Dual Boot Ubuntu Err 21 on PC with XPPro on RAID0 Drive and Ubuntu on eSATA

[videocheez]

I thought that I would post this general Linux noob question here since I have been a member for several years now and there are a lot of experienced folks that have seen it all. I have been researching my problem on the Linux forums today but since this comp was mainly a video editing/encoding box i thought I would give it a shot here.

Last night I tried to install Ubuntu 7.04 onto my WinXP Pro PC and received Grub Error 21

and when I reversed the boot order in the BIOS I read a message saying Error Loading

Operating System.

My hardrives are configured as Such:

Drive 0 and Drive 1 are SATA RAID 0 74GB WD Raptors
Drive 2 is a SATA Non-RAID 74 GB Raptor (The drive I installed Ubunto onto)
Drive 3 is a SATA 250 GB Samsung Drive

When, I installed Ubuntu from the Live CD, I disconnected Drive 3 to avoid any confusion.
I was trying to set up a dual boot system with Windows as default and I could press a

button during boot-up to run Ubunto. I followed the following instructions from the Ubuntu

website guide for dual boot:

"Case 1: You haven't installed Ubuntu yet
Do a fresh install of Ubuntu with the windows hard drive still plugged in. Ubuntu will

automatically detect the other hard drive, and Grub will automatically list it as a choice

at startup. You can then also see the other hard drive and access it while in Ubuntu by

mounting it."

From what I have read all around the Web today is that my MBR got screwed up and can only

be recovered by acessing the Windows Recovery Console. I don't have a Windows disk. I

have one of those install disks that you get when you buy a new PC and some other progs

besides Windows are on it. Do ya think i could install the recovery console using that

disk? Is there some command line utility that i could do to fix my problem with out

screwing up the RAID 0 configuration? Another wierd thing is that I can no longer mount

the Windows RAID 0 volume in from Ubuntu Live CD even though it still recognizes the size

as 2x74GB

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

VC
__________________

[tekkieman]

For starters, you can use the Ubuntu LiveCD to boot, and then it should be able to see the device you installed to. If you can get a copy of your menu.lst file, we may be able to figure out what the problem is.

For restoring your MBR, I'll bet you can find a boot disc image on the net somewhere (I know I did). Even a 95 or 98 boot disc will work. For XP, you use fixmbr at the recovery console. Previous to Win 2K, I believe it was fdisk /mbr

I don't have a clue how this will affect a raid configuration, so I accept no responsibility blah blah blah.

I've never had an issue with grub in the MBR, but I've also never run a raid configuration either. Chances are we can get it fixed, but the menu list would help.

[videocheez]

I will try to get the menu.lst info but I need a little direction please. I'm totally new to Ubuntu and Linux so could you briefly tell me how to get to command line and how to get this menu.lst file. I have seen that info posted all day long and I haven't been able to figure out how and where that info is located or even what it means at this point. I'm eager to learn though.

Thanks in advance,

VC

[tekkieman]

You shouldn't need to get to the command line for this, unless you have to manually mount the drive (although it may be easier).

In Ubuntu, the command line is under "Applications - Accessories - Terminal". The menu.lst file is under /boot/grub/menu.lst

This file contains what you see when grub starts. Mine looks like this:

title MEPIS at hda1, kernel 2.6.15-27-desktop-smp
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-27-desktop-smp root=/dev/hda1 nomce quiet vga=791 resume=/dev/hda2 
boot

title MEPIS at hda1, previous kernel (if any)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz.old root=/dev/hda1 nomce quiet vga=791 resume=/dev/hda2 
boot

title MEPIS at hda1, kernel 2.6.15-27-desktop
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-27-desktop root=/dev/hda1 nomce quiet vga=791 resume=/dev/hda2 
boot

title Windows at sda1
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

You can open the file with something like gedit, copy the contents of the file, and paste it here. You should be able to do this all from the LiveCD if neither Ubuntu or Windows will boot.

[videocheez]

I belive that I have attached the infor that you requested.
Let me tell you how I got to where I am now.
Yesterday, I disconnected all of the hardrives except for the eSATA drive 2 and installed ubuntu. Then i turned off the eSATA drive, reconnected drives0/1 and recovered Windows. I f i keep the eSATA drive turned off I boot to Windows. If i keep the eSATA drive on I boot to Ubunto becasue I made drive 2 the first to boot in the BIOS.

