XP and Ubuntu Dual boot problem

[kg87]

Ok so basically, I had 8.04 and XP up a running on my laptop no problem. However after i restarted today, and tried to gain access to windows, the machine blacks out and restarts (bringing me to the OS selection screen?.. Vague i know, but thats all i've got. Xp is still there, and so is the ubuntu installation (i can boot into ubuntu).

The hard disk is fine, and i've tried fixmbr from recovery console to no avail!

Please help!

[A$h X]

So what's shown on the grub boot screen? Does it still have windows as an option?

[kg87]

Yes, Its still there, i can also hit return on it and it'll try to load, but other than that thats it. Also, It'll say "windows was not properley shut down" etc etc... and then restart, no matter what option is given

[MasterSander]

I don't know if the xp cds also have this option, but if you insert your vista installation disk you can select repair somewhere (with vista already installed ofc), perhaps that'll work? My vista got screwed up before and that solved it for me.

[kg87]

Nah, I dont have the Vista Installation CD (although i am using the vista theme for compiz (ftw! :P).

Is there anything i could upload like my Grub.lst to aid a solution?

[kg87]

Anyone?

[dstew]

It sounds like your Windows disk may have some errors on it. If you can boot a Windows recovery console, you can do chkdisk on the Windows partition. There are Linux tools that can also check a Windows file system. You can boot to Ubuntu, and on a command line enter
sudo fdisk -lto get a list of your partitions. The command fsck (http://linux.die.net/man/8/fsck) can be used to check the filesystems on the partitions. You can only use fsck on an unmounted file system. I do not know if it can repair a ntfs partition, though. You might need to use the Windows chkdisk program for that.

[kg87]

thanks for the suggestion i'll give that a go

[kg87]

Nope, nothing, I hope its not goosed.. :(

[kg87]

I think the problem would have been made easier if i hadn't of installed from windows (thinking "hey! what a great feature"), and installed on a separate partition

so it looks like im gonna have to format and start again, :@

[ubutufan]

Before reinstalling windows, try to locate the boot.ini file on the windows C: and post the results.
The way that I understand it from the (little) information you have provided is that there is something wrong with the windows boot.
You may use ubuntu to navigate to windows NTFS and locate the boot.ini file

[kg87]

---- SUBJECT CLOSED ----

backing up as we speak, issue not resolved, 6hrs of valuable coursework time wasted :'(