Linux_Fan Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 On a free primary partition I installed WinXP, besides Win 98 and Linux. Now, with LILO as boot manager, WinXP does not boot well. It starts to boot, but in it's second stage (where the 'knight rider' bar is shown) suddenly a blue screen appears with the message: "autochck program not found - skipping AUTOCHECK". I have already search on this forum for help and found some messages. The conclusions in these messages were that when the MBR is overridden with that of Linux (LILO), the partition of WinXP is no longer recognized. The NTFS partition becomes hidden and one should unhide this partition with a tool like FDISK or Partition Magic [PM]. I did this with the DOS-version of PM. But without results. The problem still resists. Please give me useful information or better a solution to solve this problem! The situation: Win98 is installed one the first primary partition. On the third partition, an extended one, Linux is installed. Lately, I installed on the second (also primary - NTFS) partition WinXP in place of OS/2. Before WinXP, I was able to make via LILO a selection of one of the three OS (Win98 - OS/2 Warp - Linux MD 8.0) to boot. Worked fine without any problems. After I installed WinXP, Microshit (I'm sorry Microsoft) overrides the MBR and installs his own boot manager with the selection of Win98 and WinXP professional. Till so far also no problem, because at that level I was able to boot both OS. The action was to bring back the LILO boot manager. I did this with '/SBIN/LILO' as root. I can boot Linux. When I select win98, the MS boot manager (or boot loader) appears. Within this menu selecting Win98 boots Win98l, but when I select WinXP, it start to boot but halfway it hangs. See describtion above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 Im no big expert on this but i think the problem rests with the XP bootloader. This lets you dual boot into Win98 or XP and therefore can't be a standard DOS bootloader like win98. In otherwords its loaded first and then reloactes the boot process. Im guessing what your doing is using lilo which selects either the Win98/XP or Linux. When you choose XP its not actually loading XP but the XP bootloader. I had this problem a long time ago (2000) when I first installed Win2000. If I remember I solved it using a DOS MBR and then used Partition magic to boot either 2000 or Linux. 2000 then gave me the further option of Win98 or win2000. Hope this either help you or prompts someone else with actual XP experience to expand or solve it another way and prove me wrong :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 I dual boot between Linux and Win2K (desktop) and Linux and WinXP on my laptop. Both versions of Windows quite happily co-exsist. What happens on my machines is that when you select Windows in Lilo it then loads the windows boot manager instead of going straight to Windows. The fact that your using NTFS for Windows shouldn't be a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linux_Fan Posted September 3, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 I don't have a problem with the fact that when I select Win98/WinXP in LILO the bootloader of MS is loaded. The problem is when I then select WinXP it starts-up, but half-way hangs with the message as described in my first message. My question is: how can I fix this problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 Use 1 bootloader, not two. lilo handles as many as you need just fine. I have xppro and usually two different versions of linux installed with no problems. In lilo, you should not have a winn98/xp choice. Each should be available for boot seperately. Using the first install disk, boot, hit escape, type rescue, and restore the mbr, then reinstall lilo. Should be fine. Lilo should find all bootable os's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 Using the first install disk, boot, hit escape,...you mean F1 :wink: Linux_Fan, already has lilo in the mbr so what good is rescue going to do? I do not have XP , but this is an XP prob, not Linux. I've heard, but can't recall what, that there's something you can do concerning the XP bootloader....d/k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 Yes, F1 :P Perhaps I have misunderstood, but it seemed that he is booting lilo and then has a selection for the xp bootloader which gives him 98 or xp. At least, that is what I read. The only xp boot issue I have read about deals with ntfs, which should only be used by masochists. :lol: Seriously, I used it only for security on a server program partition, and never on a partition containing key data. If your worried about security at home, use linux! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 he is booting lilo and then has a selection for the xp bootloader which gives him 98 or xp.correct. Is the XP botloader smart enough to install itself on a win partition without asking? They're not both in the mbr, and Linux_Fan wouldn't get lilo if it wasn't in the mbr so????...2+2= _ :wink: ...but how to remove or disable?...that's the question. I could be way off, but if so, I'll need to go back to school :lol: I would reinstall the XP bootloader from the XP cd then reinstall lilo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted September 4, 2003 Report Share Posted September 4, 2003 OK, I'll go for that. But, he should remove lilo before reinstalling the xp bootloader. Otherwise, xp may mess with more than it should! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted September 4, 2003 Report Share Posted September 4, 2003 ... The NTFS partition becomes hidden and one should unhide this partition with a tool like FDISK or Partition Magic [PM]. I did this with the DOS-version of PM. But without results. The problem still resists. Assuming that - your boot.ini is ok - your lilo.config is ok i would first take a look at the partition table, try the Linux way: # cfdisk -P /dev/hda (you might want to change the partition flag) I guess your version of DOS/Partition Magic does not like NTFS. __________________ PM is evil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 4, 2003 Report Share Posted September 4, 2003 I think this is a relocation problem. I don't know the lmits of the XP bootloader but i guess its something to do with the physical sectors on the disk. I don't remember exact details but for instance Win98 or old lilo version have to be in the first XX MB. My feeling is he's bootstrapping lilo when then tells it to load an OS from /dev/hda(x). BUT its not an OS its the WinXP bootloader. Since its Win$ and undocumented its hard to know what it does! In 2000 aren't the partitions the Win 2K bootloader can be on limited? I remember being able to hack this though. Its in some ini file in the root directory, apart from being able to tell it to do fun/stupid things like say Starting Win2Late (which gave me endless hours of fun) you can also define if it boots one OS or multiple. If as it sounds he chose to install Win98 and WinXP on different partitions then you can hackthis file so it runs only the WinXP bootloader. Then, as IXthusdan is suggesting they can all be controlled frfom Linux bootloaders (lilo/grub) Thinking back my hack with PMagic then 2K bootloader only worked if they were both installed on /hda1 ... I think if theyre seperate you can just get them to run the OS boot process directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted September 4, 2003 Report Share Posted September 4, 2003 I've put my win2k partitions in many places and haven't had problems. Can the XP bootloader be bypassed? Eg. edit your boot.ini file and remove the win98 (backup first). Set the default to XP and the timeout to a small value. Then setup lilo to book win98. XP should do the same thing. I don't believe this is a physical problem. However, as a suggestion, I would put your linux on a separate drive so as to minimize the risk of snafuing your partition table by using a windows utility to manage linux partition formats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linux_Fan Posted September 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2003 Here is how my partitions are organised: hda1 --> primary, Win98 hda2 --> primary, was OS/2, is now WinXP hda3 --> extended, contains the partitions for Linux and two FAT32 partitions (hda5 to hda10) In the past I had three OS (Win98, OS/2 and Linux) which I could boot whit LILO without any problems. As I installed WinXP (on the partition, which contained OS/2), the installation-program automatically searches the disk(s) for other MS installations. It does it all by itself, without giving a user a choose whether or not to install a bootloader. So, the installation-program of Win XP stores the bootloader with some boot-files on the partition of Win98 and overrides the MBR. As I restart my computer the bootloader appears with a selection of either Win98 or WinXP. Both OS could be started; no problems. Because, I wanted have the choose of booting Linux a boot time also and LILO worked fine, the logical thing to do seems to set back LILO. That means overriding the MBR with /SBIN/LILO. The result is when the computer restarts, LILO appears. When I choose Linux, it boots without problems. When I select the former Win98 option, the bootloader of MS appears with two options: WinXP or Win98. Selecting Win98 within the bootloader, start Win98 without problems. But here it comes: when I select WinXP it starts to boot WinXP. But halfway it hangs with the error-message I described in my other two messages. What I don't understand is that MS bootloader obviously finds the right files and partition to start booting WinXP, but than stops with a message that a file (autocheck) not could be found. This is strange. So, when the bootloader can be started from the MBR, WinXP can be booted successfully. But when it is started via another boot manager, it is able to boot WinXP but when the process is almost done it hangs. This problem drives me almost mad and makes be a bit angry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 5, 2003 Report Share Posted September 5, 2003 Think that might be it. Is this it... When I select the former Win98 option, the bootloader of MS appears with two options: WinXP or Win98. Selecting Win98 within the bootloader, start Win98 without problems. In other words WinXP replaced the boot loader of Win98, it must be considering the MBR on the win98 partition (hda1) as its boot partition so it sets itself up to be booted from that and writes its own bootloader over the bootloader for Win98. Thin it created the boot.ini and if I remember does some stuff to system.ini. Im not exactly sure but I remember the 2 files ... Anyway, I'd expect its only half a bootloader for XP. Remember Win98 must boot from the first hda1 .. WinXP can boot from elsewhere... But perhaps its divided the bootloader in two... the first part and the second part (on the hda2) and the second part takes some input from the first! But you replace the first with lilo MBR... I think if you do as connonfodder is suggesting this is halfway. You need to make XP boot thinking its the only OS (IMHO). Basically, we can only speculate, who knows how XP works really? But I think this is the right track! Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted September 6, 2003 Report Share Posted September 6, 2003 OK, try grub. It has more options and maybe it has one that can get you past this. google=grub/XP http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-faq.en.html http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Multiboot-with-GRUB.html http://www.mcc.ac.uk/grub/grub_toc.html Another option, though slow, is to make bootfloppies to boot to linux and let XP boot win. :roll: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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