Drives 0/1 has XPPro is RAID 0 configuration (2 x 74GB SATA)
Drive 2 has Ubunto (1x74GB eSATA)
Drive 3 is a Windows Storage Drive (1x 250GB SATA)
Drives 4-8 are USB Drives (4x250GB)

I suppose this is dual boot but its like neither OS knows that the other exists. I would like to have the computer set up so that it boots to Windows by default and if I hit a key upon boot up it loads Ubuntu.
I read on a forum that the reason I screwed up my MBR when I first installed ubuntu on my eSATA drive while the Windows drives0/1 were still connected is because Grub did not recognize the RAID 0 drive and that I would need to install wdraid on the eSATA drive 2 in order for Grub to recognize the Windows RAID0 drive. What do ya think? How do install programs in Ubuntu? Double click a *.exe file? If you get a chance, let me know what the attached menu.lst file means. I hope I cut and paste the right thing because it appears that the menu.lst file had a bunch of default instructions at the beginning. FYI, I found my XPpro disk and installed the recovery console but when i rebooted the recovery console never loaded. PS I posting this reply from Firefox in Ubuntu.

Any help will be appreciated and thx in advance,

VC



title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=0c3037a2-dce5-4854-b4a1-765240a63fef ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
quiet
savedefault

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=0c3037a2-dce5-4854-b4a1-765240a63fef ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=0c3037a2-dce5-4854-b4a1-765240a63fef ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic
quiet
savedefault

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=0c3037a2-dce5-4854-b4a1-765240a63fef ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic

title Ubuntu, memtest86+
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

[redwudz]

I hope you mean you got your Windows install working like it was.

If i keep the eSATA drive turned off I boot to Windows. If i keep the eSATA drive on I boot to Ubunto becasue I made drive 2 the first to boot in the BIOS

.
You know, if that works for you, that seems like a good compromise, even though you don't have the choice at bootup.

It seems some of the confusion is that Linux has different titles for hard drives than Windows uses. This makes it hard for me to tell which drives are which. I had good luck with dual boot on a system that has only two drives. Definitely not so easy on one that has more than two drives and especially one that mixes PATA and SATA drives. I don't think that's so much a Linux problem, as my MB has problems recognizing my SATA boot drive as boot if I unplug my PATA drive.

Apparently 'Grub' modifies the MBR of the Windows boot drive and adds the choice of boots. That way the Windows boot drive is always the first drive for boot and it has the modified MBR. But that modified MBR has to point to the proper Windows and Linux boot drives. Errors there seem to be where the problem is most of the time. I'm still trying to understand it all.

[tekkieman]

@redwudz - You pretty much nailed it! When I first installed the dual boot on my new system (SATA = Windows, PATA1 = Linux), I had to keep swapping the drives in the BIOS until I added the map command in my menu.lst listed above. Major PITA!

@VC - Assuming that GRUB is installed in the MBR, and not /, the fix should be as simple as adding the map statements similar to mine. Again, I don't deal with RAID, so I'm not sure how that is going to affect it, or the drive numbers, but we can give it a shot.

Using my menu.lst as an example, we can try adding a section to your menu.lst like this:

title Windows on eSATA
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

Now, we may need to fiddle with the hd# to get it right, but this would be a good start. Before doing any of this, make sure you make a backup copy of your menu.lst file, and keep your Live CD handy in case Ubuntu stops booting. You will still be able to go back and try again, or restore your original file.

To answer your question about installing software, usually, you just go to "Applications - Add/Remove", and either select from the type of application on the left, or All, find the name of the application in the list on the right, select it, and click Apply. Also keep note of the dropdown on the top right. Select Supported or All. If the application does not exist in Ubuntu's repositories, the procedure is a little different, like finding a .deb file or a pre-compiled binary, or the original source, but those cases are rare.

[videocheez]

I hope you mean you got your Windows install working like it was.

You know, if that works for you, that seems like a good compromise, even though you don't have the choice at bootup.

Yes Windows works as it always did. I even had it back up running not to miss my Thursday gaming night. You're right; how it is working now is an acceptable compromise for now mainly because I'm kinda chicken to mess with the MBR but I would really like to have an option at boot up as I have mentioned before. I don't wanna be a wussie and have a a half-assed linux install.

