Problem with grub and XP

[hiKen]

What do you get when you type

sudo fdisk -lu

This will show you the partition table with Start and End numbers given in sectors. Maybe your partition table is okay, but the partitions do not end at cylinder boundaries.

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xff620747

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048   167774207    83886080    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2   *   167774208   209717247    20971520    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3       209717248   450889727   120586240    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4       450896355   488392064    18747855    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       450896418   486737369    17920476   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       486737433   488392064      827316   82  Linux swap / Solaris

What to you think?

[caljohnsmith]

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xff620747

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048   167774207    83886080    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2   *   167774208   209717247    20971520    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3       209717248   450889727   120586240    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4       450896355   488392064    18747855    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       450896418   486737369    17920476   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       486737433   488392064      827316   82  Linux swap / Solaris

What to you think?

Yes, Unutbu was right, your partitions look fine.

I think your best bet would be to follow post #16 in that first thread that Unutbu recommended. That should make sure your Windows boot files are OK and that your Windows partition boot sector is OK too. That second link that Unutbu gave is the direct link to post #16, so you can just use that. Let us know how it goes.

[hiKen]

root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mkdir /windows
root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mount /dev/sda2 /windows
root@joao-laptop:~# ls /windows
Documents and Settings  MSNCleaner    RaidTool       System Volume Information
Fraps                   pagefile.sys  RECYCLER       WINDOWS
Intel                   Programas     splendid.info

From what I understood, there should be some boot.ini, NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM files in here, but the thing is that I don't remember having any of these files in this directory (well, at least not NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM).
Are you sure this is the right directory where these files should be?

[caljohnsmith]

root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mkdir /windows
root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mount /dev/sda2 /windows
root@joao-laptop:~# ls /windows
Documents and Settings  MSNCleaner    RaidTool       System Volume Information
Fraps                   pagefile.sys  RECYCLER       WINDOWS
Intel                   Programas     splendid.info

From what I understood, there should be some boot.ini, NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM files in here, but the thing is that I don't remember having any of these files in this directory (well, at least not NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM).
Are you sure this is the right directory where these files should be?

It looks to me like you have the wrong partition. Try the following:

sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo mkdir /mnt/sda3
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3
ls -l /mnt/sda1
ls -l /mnt/sda3

Please post the output.

[hiKen]

here it is:

root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mkdir /mnt/sda3
root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
root@joao-laptop:~# sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3
root@joao-laptop:~# ls -l /mnt/sda1
total 0
root@joao-laptop:~# ls -l /mnt/sda3
total 85
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  4096 2008-06-10 01:49 [...]
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  8192 2008-08-29 15:47 [joao]
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root     0 2008-03-27 22:42 [audio]
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root   572 2008-06-15 23:44 autorun.inf
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  4096 2008-08-29 16:05 backup
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12288 2008-09-05 16:33 [filmes]
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  4096 2008-08-16 15:57 [imagens]
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40960 2008-09-05 16:34 [jogos]
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root     0 2008-07-29 23:46 $RECYCLE.BIN
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root     0 2008-08-17 15:54 RECYCLER
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  4096 2008-08-30 17:30 [series]
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  4096 2008-08-17 22:42 [software]
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  4096 2008-08-16 19:23 System Volume Information
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root     0 2008-06-17 23:12 [um]

sda1 was recently formatted, so it is still empty, and sd3 is a data partition, so there is not any boot files in there....

[caljohnsmith]

Yes, I wasn't looking closely enough at your directory listing for sda2, but that looks like it is indeed your Windows partition. You are definitely missing your boot files, so go to the post Unutbu gave you and click on the link in that post to download the Windows boot files. I think you will have to edit the "boot.ini" file though, since your Windows is actually on the second partition. Just save those files you download into your sda2 root directory, and then post the contents of the "boot.ini" file. If you need any more details/info let me know.