB wouldn't
> proceed past stage1.5. I got some help on the net and was able to
> redo the GRUB setup and boot the PC.
>
> Once.
>
> After the successful boot, and an hour of pentup use of computer (work
> emails at 1am, woooo), I shut it down. Then when I restarted it the
> next day, I had the exact same problem.
>
> I played with it for an hour (booting Gentoo and redoing GRUB several
> times) and determined that as long as I boot into Linux, everything
> stays fine. But booting into WinXP is the kiss of death and ruins the
> GRUB install -- I can boot into WinXP *once*, and then the next time I
> boot GRUB will be hosed -- hanging at stage1.5 as before.
>
> I normally leave this laptop up and running WinXP all week (Mon-Fri)
> with no shutdowns, so last Saturday's failed boot was the first time
> the laptop had been booted in nearly a week. This happens to be a
> work laptop, spending its days on the work network, where our IT
> admins (at my colossally huge corporation) keep a very tight grip on
> the patch state of all computers. If MS issues a critical update, not
> only are there suddenly panic-y IT drones running around making sure
> machines are patched, but the next time I log in, it gets patched
> automatically.
>
> My theory is that a critical update went out from Redmond-land in the
> past week or two and was installed on my laptop by corporate IT, and
> since then every time I boot it hoses GRUB. That's my only theory
> because I haven't changed anything else on the machine recently.
>
> If this is true, then word of this trouble is only going to start
> trickling in as WinXP dual-booters apply this recent update and
> discover their GRUBs are hosed *and* connect the dots about the
> update. So I'm probably on the bleeding edge on this. I hate that
>
> Anyone else out there A) running WinXP, B) patched it up in the last
> two weeks, C) running the GRUB bootloader and D) tried rebooting it
> recently?
>
> It might just be an IBM T30 thing ...
>
> - Chris
>
> P.S. Note, if you match A, B and C, but not D yet, go make rescue
> disks before you reboot

Does your laptop have a floppy drive you can boot from. If so, it is not
hard to make a GRUB floppy boot disk even with a menu item to reinstall
GRUB to your laptop Master Boot Record. Plus, a floppy GRUB boot disk
boots fairly fast (a lot quicker than lilo)

One thing I noticed about SuSE was that it set windows partition to active.
Since GRUB was written to root part, not MBR, it would always boot into Windows
thereafter with no option for linux.

I'd check that grub.conf and post it here.

Michael

"Xmp nix" <xmpnix@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031119052935.00847.00000620@mb-m28.aol.com...
> One thing I noticed about SuSE was that it set windows partition to
active.
> Since GRUB was written to root part, not MBR, it would always boot into
Windows
> thereafter with no option for linux.
>
> I'd check that grub.conf and post it here.

This sort of fun is why most of us put the MBR at the beginning of the boot
disk, rather than in the root partition or similar locations.