@VC - Assuming that GRUB is installed in the MBR, and not /, the fix should be as simple as adding the map statements similar to mine. Again, I don't deal with RAID, so I'm not sure how that is going to affect it, or the drive numbers, but we can give it a shot.

Using my menu.lst as an example, we can try adding a section to your menu.lst like this:

Code:
title Windows on eSATA
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

I don't think Grub is installed in the MBR because I installed ubuntu without Windows drives 0/1 connected therefore I don't know how Windows even knows that SATA drive is a Linux drive.

Also, in the code that you wrote I have a couple of questions before diving in. First I have Ubunto on my eSATA drive 2. Windows is not on eSATA drive 2. Although I don't yet understand the code, based on the title that you wrote,"title Windows on eSATA" I think that you assume that i have Windows on eSATA drive 2. Correct me if I'm wrong please. Second, If i don't have GRUB installed on MBR, how can I install it now that Ubuntu is already installed? Do ya know anything about the linux program dmraid. I'm thinking that i should confirm whether or not ubuntu can recognize a Windows RAID drive before trying to modify the MBR again.
FYI, from Ubuntu, I can mount all of my Windows drives accept for the RAID drives 0/1 which has the MBR.

Thanks for your help guys,

VC

[tekkieman]

@VC - Assuming that GRUB is installed in the MBR, and not /, the fix should be as simple as adding the map statements similar to mine. Again, I don't deal with RAID, so I'm not sure how that is going to affect it, or the drive numbers, but we can give it a shot.

Using my menu.lst as an example, we can try adding a section to your menu.lst like this:

Code:
title Windows on eSATA
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

I don't think Grub is installed in the MBR because I installed ubuntu without Windows drives 0/1 connected therefore I don't know how Windows even knows that SATA drive is a Linux drive.

Also, in the code that you wrote I have a couple of questions before diving in. First I have Ubunto on my eSATA drive 2. Windows is not on eSATA drive 2. Although I don't yet understand the code, based on the title that you wrote,"title Windows on eSATA" I think that you assume that i have Windows on eSATA drive 2. Correct me if I'm wrong please. Second, If i don't have GRUB installed on MBR, how can I install it now that Ubuntu is already installed? Do ya know anything about the linux program dmraid. I'm thinking that i should confirm whether or not ubuntu can recognize a Windows RAID drive before trying to modify the MBR again.
FYI, from Ubuntu, I can mount all of my Windows drives accept for the RAID drives 0/1 which has the MBR.

Thanks for your help guys,

VC

Sorry. The eSATA was just a mistake on my part. This is nothing more than a title to display on the screen, and could read "The other OS" Put in there what you will. Ok, if GRUB is installed in / on the eSATA and not on the MBR, things will be different (although I'm not sure how different. There is a script to reinstall GRUB to the MBR, but I'll need to find it. I also did a quick search on dmraid, but it will take some time to digest it.

I'll keep looking into this, and we can hope that in the meantime, someone with actual experience in this setup comes along and helps you out. It seems you have a somewhat acceptable workaround in the meantime. I'll let you know what I find out. Also, you might want to consider posting the question on the Ubuntu forums and LinuxQuestions.org. Both those places have thousands more people with exponentially more experience than myself.

[videocheez]

Sorry. The eSATA was just a mistake on my part. This is nothing more than a title to display on the screen, and could read "The other OS" Put in there what you will. Ok, if GRUB is installed in / on the eSATA and not on the MBR, things will be different (although I'm not sure how different. There is a script to reinstall GRUB to the MBR, but I'll need to find it. I also did a quick search on dmraid, but it will take some time to digest it.

I'll keep looking into this, and we can hope that in the meantime, someone with actual experience in this setup comes along and helps you out. It seems you have a somewhat acceptable workaround in the meantime. I'll let you know what I find out. Also, you might want to consider posting the question on the Ubuntu forums and LinuxQuestions.org. Both those places have thousands more people with exponentially more experience than myself.

Thanks man. I just thought I would check just in case your script applied to the situation where Grub was actually installed on my Windows RAID drive. I didn't want to cut paste that stuff that I don't understand if it was incorrect. I appreciate your assistance so far. I'm pretty patient when it comes to this kinda stuff and you're right, I do have a decent work around and my current set up is actually cool since at this point I don't mind having my OS's completely separate.

