Debian: A grand adventure. [FIXED]

So for the past few days, I've been working on setting up Debian to dual boot with windowsxp on a good ol' pentium IV.

Let me tell you, it's been a wild ride.

Install cd refused to download any software besides the base, no matter how the mirrors were configured, so x-server and kde had to come manually using apt, but that wasn't too hard.

Then, kde refused to load because I had somehow switched ownership of my /home/lloh/ directory to root while installing new software. Fixed that with chown, wasn't too hard.

But now, I'm hitting a roadblock. It seems that during the install, I accidently overwrote the Master Boot Record, and Windows XP refuses to boot. It seems that no matter how I configure /boot/grub/menu.lst (although its very likely I'm doing it wrong, some help with this would be appreciated), it refuses to recognize the OS.

More Info:

Debian is on /dev/hda5. WindowsXP is on /dev/hda1. GRUB is the boot manager (duh).

Excerpt from menu.lst:

title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-5-686
root            (hd0,4)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-5-686 root=/dev/hda5 ro
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-5-686
savedefault

title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-5-686 (single-user mode)
root            (hd0,4)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-5-686 root=/dev/hda5 ro single
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-5-686
savedefault

title           Microsoft Windows XP Home
rootnoverify    (hd0, 1)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader     +1

I probably can't help you but, anyway, does GRUB load at boot? If so, what do you get when you try to load windows?

This happened to me during an old Ubuntu install. Reinstalling grub on the MBR should fix things. Im not an expert, I think im right here.

thejas wrote: I probably can't help you but, anyway, does GRUB load at boot? If so, what do you get when you try to load windows?

Yes, GRUB works fine and I can boot debian in both of the listed modes. I get an "Error 11: Unrecognized device string" when trying to boot windows. I'm assuming that means something's wrong with the rootnoverify line in menu.lst?

varreon wrote: This happened to me during an old Ubuntu install. Reinstalling grub on the MBR should fix things. Im not an expert, I think im right here.

GRUB IS on the MBR, that's what overwrote it. I don't see what reinstalling it would do, other then re-create the conditions I'm currently struggling with.

title Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

root (hd0,0)

savedefault

makeactive

chainloader +1

Think that's the correct code, no linux expert though, just try and see if it works =]. Otherwise come here and complain a little more (:matey: )

spyware wrote: title Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

root (hd0,0)

savedefault

makeactive

chainloader +1

Think that's the correct code, no linux expert though, just try and see if it works =]. Otherwise come here and complain a little more (:matey: )

yeah, nope. same error. =P

I've read about going into a windows recovery console and restoring the MBR, but then I fear my debian installation won't be able to boot. @_@. any more help would be reaaallly appreciated.

Tried the backup? Menu.lst~?

And what's the error?

(AIM could speed things up :D)

I wish you success in this! i'm preparing to switch to debian from ubuntu but i ain't doing it till im sure im ready and read enough tutorials etc.

Folk Theory wrote: I wish you success in this! i'm preparing to switch to debian from ubuntu but i ain't doing it till im sure im ready and read enough tutorials etc.

yeah, besides all this boot garbage, I'm very pleased with the resulting system. package management is beautiful. I love apt. <3

I don't have much experience with grub, but I know with lilo you need to configure it and then run "lilo" to make changes. It might be the same way with grub, is there a binary you need to run to actually write the changes to the mbr?

Alright, it seems I finally got this all to work in harmony.

I was originally going to wipe everything, reinstall windows, restoring the MBR, then setting up linux to boot from a floppy.

However, during the debian install after I saved GRUB to /dev/hda1/ instead of the MBR, I found that the system was automatically set up for dual-boot, no extra configuration required. How awesome is that.

KDE's up, ebooks are downloading. I'm a happy man. =D

should grub always be saved on hda1 or MBR? (for dual booting)

Folk Theory wrote: should grub always be saved on hda1 or MBR? (for dual booting)

You know, it's really strange.

In debian's GUI installer, it EXPLICITLY states at the point where you install GRUB that if it's able to detect your existing OS(es), that there should be no trouble sticking GRUB on the MBR.

If I'm remebering correctly, the FIRST time I tried, it could NOT detect the existing OS, for whatever reason (I had some funky partitioning going on, that might have contributed).

However, on the second try (where I put it on hda1), it detected it just fine. I'm getting a feeling that I could've installed it to the MBR on this round and I would have been okay.

At any rate, it shouldn't ALWAYS be saved on hda1, since your partitioning scheme will be different, but saving it to the hard disk in general might not be a bad idea. It's working for me. shrug