Dual Boot XP Stopped Working

[gus_zernial]

I have a dual-boot system Kubuntu 9.04 and Windows XP. The Windows boot option in grub stopped working - I now get the message (systemroot)\system32\hal.dll missing or corrupt. hal.dll is not missing, and I've tried replacing hal.dll, replacing boot.ini, and running fixboot from the windows recovery console, all to no avail.

In my system, Kubuntu runs on Linux Software RAID with two disks, and Windows XP is on a partition on one of the two disks. Various relevant config files are below - note that this config worked for some time before it failed (BTW I suspect the cause of the failure could be from writing files to the WinXP partition from Linux, but that doesn't mean I know how to fix the problem).

Anyone know how to fix this?

-------------------------------
$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000efd49

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 6079 48829536 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda2 6080 54953 392580405 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 * 54954 60800 46966027+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 6080 6322 1951866 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 6323 54953 390628476 fd Linux raid autodetect

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000558d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 6079 48829536 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sdb2 6080 54953 392580405 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 6080 6322 1951866 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6 6323 54953 390628476 fd Linux raid autodetect

Disk /dev/md0: 50.0 GB, 50001346560 bytes
2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 12207360 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8 * 512 = 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/md0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/md1: 800.0 GB, 800006864896 bytes
2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 195314176 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8 * 512 = 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/md1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

-------------------------------
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
# menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
# grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
# grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
# and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/.

title Ubuntu jaunty (development branch), kernel 2.6.28.9r2
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.28.9r2 root=/dev/md1 ro quiet splash crashkernel=384M-2G:64M@16M,2G-:128M@16M
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.28.9r2

title Ubuntu jaunty (development branch), kernel 2.6.28.9r2 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.28.9r2 root=/dev/md1 ro crashkernel=384M-2G:64M@16M,2G-:128M@16M single
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.28.9r2

title Windows XP
root (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

--------------------------------
$ cat /mnt/WinXP/boot.ini
[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

-------------------------------------------
$ ls -l /mnt/WinXP/WINDOWS/system32/hal.dll
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 134400 2008-04-13 22:01 /mnt/WinXP/WINDOWS/system32/hal.dll

[gus_zernial]

After some research I solved my own problem, and I wanted
to post the answer in case others encounter this. The answer
was that I needed to change the boot.ini file to refer to partition 2 rather than partition 3. Altho /dev/sda3 is the actual Windows partition, apparently Windows does not consider extended partitions in their numbering scheme, so from Windows standpoint the installation is on Partition 2.

[pythonscript]

Thanks for the information! This will definitely come in useful as RAID becomes more popular.