I have posted a few questions on the Linux forums and have received some direction but over the years, many of my questions, not just video related have been answered here at videohelp.com so I value your suggestions and also like the personal touch. I got some good links that will take a weekend or more worth of reading and forum posting before I gain a better understanding but at least this is good start. If you find out any info that you think might be helpful, please let me know and in the meanwhile, I'll be bragging to my buddies that I run a Linux PC at home.

Thanks for the help,

VC

[GMaq]

@VC,
I see you're in good hands here with tekkieman, I though I might bring this link to your attention as well. I had a similar issue with Ubuntu/XP Dual Boot and this "Super Grub Boot Disk" enabled me to boot into my Windows partition until I figured out how to edit my menu.lst and point it in the right direction (which is what tekkieman is doing) here's the link: http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/SuperGrubDiskPage.html

[Nelson37]

Allowing a foreign program to mess with your boot sector is quite simply a very, very bad idea.

Your mistake was in installing Linux with the Windows drive attached.

Install OS on the ONLY drive in the system. Get both working seperately. Then attach both and use Boot order in BIOS to determine which OS you want to boot. Simple, effective, no outside interference with either OS.

Or you could use software written by amateurs to attempt to achieve this. First attempt resulted in a non-bootable system. Your choice how to proceed.

[tekkieman]

...must resist...really not worth it...

By the way, who you callin' amateur?

[betamaxman]

Allowing a foreign program to mess with your boot sector is quite simply a very, very bad idea.

Your mistake was in installing Linux with the Windows drive attached.

Install OS on the ONLY drive in the system. Get both working seperately. Then attach both and use Boot order in BIOS to determine which OS you want to boot. Simple, effective, no outside interference with either OS.

Or you could use software written by amateurs to attempt to achieve this. First attempt resulted in a non-bootable system. Your choice how to proceed.

Right, OK. Interesting comments.

[videocheez]

Allowing a foreign program to mess with your boot sector is quite simply a very, very bad idea.

Your mistake was in installing Linux with the Windows drive attached.

Install OS on the ONLY drive in the system. Get both working seperately. Then attach both and use Boot order in BIOS to determine which OS you want to boot. Simple, effective, no outside interference with either OS.

Or you could use software written by amateurs to attempt to achieve this. First attempt resulted in a non-bootable system. Your choice how to proceed.

Yeah. I figured this out already the hard way but you are the first one to say it. Most everything that I have been reading talks about having grub reconfigure my Windows MBR and that it should be easy to do. I guess I should be content with the current set up where I run ubuntu on the eSATA drive and Windows on my RAID drives. it seems to be great right now but I feel like I'm missing out on some features since I have not let Ubuntu write to Windows drives. I gotta stop being a glutton for punishment.

I think I will be just leave everything the way it is right now and learn, play and get familiar with ubuntu before trying any more things that are totally confusing and unfamiliar to me.

I put the eSATA drive with ubuntu to load first in the BIOS. When the switch on the eSATA drive is on Ubuntu boots up. If I turn off the eSATA drive switch and reboot, Windows loads by default since the drive that is first in the boot order is not available. I don't even have to screw with the BIOS to decide which OS to run. I only have to flip the switch on the back of the eSATA drive to decide which OS to run. I suppose I got what I wanted by accident and fortunately I only lost a day of computer time when I screwed up my MBR during my first attempt installing ubuntu with all drives connected.

The cool thing is that from ubuntu I can see my 4 USB and other SATA storage drive and play video and music from those drives. My data is viewable by either OS
The only drive that I can't do is mount that damn windows RAID drive and I can live with that because there is no data there just all of windows programs.

@VC,
I see you're in good hands here with tekkieman, I though I might bring this link to your attention as well. I had a similar issue with Ubuntu/XP Dual Boot and this "Super Grub Boot Disk" enabled me to boot into my Windows partition until I figured out how to edit my menu.lst and point it in the right direction (which is what tekkieman is doing) here's the link: http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/SuperGrubDiskPage.html
"

Thanks for the link. It looks like good reading since I'm still really curious.



Well i think i'll switch back to Windows for same late night gaming.

