[sthapit]

I know this topic has been posted already, but I still am not able to get windows XP working properly. Here's what I did -

1. Windows XP Media Center was installed on C:
2. 2nd hard drive was installed on S:

Everything was working great. Then yesterday I bought another hard drive (SATA) and installed Ubuntu. Since it is a separate hard drive I thought it wouldn't mess up anything on C:, but now the GRUB interface shows up, even if I disconnect the new hard drive with Ubuntu. I tried doing this

1. Removed the new hard drive with Ubuntu
2. Put in XP Media Center CD and selected Recovery
3. C:\WINDOWS
CD ..
FIXBOOT C:
FIXMBR
BOOTCFG /rebuild
load identifier: Microsoft XP Media Center edition
load options: /fastdetect
Error: Error: Failed to add the selected boot entry to the boot list

Please help!

[danleff]

[sthapit]

[danleff]

OK, I was just yrying to see exactly where you were at. Answering these quesrions helped me to understand what you really did and what the bootloaders were doing, based on what drives were on the system.

What happens if you try these steps exactly as described in the article?

[sthapit]

I did the exact steps twice and I get the same error (Error: Failed to add the selected boot entry to the boot list).
The only thing I changed is that when it asks me for the load identifier I put in "Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition" instead of 'Microsoft Windows XP Home edition"

[danleff]

What message do you get after typing in bootcfg /rebuild directly after entering the recovery mode? No other commands, as suggested.

Do you get something like;

"The windows installation was successful"
"Total identified windows installed: (number)"

or straight to the error message?

[danaspen]

I have a workaround for the GRUB problem, though most people who have been working on the problem a while have probably already discovered it. Just leave a MS boot disc in the CD drive and let it time out. Then the machine should either boot to windows or present a boot option screen. I know its a pain in the ass, but I have tried most of the fixes mentioned and I have not gotten any of them to work yet.

[danleff]

There is never a need to settle for using the CD all the time.

The issue is that folks decide to install Linux next to XP and allow Grub to overwrite the boot sector of the primary drive, then try to either just delete the Linux partition, or in the case above, remove the second drive that Linux was installed on.

The problem with this, is that by just removing the partition or second drive, you remove the Grub reference files on the Linux partition to boot the system.

The solution in these cases is to rebuld the MS MBR. The method depends on what version of Windows that you are using. XP and Vista have different methods of creating the MBR, thus different methods are used to recover the MBR.

[vbman]

I just did the same thing.I had xp/vista and server 2003 and tried suse 10.3 but it didn't like my raid. I knew better but tried it anyways and thought maybe i could get something so it would recognize my raid config but it didnt. I redid xp and server, it didn't recognize vista though since I repaired from xp. I will just start from vista and they have a fix startup after repair options, but that WONT work to get rid of GRUB.
The . C:\WINDOWS
CD ..
FIXBOOT C:
FIXMBR
BOOTCFG /rebuild
routine worked, as i did for
D: and E: as well after fixing all 3 MBR's then I did the bootcfg /rebuild.