r.nicholas Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medo3891 Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 Do you have a option to load vista in GRUB (the bootloader)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.nicholas Posted August 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reiver_Fluffi Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 (edited) Looks like the installer/you did not add a grub entry for Vista. Try adding the following to your grub.conf: title Windows Vista rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 Edited August 6, 2008 by Reiver_Fluffi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.nicholas Posted August 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 i ran a few searches and can't seem to find grub.conf. where would it be located? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 /boot/grub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reiver_Fluffi Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 i ran a few searches and can't seem to find grub.conf. where would it be located? Sorry I meant menu.lst (some distro's use menu.lst, some use grub.conf). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.nicholas Posted August 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 strange... there is no grub.conf in my /boot/grub directory. could it be named something else? im fairly confident that im not missing it, i searched my entire hd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.nicholas Posted August 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 ok, so i tried adding the code but it says i do not have write access. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 Seems you did not follow Reivers advice and look for menu.lst. It most definately in /boot/grub/menu.lst if you are using Mandriva. In Madriva there is no grub.config Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.nicholas Posted August 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viking777 Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.nicholas Posted August 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted August 6, 2008 Report Share Posted August 6, 2008 (edited) 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 August 6, 2008 by ffi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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