Windows XP does not boot after installing LXLE 14.04 in Dual-Boot

[410172]

(LXLE 14.04 -> LUbuntu LTS 14.04)

Hello,

A few days ago I found out that Windows 7 was a bit too much for one of my old computers. When searching for a replacement for Windows 7 OS I came across LXLE. I decided to try it out. As it is a Linux OS, I decided to make it dual-boot with an older Windows version, Windows XP, so that I still could play my old Windows games on the PC.

First, I installed Windows XP Home Edition. After I got that to work, I burned LXLE 14.04 (64-bit) onto a disk and installed that. It recognized the Windows OS and as selected it set up a dual-boot for me. I could set sizes for partitions in the installer and everything seemed fine. After installation, I restarted the computer and checked if all OSes were working. LXLE worked fine, yet I was not able to boot into Windows XP. It just showed a black screen with a flashing white stripe at the upper left. Normally you would see that for a few seconds before your OS would boot, nothing else happened though.

Booting back into LXLE, I used GParted to check whether the Windows partition had a boot flag, it had one so I installed Boot-Repair to see if it could find and fix any problems. It showed success, yet there was no change and Windows XP was still unaccessable. Link: paste.ubuntu.com/9766403.
I don't know why it is not working; I do know it is not a problem in the installation of Windows, as I started Windows normally without problems and made sure it was ok before I moved on to installing LXLE.

I did get this error when running the command "parted -l":
Error: /dev/zram0: unrecognised disk label

==============ls gives ls: cannot access : No such file or directory

=================== hexdump -n512 -C /dev/sda1: here are some Dutch lines in the text, they mean: Error in reading disk. NTLDR is missing. NTLDR is compressed. Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart.

I did not see anything else strange in the boot repair summary, I could be wrong though as I have no knowledge of it at all. Those things above just, well, took my attention.

I hope someone can tell me what went wrong and how I can get my Windows XP to boot again. If possible, without reinstalling the whole thing. Not because I need to save any data (did nothing with both OSes after installing yet), just because it takes a lot of time to do it all again.

Thanks in advance.

[nerdtron]

HHmmm.. windows partition is still intact. and ubuntu looks like installed correctly.

Can you boot into ubuntu and run update grub from the terminal:

sudo update-grub
You'll be asked for your password and asterisks will not be shown. press enter when you typed your password
Post the output of that command here.


Also, regarding your command parted -l, can you try it with sudo:

sudo parted -l

[efflandt]

When installing Linux along with Windows XP it is probably best to install WinXP on a limited size partition leaving unallocated space on the drive to install Linux.

Otherwise if WinXP is already installed, first make a note of its virtual memory size and disable that in Windows (similar to swap, which in Windows cannot be moved), then defrag the drive to make sure that all files are down low on the drive. Then from live/install Linux iso (on DVD or USB) shrink the Windows partition with gparted in Linux (which will mark the partition dirty), reboot Windows and let it do its drive check to make sure everything is fine. At that point you could re-enable virtual memory in Windows. Then install Linux.

If you do not disable virtual memory and defrag XP before shrinking its partition, the amount you can shrink its partition may be limited. I learned that many years ago when I could only shrink a 200 GB WinXP drive by 24 GB. Much later I discovered that I could free up 150 GB or more on that same drive by disabling WinXP virtual memory.

The procedure is different for Win7 (and maybe Vista) where you would use Windows' own Disk Management to shrink its partition.

[410172]

sudo update-grub gives me the following:

Generating grub configuration file...
Found background image: splash.png
Found Linux image: /boot/vm-linuz-3.13.0-38-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd/img-3.13.0-38-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition on /dev/sda1
Done

sudo parted -l gives:

Model: ATA Hitachi HDS72161 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3KB 100GB 100GB primary NTFS boot
2 100GB 160GB 60.0GB extended
5 100GB 157GB 57.3GB logical ext4
6 157GB 160GB 2673MB logical Linux-swap(v1)

Error: /dev/zram0: unrecognised disk label

I heard about the virtual memory issue. I did not do anything in Windows XP after installing except for changing screen resolution. I shut the computer down and started installing LXLE. I just got to swipe sizes for Windows and LXLE in the LXLE installer. The drive is 160 GB, so I got the following:
Windows XP Home Edition: 100 GB - LXLE 60.0 GB.
It installed and created a bootloader. Everything seemed fine until I tried to boot into Windows.

Thanks for the fast replies. I really apprieciate that.

[oldfred]

I might temporarily reinstall the Windows boot loader to the MBR and see if Windows boots. If not make repairs. Grub really only boots a working Windows system.
You can use Boot-Repair to install a Windows boot loader and later restore grub using advanced mode.
Or you just use your XP install disk to run fixMBR to restore a Windows boot loader.
Then run fixBoot and chkdsk.

XP CD fixboot
http://www.ehow.com/how_4891476_reinstall-xp-bootloader.html
Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users list of commands
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654
To run the Recovery Console from the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM, follow these steps:
1. Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.

Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted.
2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you must access from the Recovery Console.
4. When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
5. At the command prompt, type commands one at a time.