Thanks for the tips guys,

VC

[Nelson37]

The definition of Amateur is someone who does not get paid for their "work". We can debate the "value" of that "work" all day long, but simple, basic economics determines that the "work" in question is valued at zero.

Nobody gets fired for writing a Linux routine that does bad things. There is NO ONE to complain to, NO ONE to supervise, NO ONE to dictate company policy, because there is NO COMPANY.

A Windows programmer is paid for what he or she does, and would suffer some sort of negative consequences for writing bad code. Professional people who run their lemonade stands to make a profit and feed their children, will not tolerate such incompetence for long.

A Linux programmer depends on his or her lemonade stand for income, their programming ability does not earn them a living, at least in most cases. The dedicated, fanatical fan base will make legions of excuses for them.

This very thread is a good example of how that works. The Linux fanatics will not admit Linux caused your problem, it is Your fault or Windows fault. An unbiased, professional opinion based on real-world, multi-million-dollar lemonade stand experience is in direct opposition to their statements.

An independent, consumer review is now present. There is a very good reason for the old cliche that "the customer is always right".

[tekkieman]

@Nelson - you are so uninformed as to be almost pathetic. The vast majority of linux developers are professional developers. And by using your very own definition. I among them.

As to who may or may not get fired, why don't you ask the so-called non-professionals at Red Hat, Canonical, Oracle, IBM, HP, Sun, Novell, Google, and many, many other places what happens to people who screw up. Of course, I suppose none of those places are real companies with real employees and real customers...

Considering the state of the latest release of Windows, can I assume there are thousands of recently vacant positions available in Redmond?

I assume in your Windows world, you don't use a single piece of freeware, shareware, or open-source software, do you?

I challenge you to show me where in this thread anyone blamed this issue on anything. Oh, wait...that would have been YOU. That's right, the obviously most misinformed person in this thread is the only one asserting conclusions.

You have no clue, and are not worthy of further discussion. Move along.

[Nelson37]

Statement about Linux programmers comes from Tekkieman's reply to Johnny Malaria about "how Linux programmers get paid". Tekkieman's answer was that, for the most part, "they don't". I'm still laughing from picturing the look on ol' Johhny's face at that one. Just curious how much development Enosoft is pouring into their upcoming Linux product? My bet would be absolutely ZERO.

Now, what exactly is the address for the UBUNTU company for the OP to complain to? Not some interested third party, but the company that created the product he is having trouble with. Somebody who made a buck on the deal, and therefore gives a damn.

Do some people get paid for writing Linux programs? Sure they do. Did the individual who wrote the boot-record manager which is causing the OP's specific problem get paid for what he or she wrote? This is the amateur I referred to. Just because some people get paid for doing a task, does not mean that everyone working in that arena is paid. Pretty sure that the definition of Linux determines that the person in question did NOT, in fact, get paid for creating that routine and is therefore an amateur, as I described.

As for Windows, the company which creates this product is one of the most profitable in the entire world, solely from this product. The major companies you named do not derive all, most, or even a substantial portion of their revenue stream from creating Linux products. The smaller ones do, but compared to Microsoft, your own term of a "lemonade stand" would certainly apply in comparison. Peanuts, in relation to MS.

I use lots of freeware, shareware programs, and have written some. What bearing does this have on the OP's problem, or anything else for that matter?

Now if you want to hold the opinion that a Yugo is superior to a GM product, fine. Most rational people would look at sales figures. In a competitive economy, that is the ONLY way to measure a products success or market viability.

As for conclusions, the Linux boot record manager CAUSED THE PROBLEM. A bunch of amateurs offered the incorrect advice that it would work, and it did not. Any argument with this conclusion?

[videocheez]

I suppose if I need some more Linux help I better start a new thread because this one seems to have become a Windows vs. Linux **** fight. :P Anyways, it's interesting to read differing viewpoints and do I appreciate tekkieman's time trying to help me.

