grub question

i installedf.. vista x64, then xp32 then ubnutu...

in grub, it shows the ubuntu kernal, and vista/longhorn loader..

the vista/longhorn loader booted up into xp until i fixed the vista boot record, and now it boots up into vista...

how do i put xp in there?? :/

 

Ok.. so here's a copy of my menu.lst atm...


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda3

title Windows XP
unhide (hd0,1)
hide (hd0,2)
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

title Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
unhide (hd0,2)
hide (hd0,1)
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot


when i try to boot into xp, it gives me an error saying NTLOADER not found or something...

when i try to boot into vista, it says loading grub 2 and then brings me back to the same screen....

i can only boot into ubuntu atm..

also, i installed vista first, followed by xp, then did a vista startup recovery so i booted back into vista..

anyhelp be nice!! thanks.

EDIT:

i have one harddrive( 120gb solid state )
and its divded into 4 partition
partition 1 = ubuntu
partition 2 = xp
partition 3 = vista
partition 4 = swap file

 

Have you tried using Ubuntu's Startup manager? I believe you have to download it first

 

just tried, it only lets me select defualt , timeout etc.. not actually create boot paths

 

Try SuperGRUB

 

I have failed miserably trying to triple-boot, though I've only tried XP/Linux/Linux, and Linux/Linux/Linux. The problem, if I've understood the problem at all, is exactly where to put GRUB for the third OS. I can't seem to get it right.

For your situation though, there seems to be several guides. Good luck.

 

As far as I know the problem lies in the order in which you installed the OSes. the easiest order to install is XP first, then Vista, and lastly, Linux.

Chech this site out http://lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/hack-attack-how-to-tripleboot-windows-xp-vista-and-ubuntu-193474.php. At the bottom part of the instruction there is a mention of re-installing the XP bootloader and then re-installing GRUB which you can find here http://www.ntcompatible.com/How_to_remove_GRUB_loader_t28242.html#154892. Alsdo if you need to get SuperGrub As mentiioned by flipfire get it here http://forjamari.linex.org/frs/?group_id=61.

I hope this solves your problem.

Edit : here's the latest and updated SuperGrub website http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

 

Technically, you only need the one GRUB bootloader to load any of the three linux installations.

 

so i looked around and i found one thing that i wantd to try first.. but i dont know where to find it..

the NTloader and NTdetect and boot.ini files... any help? would copying them over to xp / boot to root work?

 

Quite right.

I can see though how people who don't know grub all that well could get confused. For instance, if you install two Ubuntus, by default they both want to have control of their own grub. And if you need separate partitions for /boot, that complicates things even further.

 

Perhaps I should start a new thread, but how do you NOT install grub with each distro? And if using just the one bootloader, how do you direct the newest install to use that instance of GRUB already installed?

 

I doubt that the current Linux distributions have provisions for this. (I'm not saying they definitely don't but I would be surprised if they do support this.) If I had to install 3 distributions on the same machine for someone who does not know all the details of how grub and booting works I would do this:

1. Elect one distribution as the "main" one.
2. Make the "main" distribution install grub in the MBR.
3. Make the 2 other distributions install grub in their own separate partitions.
4. Configure grub in the "main" distribution to chain boot the two other distributions.

That way all 3 distributions have control of own grub, their own boot configuration, they own kernel, etc. They can't easily mess each other up. This is not optimal but it would avoid conflict.

Going the optimal route with only one actual grub doing all the work requires more sophistication on the user's part because the user must consolidate the menu.lst file into one file what will work with all installed distributions.

 

Thanks, lemur. I follow (and have done) most of what you've written; #3 I've actually read in other posts/forums, but am just unclear on how to go about doing this. Guess I need to do some more Googling and reading. The "optimal route" at this point is obviously beyond my level of sophistication, but I'll keep at it 'till things click. LOL

 

I think in Ubuntu, the installer asks explicitly but I did not pay much attention because I always install in the MBR. I don't know about other distributions.

 

I have it set up so that grub displays Windows XP and then the Vista bootloader. I installed XP before installing Vista Ultimate, so the clicking on the Vista bootloader takes me to a selection screen where I can choose between the two OSs (this won't work if you install XP after Vista). If you haven't done anything much with your setup and are willing to install everything again, I would say you format your hard drive and install everything in this order -> XP, Vista, Ubuntu. That way everything will be detected and you shouldn't have any problems.

 

it took me a week to tweak and configure both vista and xp setups ^_^

 

If I recall correctly, for Debian based installers, the installer needs to be in "Expert" install mode otherwise it will install GRUB to the MBR. When the optical media (CDROM or DVDROM) is first booted you can press the function keys for a few help pages - and on one of those pages it explains how to boot the CD into various installation modes. Oh, and don't be too frighten by expert mode, it just means that it asks lots of questions, so the installation takes a bit longer as you work through the question and they normally have sensible defaults.

Oh, and apologies to jl1989 for contributing to the hijacking of his enquiry for help.

 

Lol, so I'm guessing you're not willing to reinstall everything again?

Why not check out this guide that'll help you add XP to the Vista boot menu. You might have to skip some steps since you already have the Vista boot menu restored (you just want to add XP). If you get lost along the way, you can PM me and I can help you out...

 

So i'm extremely proud of myself and I can't believe how rediculously easy it was to triple boot xp/vista/linux with vista installed first.. I'll do a rundown of what i think i did.

**one harddrive

1. Install Vista
2. Install Xp
3. Install Linux/Grub
4. Use Vista install cd to repair the startup so it boots up to vista via grub
5. In linux, add the information to bootup from whatever partition XP is on in /boot/grub/menu.lst

(note i looked up commads on grub website and i did hide/unhide partitions)

6. In linux, go search your vista partition for NTLDR and NTdetect, copy and paste those over to XP partition.
7. In linux, copy and paste the boot.ini in vista over to your XP partition (make sure the boot.ini has right info for xp partition though)

8. I then renamed my vista boot.ini to boot.ini.backup, but i don't know if this will have any effects at all..

THere you gO! lol... :-/ me = happy happy happy now