Grub won't boot to windows!

[Lepy]

So, I got a new 500 gig WD Caviar Black that is quite speedy and wanted to use it as my OS drive.

I installed WinXp and then Win7RC (recognized as sdc5 and sdc6 respectively in gparted) and used gparted's copy function to transfer my Ubunty 32 and 64 bit installs as well as my home folder to ext3 partitions I created on the Caviar (recognized as sdc9, sdc10, and sdc8 respectively). I used the remaining space as an ntfs partition for storage/program installs until I can get my 1TB Raid 1 setup.

After all of this, I used to the gparted CD to mount my 32bit install (sdc9), found the grub menu, and installed it on the mbr of the 500gig.

Now, both the 32 and 64 bit ubuntu installs are recognized, boot up, and share the home folder flawlessly, but I can't get the right menu.lst setting to let the windows installs boot. Instead I get an "Error 12: Invalid device requested" message no matter the combination I try.

sudo fdisk -l gives me this for the WD Caviar:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 2 12058 96847852+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc2 * 12059 60801 391528147+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc5 2 1403 11261533+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc6 1404 5228 30724281 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc7 5229 5483 2048256 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc8 5484 8670 25599546 83 Linux
/dev/sdc9 8671 10455 14337981 83 Linux
/dev/sdc10 10456 12058 12876066 83 Linux


I hope I have just missed something simple as I do not want to have to transfer or install 4 different operating systems again, having wasted enough time.

[logos34]

you tried

root (hd0,1)

?

is the 500 gb set as your boot disk in the bios?

[Lepy]

logos, I can't thank you enough!

Your suggestion was just the trick. Now, selecting the windows grub entry calls up the windows7 boot menu, allowing me to access xp or the release candidate.

The 500 gig was always set as the 1st boot HDD in the bios, and I know I tried (hd0,0), (hd0,4), and (hd0,5), but I guess I had never thought to try the partiton marked boot (/dev/sdc2 = root(hd0,1), well DUH?!?!).

I've been playing with Ubuntu for a few months now, but there is always something new to learn. Thanks again!

[logos34]

glad to help.

This confuses a lot of people. Whenever you install windows on logical partitions inside an extended partition (sdc1), what happens is the windows installer looks for an ntfs or fat32 PRIMARY partition to put the boot files on so windows bootloader (on the MBR) can find it (it only searches primary partitions).

There's no way to prevent windows from doing this, even if you're using grub or another bootloader to chainload windows. (well, there is something called 'hide', but that's for two windows partitionms on primary partitions). Anyway, that's basically what's happening.

enjoy