[betamaxman]

Sorry you are having troubles. Anyway I have 5 linux versions, a bsd version, and XP and vista on my machine. It isn't as hard as you think, the key to success is partitioning and booting. On my machine I have 2 satas and 2 ide drives. The bios is not as modern as I would care for (it gets confused with satas and ides together) so to boot properly to the first sata I have scsi as the first boot device after flopy and cdrom. All my OSs are on the first sata in their own 15 gb partitions. there is a small 100 mb partition for windows boot files at the first of the drive and grub is on the mbr of that first sata. By the way it is not the windows mbr it is just the mbr of the hard drive, they all have them even the hard disc of an ipod, or an apple computer. What gets stored there is usually determined by what ever OS you are running or what ever stand alone boot loader you want to use. the other drives on my system are for storage and backups of the OSs. The ides are for music, videos, pictures, etc. I use the version of ghost on hiren's boot cd to make image coppies of each OS (similar to an iso file) to the 250 gb backup hard drive, and a restoration is simply a 10 to 15 minute expereince. the rest of the first sata is for other shared data such as Thunderbird email that I share between all the OSs.

Not saying my setup is the best, just an example from which you might find something usefull for setting up your own if you try again.

Another option if your bios allows booting to usb, is to find a cheep external hard drive 2.5" or 3.5" doesn't matter, install grub to the mbr of the usb external drive, set your first boot device in the bios as usb instead of flopy or cdrom and away you go. Not all distros will work installed to usb with out some tweaking. PclinuxOS however does. You might want to give this method a try. Be sure to disconnect power to the other drives in your pc during installation first to be sure of them being safe.

[Nelson37]

Multi-boot systems can work, sure.

Almost every one I have ever seen has been the cause of a catastrophic failure, usually due to some program modifying a non-standard boot section, which the user was not aware it would do. Partition tables and MBR's are items where reliability is a MUST. Is more than one OS important enough to risk all your data?

While I have set up many of these, mostly for myself, I would under no circumstances do this for commercial use and have refused to do so. Just like when I set up a file server, they get a battery backup or get somebody else to do the work.

There's what works, there's what is standard, and there's Schlockenheimer crap. To each his or her own.

[betamaxman]

Not can work, do work. One would have the same chance of messing up data in a multi-OS system as they would in a single OS system. I have set up a dual boot system (pclinux and xp) for a first time 55 year old new computer user and he boots to both OSs and has been doing so for over 2 years now. Some simply enjoy the variety I guess as I have lost count of how many people I know who dual boot. I think it is called being a geek. Anyway I would suggest using grub over your bios boot order editing scheme, much more civilized.
You can even give grub a nice background. Anyway one can backup the mbr and the partition table with a live linux cd using dd via comand line first if desired. Grub also in no way messes with windows boot sector files nor does any other linux program, it installs itself to the mbr just as windows installs it's bootloader. Grubs configuration files are found in the linux filesystem. /boot/grub/menu.lst to be exact.

[videocheez]

Grub also in no way messes with windows boot sector files nor does any other linux program, it installs itself to the mbr just as windows installs it's bootloader. Grubs configuration files are found in the linux filesystem. /boot/grub/menu.lst to be exact.

Are you saying that I can setup dual boot simply by editing the menu.lst file that resides on the hardrive that ubunu is installed on? I was playing with the"SuperGrub Boot Disk " and it tells lots of info about boot up and looks like it will be essential for setting up this dual boot or maybe just to save my ass if I screw up editing my menu.lst file.

VC

[Nelson37]

Yeah, grub is wonderful. It rendered videocheez's system non-bootable. We should all run right out to get one of those.

Civilized or not, and WTF does THAT mean, seperate boot drives for seperate OS's is SAFER. Dual-boot is less secure. Reliable does not mean that it works for some, or that it can be done. Reliable means less likely to screw up the system, and dual-boot does not meet that standard. Rocket-powered cars work too, but they are not reliable.

If Grub is so wonderful, why does the boot order need to be manually edited? For people who can write a batch file, this is only slightly more complex, but vastly more dangerous. Just in case you don't know, the average user doesn't even know what a batch file is, and has no business whatsoever messing with MBR settings.

As for Grub messing with the MBR, it worked before, the OP ran Grub, then it did not work. Grub broke his system. That is a bad thing.

For the geek, sure. It's still more dangerous, and with HD's so inexpensive, easily avoided. I see no practical advantage to a dual-boot drive, and lots of possible dangers.

For Videocheez, yes, if you manually edit the menu file, that should solve your problem. However, the fact that the boot loader was unable to properly install itself should be a red flag for you. You might want to check first to see if drivers for your RAID array even exist for Linux, cause if they don't, you got no array in Linux, you would actually have to run Windows to use this hardware.

