Since loadind 10.04LTS upgrade I cannot acceses my windows O/S with the new Grub upgrade.?

Asked by eric tennant

Since I have done the upgrade from 10.04 to 10.04 LTS I cannot acceses my Win XP O/S by selecting it in the Grub Menu.
The screen just goes blank with a curser that is blinking in the top left corner as usual, but nothing happens at all, you can leave it for 30mins & nothing.
I can only load Ubuntu.
I have 2 Hard drives one with Win XP & the other with Ubuntu
It used to work no problem with 10.4
Regards
Eric Tennant

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delance
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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#1

Can you do
    sudo fdisk -l
    sudo parted -l
    grub --version # will fail to run if grub version > 1.00

In grub menu, do you have Windows entry ?

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#2

Hi,
Yes there is WIn XP entry.
I have also tried Cmd sudo upgrade-grub
But still have the same problem.
Regards
Eric Tennant

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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#3

Can you do
    sudo fdisk -l
    sudo parted -l
    grub --version # will fail to run if grub version > 1.00

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#4

This is what I get at the end of the terminal window.?

"Warning: Unable to open /dev/fd0 read-write (Read-only file system).
/dev/fd0
has been opened read-only."
Regards
Eric Tennant

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#5

Hi,
there is something I should tell you, on installing the upgrade, it asks
you if you want to keep your existing grub, or upgrade.
So I selected upgrade, it then gives you a whole lot of options to put a
tick in, I was not sure what to do so I selected both my Hard Drives,
the one with Win XP & the One with the Exiting 10.o4 on it.
I don't know if that was the right decision.
Regards
Eric Tennant

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Narendra D (narendra-diwate) said :
#6

Select Applications -->Accessories -->Terminal and run sudo update-grub and then try to reboot

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#7

Thanks,
I have already tried that.
I have also reinstalled 10.04LTS from a DVD download & did a check
integrity etc.
But still have the same problem.???
Regards
Eric Tennant

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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#8

Is your windows partition mounted under Linux ?
If not, mount it and retry
     sudo update-grub

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#9

I mounted the drive & did the upgrade, but still no joy.??
Regards
Eric tennant

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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#10

Try:

sudo apt-get install ms-sys
sudo ms-sys -m /dev/sda # if you windows disk is first one, else replace by /dev/sdb

This should restore Windows, but I don't know effect on GRUB2.
If Windows works and GRUB2 disappear, they should be a solution with Ubuntu Live CD to repair grub: "sudo update-grub".

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#11

On 06/05/10 18:12, delance wrote:
> apt-get install ms-sys
>
All I get is:-

eric@eric-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install ms-sys
[sudo] password for eric:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package ms-sys
eric@eric-desktop:~$

Regards
Eric

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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#12

Package was removed from Ubuntu distribution.

You can get it at:
     http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/ms-sys/ms-sys_2.1.0-1_i386.deb
and then double-click on file.

Else you can boot on a Windows XP CD, and type:
    fdisk /mbr

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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#13

If question is closed, could you mark it as "solved" ?

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#14

Hi, I have since had to reinstall Win XP on my second disk, I now find
that if I make the First Boot Disk in the Bios as the Linux Drive, I get
the grub installer & everything works OK on loading the Win or Linux.
But if I change the Boot drive in the Bios to the Win XP drive I go
straight into Windows, I don't know if this is correct, but at the
moment it suits me,
but I don't know if it will cause any other problems.
Regards
Eric Tennant

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Best delance (olivier-delance) said :
#15

It is perfectly correct, and its better than correct, because in case of problem in Grub2, you keep Windows working by itself.
You have to keep Ubuntu disk as first.
If you usually use Windows, make Windows you default file system in Grub and reduce waiting time.

Documentation of Grub2 is

http://members.iinet.net/~herman546/p20/GRUB2%20Bash%20Commands.html#grub-set-default
http://members.iinet.net/~herman546/p20/GRUB2%20Bash%20Commands.html#Dedicated_GRUB_Partition for delay

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eric tennant (erictennant) said :
#16

Thank you, it has solved this problem.
Regards
Eric Tennant