Strange boot problem

[snydley100]

I had Windows XP on the only hard disk in my system and then added Windows 7 to dual boot. Dual-boot worked fine. Weeks later I added a Solid State Drive, made it my primary drive in my computer,(sda), and installed Ultimate Edition 2.8. Grub 2 added the Windows loader and I was able to triple boot all 3. Not willing to "leave well enough alone", I wanted to try another version of Linux, installed that to sdb, on the same drive as Windows, different partition, and it messed up the multi-boot. I can boot to both version of Linux and WIndows 7 but when I try to boot to XP it just reboots the machine and never loads it. Thinking it was a problem with the Windows boot loader, I shut off the computer, disconnected sda, booted my XP disk from the CD drive, chose to Repair Windows, selected C:\Windows, and typed FIXMBR. I was then able to boot to XP again, but not Windows 7, so I downloaded and ran Easy BCD, followed the directions, and got it back to where I can dual boot Windows XP and 7, as long as the drive,(sda), is not connected.
Now the problem, once I connect sda and reboot, select the Windows boot loader from Grub, and then Windows XP from the Windows boot loader, the machine wants to reboot again and not load XP. If I disconnect the SSD drive,(sda), or press F8 on boot up to select my boot device, and select the sdb hard drive, I can boot to XP.
I'm thinking it must be something wrong with Grub 2, but I haven't a clue on how to fix it. I backed up Ultimate Edition and could reinstall it again, but I'd rather not do that if there's a way to fix this so that I don't have to press F8 or disconnect sda to boot to XP.
Can anyone help?
Thanks,
Snyde

[dougal]

I'm not sure but, I think your problem lies with having set your SSD as your primary drive after having loaded Windows onto your other one.
Set your SSD as the slave and install Linux to it that way. Linux won't care of you load it to the SSD as a slave but, it will matter about loading the boot manager. The boot manager will load to the 'First' hard drive if I remember correctly and take control from there.
GRUB will detect the operating systems and list them properly as is.
So if you want to try things this way (which is what I have done many times) - load XP followed by Win 7 and once all that is working as you want then load the experimental Linux next in a small partition. This way when you load Ultimate Edition 2.8 it's version of GRUB 2 will take over and list all the systems and so it won't matter if you decide to get rid of the other Linux later, Ultimate Edition will still be in control.

Others here can direct you in installing and uninstalling various Linux versions and keep Ultimate Edition's GRUB in control but, this method of install should work fine without having to make your SSD, sda. Just leave it as your second drive and partition it for two versions of Linux plus your SWAP area.

Hope this helps.

[Hawks-SOAD]

boot into the linux distro you have and type

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

that should get grub to detect all the installs you have hope it works

[snydley100]

I'm not sure but, I think your problem lies with having set your SSD as your primary drive after having loaded Windows onto your other one.
Set your SSD as the slave and install Linux to it that way, etc. etc.
Hope this helps.

Now you make me wonder if I didn't load Ultimate Edition on the Windows drive at first, ran it awhile that way before I got my SSD drive, then just copied Ultimate Edition to the SSD drive,(now sda), and ran sudo os-prober, then sudo update grub on Ultimate Edition when it was on sda and everything worked correctly. Or once I got the SSD drive I installed Ultimate Edition to it and it "picked up" the OSs correctly. I'll have to experiment and see if I can get it to work correctly.
Thanks,
Snyde