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bootloader cannot find vista [solved]


r.nicholas
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hello, i recently installed mandriva spring 2008 from an iso and then used mandriva live install to resize my windows vista partition. after following the instructions, i restarted my computer but found that the bootloader did not recognize my vista intall. i was worried that i overwrote vista but i checked and found that all the data was still intact. being a noob, im sure that i either screwed something up irrevicably during install or am missing something rather simple. any ideas?

 

by the way, i've been very impressed so far with mandriva and look forward to a time when i don't have to bother with vista at all. thanks.

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What's the contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst? Can you post it here, and we'll take a look in case something is a miss.

 

I had Vista on my machine and I resized it and then installed Linux later. Normally if you checked the disk for errors and then resized it should have been OK. So am surprised that if it was there before, and now isn't booting, it could be due to partitioning issues being re-ordered perhaps. But let's check the grub config first before we go further.

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here is the content of menu.lst ::

 

timeout 10

color black/cyan yellow/cyan

gfxmenu (hd0,4)/boot/gfxmenu

default 0

 

title linux

kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=147bba9b-0970-4c13-a106-caabc44dfbba resume=/dev/sda6 splash=silent vga=788

initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

 

title linux-nonfb

kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=147bba9b-0970-4c13-a106-caabc44dfbba resume=/dev/sda6

initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

 

title failsafe

kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=147bba9b-0970-4c13-a106-caabc44dfbba failsafe

initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

 

title desktop586 2.6.24.4-1mnb

kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24.4-desktop586-1mnb BOOT_IMAGE=desktop586_2.6.24.4-1mnb root=UUID=147bba9b-0970-4c13-a106-caabc44dfbba resume=/dev/sda6 splash=silent vga=788

initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd-2.6.24.4-desktop586-1mnb.img

 

title desktop586 2.6.24.5-2mnb

kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24.5-desktop586-2mnb BOOT_IMAGE=desktop586_2.6.24.5-2mnb root=UUID=147bba9b-0970-4c13-a106-caabc44dfbba resume=/dev/sda6 splash=silent vga=788

initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd-2.6.24.5-desktop586-2mnb.img

 

 

thanks again for the help.

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actually, it will not allow me to edit menu.lst ... this is the full error message when i try to save the file...

 

The document could not be saved, as it was not possible to write to file:///boot/grub/menu.lst.

Check that you have write access to this file or that enough disk space is available.

 

i definitely have enough disk space. thanks again for the quick responses.

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You cannot edit files owned by root unless you use a root editor. You don't say if you are using KDE or Gnome so I will give you 2 options. First press Alt/F2 then if you are using KDE type

 

kdesu kwrite

 

if you are using Gnome I think the equivalent is

 

gksu gedit

.

 

TIP. When you have got it all going, go to the software installer and get yourself a copy of 'Krusader' which has a root mode and saves you all the typing nonsense.

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thanks for all the help.... unfortunately my vista install appears to be corrupted and unusable. i contacted lenovo (the laptop manufacturer) as well as microsoft and they said the only real hope to get vista working is to order a rescue disk from lenovo. as frustrating as it is, at least i have all my music and personal files still intact... i guess that's what i get for hastily installing a second os without really knowing what im doing.

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I wouldn' t give up hope so fast. It sounds more like a trivial permissions error than anything else

 

edit: you would not have gotten into a gui with mandriva if it were unable to write to the root directory (where 99% sure /boot/grub/menu.lst is located too), if the disk cannot be mounted read/write the graphical enviroment will fail to start and dump you to a console (dos-like screen)

Edited by ffi
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