Re: Dual boot issue: GRUB/NTLDR etc.

Douglas Mayne wrote: 
On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 20:18:00 +0000, BlueGecko wrote:


Douglas Mayne wrote:

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 11:18:39 +0000, BlueGecko wrote:


I'm deeeeply frustrated, guys... :o(

I'm struggling to dual boot my Debian Sarge with a pre-existing Windoz XP. After seeking any good info all 'round the web, I'm begging your attention... 

<snip>

My configuration is:
Motherboard: ASUS P4P800-X;
Primary IDE master: LG CD-ROM CRD;
Primary IDE slave: Western Digital DVD-RW SOHW;
Secondary IDE master (hdc): Maxtor 6B160P0 (PATA 160GB);
Secondary IDE slave: (void);
3rd IDE master (hde): Western Digital WD1200JD (SATA 120GB);
4th IDE master: (void).

Windoz XP is in 3rd IDE master (hde), while Debian Sarge is in Secondary IDE master (hdc) with 2 partitions (root and swap).

This situation is dismaying me...

Any suggestion?
MANY THANKS

Did you "move" drives around as part of your install? That is, 

> was Windows XP always the 3rd IDE (hde)?

No, I didn't move anything: I read that such an operation can affect a proper booting installation, but (sadly!) that's not my case.
Windows XP has ever been happily the 3rd IDE, and now continues to work side-by-side with the newly-installed (but unbootable!) debian disk: that's 'cause the hard disk containing Windows XP is a SATA one connected to an extended motherboard port, while the debian's is a PATA one connected to the traditional 40-pin socket.

I have only had success booting Windows from hda, or by using grub's "map"
command to swap drives.

mh... actually I have no problem about Windows booting: my only trouble concerns GNU/Linux booting, so I believe that swapping the drive mapping won't work.

What really puzzles me is that the debian installation just successfully completed its tasks, in spite of its boot!

I don't have a lot of experience with SATA, and I don't have any specific
experience with your board.  To continue this trend of the blind
leading the blind, I am not running Debian.  I looked at the manual for
the ASUS board, and you should look at page 2-13, "Onboard PCI IDE
Operate Mode", and page 2-14, "Enhanced Mode Support On."  These pages are
at page 49-50 in the pdf version of the manual (E1718).  There are
settings which may be required for linux.  This information may not be
true if you are using a very recent 2.6.x kernel.  There have been updates
to the kernel involving SATA, and the ata_piix module.

IMHO Linux shouldn't care about my SATA disk (that contains Windoz XP) as I installed it onto a PATA one.

In any case, the problem is with the loader.  Can you boot linux with a
floppy disc to determine what is going awry?


As I stated at the 3rd point:

[quote]
3) desperate, I installed GRUB on a floppy disk: at boot time it came with this error message: "GRUB Geom Error".
[/quote]

Is there a brute-force way to load Linux despite these issues?
Linux is waiting for me, but I can't reach it! :o(

Thank you, Douglas!
.

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