[SOLVED] Installed pclos on a dual boot XP - lost access to 2nd xp

[gilado]

This machine had one hardrive with two partitions, a copy of Windows XP installed in each one.

I installed 2010.1 on it. The original partitions were 74G each, I shrunk them to about 35G each and used the free space for pclos.  Because the installer did not move the second NTFS partition, I ended up with free space between the two NTFS partitions and free space after the second one. In the  hole between the two NTFS partitions I added pclos /boot and /home. In the space after the second one swap and /.

Upon reboot I now get the grub menu. pclos work fine.  From grub I select 'Boot Windows' and then I get the windows dual boot menu (just like before.)  Selecting the first windows partition works fine and the first WindowsXP boots fine.  However, when I select the second WindowXP it does not work, telling me that it can't find hal.sys (I think.)

I suspect that the problem is that the entry for the second Windows XP list the second partition (which of course now is not windows) so I need to change it to point to the fourth partition.  

I tried adding an entry to grub menu pointing at the second NTFS partition, however, that does not work; it takes me to the same Windows boot menu.

I there a tool I can run on pclos to munge the window boot table without destroying grub?

Additional info:

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 164.7 GB, 164696555520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9fce8873

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        5737    46082421    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            5738       20023   114752295    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            5738        5868     1052226   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           10200       15420    41937651    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7           15421       15929     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8           15930       20023    32885023+  83  Linux
/dev/sda9            5869       10199    34788726   83  Linux

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,4)/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,4)/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=4a5610ee-8677-4fcb-9001-30905cecc48e resume=UUID=5809c203-4401-44d9-b925-a6e2a8c178cf vga=788
initrd (hd0,4)/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,4)/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=4a5610ee-8677-4fcb-9001-30905cecc48e resume=UUID=5809c203-4401-44d9-b925-a6e2a8c178cf
initrd (hd0,4)/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=4a5610ee-8677-4fcb-9001-30905cecc48e failsafe
initrd (hd0,4)/initrd.img

title WindowsXP-1
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title WindowsXP-2
root (hd0,5)
chainloader +1

[DeBaas]

Your windows 2 has another boot.ini, counting the original partitions from before the shrinking.
Correct this and check your Grub also, or add your windows 2 into the windows 1 boot.ini.
Please be careful with the right counting from HDD and partitions.
In the repair console from the windows CD there is also a tool to recreate boot.ini, even for multi XP installs.
I forgot the command name but the help command sets you on track, I hope.

Ed

[Old-Polack]

Your windows 2 has another boot.ini, counting the original partitions from before the shrinking.
Correct this and check your Grub also, or add your windows 2 into the windows 1 boot.ini.
Please be careful with the right counting from HDD and partitions.
In the repair console from the windows CD there is also a tool to recreate boot.ini, even for multi XP installs.
I forgot the command name but the help command sets you on track, I hope.

Ed

Both Windows installations should be on one boot.ini, but the second installation's partition will need to be edited from partition 2 to partition 4. This can be done with notepad.

[gilado]

old-polack you are absolutely right, DeBaas had already pointed me in the right direction, I found the boot.ini and edited it.

However, for some reason I cannot figure out it turned out I had to set it to partition(3) ? it doesn't make sense to me either... they way I figured it out is I added 8 entries in boot.ini for partition(2) to partition(9) and tried them all, starting with 4,6 since I expected one of them to work. It is partition(3) that does the trick.

Many thanks ... stayed tuned for my new post in networking regarding usb wifi stick TL-WN620G nightmares. 

[Old-Polack]

old-polack you are absolutely right, DeBaas had already pointed me in the right direction, I found the boot.ini and edited it.

However, for some reason I cannot figure out it turned out I had to set it to partition(3) ? it doesn't make sense to me either... they way I figured it out is I added 8 entries in boot.ini for partition(2) to partition(9) and tried them all, starting with 4,6 since I expected one of them to work. It is partition(3) that does the trick.

Many thanks ... stayed tuned for my new post in networking regarding usb wifi stick TL-WN620G nightmares.  

It's needing 3 because your second Linux partition is showing as /dev/sda9, which is definitely out of disk order, but until that is corrected, there is only a one partition shift. Look at your partition table again, paying attention to the start and end cylinders for each partition. Your /dev/sda9 is physically between the first Linux partition and the second Windows partition, but numbered as the last partition. Windows boot.ini uses the partition number order, rather than the actual physical position of the partition on the drive disk.

Your fdisk -l results should have included the "out of disk order" warning.