Too many OS's multi-booting causing XP to BSOD

[Re@lity]

I had a problem with a laptop runnning 2x installs of XP and 1x install of Linux.
I was also using Grub.

I think the problem was more due to having 2 installs of XP on the same
drive along with *nix, as it causes XP to start BSOD'ing (seems XP can't
get on with itself, let alone other OS's), but it's possible the solution I
found may be relevant here to, with a little tweaking?

Basically, instead of using Grub as the boot manager, which in turn
chainloads NTLDR when XP is to be booted, I reversed the chainload method.
I.E. I set up NTLDR as the default boot manager which would then chainload
Grub, when *nix is required.

It's a very simple process.

I assume, as usual, you have XP on the first primary (hda1)?

After installing *nix, make sure that Grub is loaded to the boot sector of
the partition it's installed on - NOT the MBR.

If you aready have Grub installed in the MBR, just boot a Win disc and use

drive:> fdisk /mbr

to wipe the MBR and preplace it with Win only.
If you have more than 1 installation of XP, use bootcfg at the recovery
console.

Now you have XP booting again but, just for the moment, no *nix.

Then use the BT cd to mount the *nix partition, chroot into it and re-
install Grub to the Linux partition boot sector from there:

On the box I was working on, *nix was on hda4 - you must edit this
accordingly

# grub
 grub> root (hd0,3)
 grub> setup (hd0,3)
 grub> quit

Now you have Grub in the boot sector of the *nix partition.
The boot sector is the first 512bytes of a partition.
Now just copy the first 512bytes to something like a usb stick, etc, using
dd:

# dd if=/dev/hda2 of=grub.mbr bs=512 count=1

Now boot back into XP and simply paste the file you made and copied to the
usb stick (grub.mbr) into the root of the C: drive.

Edit boot.ini to add the option to boot to *nix:

The simplest way to get to boot.ini, in an editable state, is to go to
System Properties ---> Advanced ---> Startup & Recovery ---> Edit.

Add to the end of boot.ini :

C:\grub.mbr="Backtrack"            <------- or whatever label you want

Now when you boot, NTLDR will be used, offering to boot XP or *nix.
When you choose your *nix installaton it will chainload Grub.
Grub will take over from there.

[Blessedbylight]

thx for ur tutor

[Berzerk]

Thanks for the tips. I like Grub also.
Not so sure about to many istalls of XP though. In the past Ive had 7 installs of Win O/S and a Nix or two on the Hard drives at the same time and have not experianced the problem you talk about here.

Not trying to be a pain just offering my own experiance with multi-booting lots of installs.

[Re@lity]

Thanks for the tips. I like Grub also.
Not so sure about to many istalls of XP though. In the past Ive had 7 installs of Win O/S and a Nix or two on the Hard drives at the same time and have not experianced the problem you talk about here.

Not trying to be a pain just offering my own experiance with multi-booting lots of installs.

I'm not sure of the exact reason for this, as after rectifying it I didn't want to go back over reproducing it again, as it was a customers laptop.
Basically, the sympton was both XP's BSOD'ing, always after a *nix boot, and was remedied by chainloading Grub (installed on *nix partition) from NTLDR in MBR.
It seems it may have been simply a weird Ubuntu handling problem, although I'm not sure why! Most references I found to this exact problem were in the Ubuntu site/wiki!
Yes, I agree with you, there shouldn't be a problem - I have never experienced this before with multi-boot systems, but it certainly seems to be a problem with Ubuntu being in the mix, if their wiki is anything to go by!