FIXMBR C: #do not run if you still want grub in the MBR
FIXBOOT C:
BOOTCFG /rebuild # rebuilds boot.ini
chkdsk c: /r

Do not use XP to go onto Internet. If games are older and run in XP, then may run in .wine, but you would have to test that.

[Mishy.hu]

Hi!

I had a very similar issue and I could manage to fix it last night!

This is my type of solution, I hope it will help some people in the future:

I had a system (Dell Latitude D620), which had a Windows XP Pro which came with the laptop when I bought in 2007.
It has changed it's home several times in the last years, even to larger HDD or same with no issues.
Last move included an OS (Linux distro) change also.
New system is a Xubuntu 14.04.
The new HDD was formatted with a new set of system tools, specially the fdisk is different.
On new system the starting block for the first partition is 2048 insted of the old 63!

Basically I had also a lonly blinking cursor when I tried to boot the XP.

If I booted with Windows XP CD-ROM, then used Repair, 1, ENTER, Admin-PWD:
FIXMBR
FIXBOOT
BOOTCFG /REBUILD
this last one gave me error about damaged FS
CHKDSK C: /R fixed it, but later on there was no reported "fixed" message on next CHKDSK, but "BOOTCFG" still errored.

After REBOOT:
"Error loading operating system"
message was the only sign of the Windows.

The system:

Old HDD:
Seagate Momentus 7200.4
ST9500420AS
500 GB

partitions:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 63 15020774 7510356 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc2 15020775 63263969 24121597+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3 63263970 63456749 96390 83 Linux
/dev/sdc4 63456750 976768064 456655657+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc5 63456813 123475589 30009388+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc6 123475653 142239509 9381928+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc7 142239573 153195839 5478133+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc8 153195903 177437924 12121011 83 Linux
/dev/sdc9 177437988 976768064 399665038+ 83 Linux


New HDD:
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB

partitions:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 15022760 7510356+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 15022761 16071336 524288 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 16071337 162871976 73400320 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 162871977 1942871977 890000000+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 162874025 246760104 41943040 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda6 246762153 257247912 5242880 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 257249961 269832872 6291456 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 269834921 278223528 4194304 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9 278225577 1942871977 832323200+ 83 Linux

Procedure:
CAUTION! You can definitely DAMAGE your system if you mistype something here!
USE IT FOR YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!

This step can be done under your Linux system, but I did it under a Live Xubuntu 14.04 using the installer USB-stick.
I copied to the /home partition (which lays on /dev/sda9 in my case; => of=/tmp/MOUNTED-SYSTEM/home/sda1)
but if one has way larger Win-partition, or small room on Linux, may use an external HDD to do so.

Save the Windows partition (in my case WINPARTITION=/dev/sda1)
Open a terminal (ie: CTRL+ALT+T)
sudo su -
dd if=/dev/$WINPARTITION of=/some/path/to/$BACKUP

delete and recreate the Windows-partition:
root@xubuntu:~# fdisk -c=dos /dev/sda
d # delete
1 # partition 1
n # new
p # primary
1 # partition 1
First sector (63-1953525167, default 63):<ENTER> Using default value 63
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (63-15022760, default 15022760): 15020774 # This one is the calculated end, from your actual saved partition size
t # FS-type
1 # partition 1
7 # HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
a # make it active
1 # partition 1
w # write it to the disk

At this point I got:
WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
hdparm -z /dev/sda also failed.Reboot the LIVE-Linux, the partitions now OK. There is a small gap between the first two partition, but it is a small price for the benefit:
...
/dev/sda1 * 63 15020774 7510356 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 15022761 16071336 524288 83 Linux
...

Copy the Windows back:
su -
mount your backup partiotion/disk again if needed (where the partition backed-up before)
in my case
mkdir /tmp/MOUNTED-SYSTEM
mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/MOUNTED-SYSTEM # this point is not important
mount /dev/sda9 /tmp/MOUNTED-SYSTEM/home
dd if=/tmp/MOUNTED-SYSTEM/home/sda1 of=/dev/$WINPARTITION # of=/dev/sda1 in this case

If you reboot now from HDD it should start right into Windows!

Now you can reinstall GRUB2
Reboot into Live-Linux:
Open terminal
su -
mkdir /tmp/system
Mount the complete Linux partition hierarchy
In my case
mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/system
mount /dev/sda2 /tmp/system/boot
....
then:
mount --bind /sys /tmp/system/sys
mount --bind /proc /tmp/system/proc
mount --bind /dev /tmp/system/dev
chroot /tmp/system
grub-install /dev/sda
exit
reboot

You are all set!

[oldfred]

@mishy.hu

You do not want to use the old sector start of 63 with any new 4K hard drive nor SSD. The purpose is to make sure you do not have to write to two sectors every time.
And XP does not support ACHI, so you will not be running trim, so once SSD gets full it will slow down even more.

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linux-on-4kb-sector-disks/
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-4kb-sector-disks/index.html
Alignment 2048 sectors Advanced Format drives
http://askubuntu.com/questions/201164/proper-alignment-of-partitions-on-an-advanced-format-hdd-using-parted