Look, drink the Kool-aid, I don't care. You mentioned I was the only one who described your problem and how to avoid it. The Linux fanatics didn't, cause their system can do no wrong. Windows screws up, sure, but there is somebody somewhere whose living depends on working to solve these problems. With Linux, all you get is finger-pointing. The number of development projects which ceased, then became two or more similar, yet slightly different and still unfinished projects, is staggering. Just start doing some reading. These folks have some good ideas, but few finished products ready for the commercial marketplace. The very independence they cite as their major advantage is their real problem

[videocheez]

Yeah, grub is wonderful. It rendered videocheez's system non-bootable. We should all run right out to get one of those.

Look, drink the Kool-aid, I don't care. You mentioned I was the only one who described your problem and how to avoid it.

Thanks for all of your help and guidance. I finally got the dual boot scenario that all of you "linux fanatics" were telling me shoud work no problem. Nelson, your strong objection made me proceed with caution and I made sure that I had a decent backup plan based on all of the scary shit that you were writing about.

betamaxman, tekkieman, GMaq, redwudz I took a little bit of info from all of you guys and finally copied some code that I had seen written in a bunch of linux forums to edit the grub menu.lst file and it worked. Thanks guys. I have to admit that nelson gave me a good scare and I was also nervous about the fact that my windows OS is on a RAID0 set of drives and no one really addressed that situation directly. Nevertheless, the addtion of the following code to the grub menu achieved the dual boot with windows as slave and linux as master which automatically installs windows after 10 seconds unless I arrow down to load ubuntu.

title           Windows
root            (hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map             (hd0) (hd1)
map             (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader     +1

Now I can start asking you guys about which gnu video apps are comparable to what I have been using with in windows and other things like how do I set up my sound card in ubuntu for 5.1 speakers or how to set up dual monitors but I'll save all of that for a new thread.

Thx,

VC

[tekkieman]

Yeah, grub is wonderful. It rendered videocheez's system non-bootable. We should all run right out to get one of those.

Look, drink the Kool-aid, I don't care. You mentioned I was the only one who described your problem and how to avoid it.

Thanks for all of your help and guidance. I finally got the dual boot scenario that all of you "linux fanatics" were telling me shoud work no problem. Nelson, your strong objection made me proceed with caution and I made sure that I had a decent backup plan based on all of the scary shit that you were writing about.

Yep, nothing like some "know-it-all" who insists something can't/shouldn't be done to show us that we can/should. I'm really glad that while everyone else was here doing nothing more than trying to help resolve your problem that someone with some "real sense" came along to warn you about all those (us) linux fanatics, how truly awful that OS is (that you decided you wanted to try), and make sure that you had nothing but preconceived fear that linux would somehow erase your data, melt your hard drive, get you arrested on the street, and kick your wife/children and rape your dog.

Now I can start asking you guys about which gnu video apps are comparable to what I have been using with in windows

The list here contains most of the ones I use for different things.

how to set up dual monitors

.

Depends on the video driver you're using, but usually not that hard. In my distro, the X Assistant (like a Windows wizard), configured it almost automatically. I needed to make a minor tweak to my xorg file since I use different monitor types (one standard, one widescreen) to get the different resolutions. However, before doing anything to your xorg configuration, you might want to wait and see if someone who knows more about linux than us linux users comes around to tell you that altering your xorg config (or for that matter even using xorg), will fry your monitors, burn your retinas, and let a thousand geeks living in their parent's basement see through your monitor into your home.

[betamaxman]

Excellent. Now you will want to get all that cool linux software you may have read about. It will require that you edit one more file.
Ubuntu has a great supply of software on it's universe servers, however you will want to add the server to your /etc/apt/sources.lst. This is a great sources generator. Simply from the drop down select your ubuntu release likely feisty faun, then follow the prompts. then run the command in a terminal "sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.lst" this will oden the sources list for you and you can simply replace the test with the sources list generated in the list generator, tailored to your specific location.
Noy you can simpply run in a terminal the commands "sudo apt-get update" then type sudo apt-get install your app" and apt will download the app and install it for you. Note you will be prompted for user passwrd when ever you run a command beginning with sudo. Alternatively you can use synaptic (the gui front end for apt) and in the search pane type the app you want to install, after you click on "reload sources". I also recommend you visit the ubuntu forums and faq, also there are some great ubuntu books out there

http://www.ubuntu-nl.org/source-o-matic/

Enjoy ubuntu.

