Help my Vista partition wont boot after installing Ubuntu

Hi every one, I have been using Vista Business on my hp dv2000z and last night I decided to install Ubuntu. My plans are to dualboot both Vista and Ubuntu in order to try Ubuntu.

So after the installing Ubuntu 7.10 my Vista partition is not recognized and it don't boot.

I did some research and found a guide to edit the menu.lst file. I modified the menu.lst file since it did not have the windows entry and after I add a windows entry it will show up when in the boot menu when I turn on the computer, and when I select to boot from Windows it give me an error.

Error 23: Error while parsin number


I am a new to linux, but I had done some research online, and a friend even told me to use Super Grub CD. I tried the option to fix the Windows boot and no luck.

I even tried repairing the Windows installation with the Vista DVD that I have, but it even the cd wont see the Windows installation and when I run the Auto fix option it say it can't not fix it.


I don't have a clue what went wrong, and I just found a guide on how to dualboot Vista and Ubuntu, and I did every thing the guide say wen I installed Ubuntu last night.

Can some one please help me solve this problem?

Thanks in advance.

 

Are you able to boot Ubuntu from the boot menu?

 

yeah, I forgot to mention that. I am only able to boot to Ubuntu from the boot menu.

 

u might want to check this website out, it teach u how to change the boot file in ubuntu

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm

 

Microsoft specifically states that when dual-booting with XP, XP should be installed first. Installing Vista first can cause all sorts of problems, specifically with the way the boot menu fuctions. I don't know if this would be the same for Ubuntu, but it might be.

 

no, u can install vista first then install ubuntu

from the link i posted before, it teach u how to install ubuntu after u installed vista as first

 

Did you erase your vista partition to install linux over it?

 

If you didn't overwrite your Windows partition and it's still OK (do you see your Windows partition when you're on Ubuntu?), the problem is probably that you've put something wrong in the menu.lst file.

Could you post the entry that you have added in your menu.lst file ?

 

no I installed ubuntu in a second partition. and it did not overwrite the windows partition since I still can see it with in Ubuntu.

This is the first entry that I made

title Windows Vista Business
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

and then I changed it to

title Windows Vista
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


those are the only modification I have made to the menu.lst file.

 

Why did you make the moification?

Also were you trying to set Vista to be the default OS to be booted into instead of Ubuntu?

 

I have been trying different options to see if I can get it to work. A few minutes ago I added makeactive to the entry below and while reading through the code I a few mistakes that I made,

title Windows Vista
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


After adding make active and fixing the errors that made, when I try to boot to Windows Vista from the bootmenu it say Starting up.... and then it say Bootmngr
missing,

Bootmngr missing is the new error that I have, but I am not sure how I am going to fix or get the boot manager.

 

Do you know on which partition Vista is (/dev/sda(?),/dev/hda(?))

 

Did Windows use the whole disk? How many Windows partitions did you have? Were there any special partitions on the disk?

Rather than guess what partitions you know have on the hard disk, it is best to list this information out:

In Ubuntu, type the following command to show to list your partitions (note that '-l' in command below is a minus followed by a lowercase 'L':

sudo fdisk -l

Next, please list the contents of your /etc/fstab file, as this should show which partitions on your hard disk Ubuntu is using:

cat /etc/fstab

EDIT: Sorry, it doesn't read very well.
Web searches seem to suggest lots of possibilities for this error

 

yes posting your fstab contents can help, also if you could post your grub menu list / configurations that would be great

 

Vista is in the partition /dev/sda1 and I only have 3 partitions the Windows Vista, Ubuntu, and the swap partition.

Here is the fstab information, I hope this help.

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00012623

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 11534 92643328 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 11535 14452 23438835 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 14453 14593 1132582+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

f15-laptop:~$ cat /etc/fstab


# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

# /dev/sda2
UUID=00960487-c239-4845-9aa0-6f691d29b9c0 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

# /dev/sda1
UUID=D8AA7DF6AA7DD18C /media/sda1 ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

# /dev/sda3
UUID=1678db40-6977-4d53-ab79-f59d23c0de23 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0

 

In the grub config file, is the vista partition mentioned as it is in fstab

 

Ah, I missed this earlier, and thank you for posting the results of your fdisk output and the /etc/fstab.

The output that you've provided does show that your Windows partition is where you think it is, it is marked bootable, etc.

Now the bad news, I think when the Windows partition was resized, the resizing program that you used wasn't aware that there are certain files that should not be moved on the Windows partition. From the searches that I've done, Microsoft changed the way the that Windows Vista boots compared with previous versions of Windows such as XP.

Your second problem, is that it looks like your laptop has a SATA hard disk, and when you said that your Vista DVD couldn't see Windows on the hard disk, I am guessing that it couldn't see the hard disk at all. To be able to recover from this, you are going to have to be able to boot the Vista DVD and then load an additional driver (possibly from a USB memory stick). There's also a program called EasyBCD, but I am not clear how you'd be able to use this in your current situation.

Sorry, I am not Windows expert, but I reckon that getting your Vista DVD to see the hard disk is going to what you should be looking at next - unless anyone has a better suggestion?

 

Good news!! I fixed the problem, after playing around with the Super Grub Disk, a friend of mine helped me activate the Vista partition since that was the problem. After that I tried repairing the Vista installation with the Vista DVD and it was able to see it and finally fix it this time around. Now I am able to boot into both Vista and Ubuntu. Some how after I fixed Vista it removed the Grub, but I booted from the super grub cd and selected to boot into Ubuntu and it fixed itself.

I am glad that I was able to solve this problem because I was starting to get little disappointed since I have been waiting month for the right moment to install Ubuntu since it was easy to install and I runned into this problem.

Thanks guys for all the help, I really appreciated.

 

How can the Vista dvd possibly not see Sata HDDs in this day and age ???

 

Vista always was able to see the hdd, the only problem was that when I installed Ubuntu some how it screw the Vista partition Masterboot and when I tried using the Vista dvd it was not able to see the Vista installation, because some how the Ubuntu installation deactivated that partition.

 

hd0,0 is where the bootloader is installed.

 

A SATA controller newer than the drivers available on the Vista DVD

Are the designs of the chips going to remain static forever? How many generations of SATA controller have their been so far?

 

Code:

Once you've set the root device correctly, run the command setup (see section setup):
 	

grub> setup (hd0)

This command will install the GRUB boot loader on the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the first drive. If you want to put GRUB into the boot sector of a partition instead of putting it in the MBR, specify the partition into which you want to install GRUB:
 	

grub> setup (hd0,0)

If you install GRUB into a partition or a drive other than the first one, you must chain-load GRUB from another boot loader. Refer to the manual for the boot loader to know how to chain-load GRUB.