[videocheez]

Excellent. Now you will want to get all that cool linux software you may have read about. It will require that you edit one more file.
Ubuntu has a great supply of software on it's universe servers, however you will want to add the server to your /etc/apt/sources.lst. This is a great sources generator. Simply from the drop down select your ubuntu release likely feisty faun, then follow the prompts. then run the command in a terminal "sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.lst" this will oden the sources list for you and you can simply replace the test with the sources list generated in the list generator, tailored to your specific location.
Noy you can simpply run in a terminal the commands "sudo apt-get update" then type sudo apt-get install your app" and apt will download the app and install it for you. Note you will be prompted for user passwrd when ever you run a command beginning with sudo. Alternatively you can use synaptic (the gui front end for apt) and in the search pane type the app you want to install, after you click on "reload sources". I also recommend you visit the ubuntu forums and faq, also there are some great ubuntu books out there

http://www.ubuntu-nl.org/source-o-matic/

Enjoy ubuntu.

Thanks. So i think i followed you instructions and when I typed "sudo apt-get update", I received the following list. What do i do with it?

Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/restricted Translation-en_US
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/restricted Translation-en_US
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/universe Translation-en_US
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/multiverse Translation-en_US
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security Release
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/universe Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/multiverse Translation-en_US
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/restricted Packages
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/restricted Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/universe Translation-en_US
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty Release
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/universe Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/restricted Sources
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates Release
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/multiverse Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/multiverse Sources
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/restricted Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/universe Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/restricted Sources
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/multiverse Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/multiverse Sources
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/restricted Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/main Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/universe Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/restricted Sources

[betamaxman]

Nothing, seems ubuntu includes all the sources since I last used it. Used to be only things such as sources for bug fixes and security updates were included, that is if the list you posted is what is displayed when you typed sudo /etc/apt/sources.list and not the list from the ubuntu link. Simply insure that any sources you want to use do not have a # infront of it. You might simply try to install something like google earth for example. Open a terminal again and try "sudo apt-get update" then "sudo install google earth". Or sudo apt-get update & install google earth".

You need to run the update cmnd first to sync with the sources and update apt to them. Also you can try to install google earth via synaptic. You will find it in the menu usualy under configuration.

[videocheez]

I'm a little bit confused. Below is the automatic sources list generated from the URL http://www.ubuntu-nl.org/source-o-matic/ . When I selected my ubuntu release from the drop down menu.

# Automatically generated sources.list
# http://www.ubuntu-nl.org/source-o-matic/
#
# If you get GPG errors with this sources.list, locate the GPG key in this file
# and run these commands (where KEY is replaced with that key)
#
# gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys KEY
# gpg --export --armor KEY | sudo apt-key add -
#
# If you don't know what to do with this file, read
# https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/CommandLine

# Ubuntu supported packages
# GPG key: 437D05B5
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-updates main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security main restricted

# Ubuntu community supported packages
# GPG key: 437D05B5
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty universe multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-updates universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security universe multiverse

Are you saying that I should paste thiese lines into the sources.lst file?

Right now, If type in the command "sudo apt-get update" all of those URLs that I listed in my previous post are generated. I have not even pasted the above auto generated sources into the source file. In fact the sources.lst file is totally empty.

When I typed "sudo apt-get update & install google earth"
I received the following list:

don@don-ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get update & install google earth
[1] 16506
install: cannot stat `google': No such file or directory
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/restricted Translation-en_US
Get:2 http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/restricted Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/universe Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/multiverse Translation-en_US
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/restricted Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/universe Translation-en_US
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/multiverse Translation-en_US
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/universe Translation-en_US
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty Release
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security Release
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates Release
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/restricted Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/universe Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/restricted Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/restricted Sources
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/multiverse Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/multiverse Sources
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/restricted Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/main Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/universe Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/restricted Sources
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/multiverse Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/universe Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty-updates/restricted Sources
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/multiverse Sources
Fetched 3B in 1s (2B/s)
Reading package lists... Done
don@don-ubuntu:~$

I just gotta try a working example of doing a terminal install and I will feel more comfortable, I think I can handle the synaptic packet manager but wanna see a command line install in action.

VC