Dual boot - Windows finds NTLDR on wrong disk

lyallp · Last edited by lyallp on Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:27 am; edited 1 time in total

I am having a world of pain with my Gentoo/Windows dual boot.

It works, but windows is looking for NTLDR on a disk which is not the windows boot disk. Whilst it works, I want to re-use that disk for a real OS, ie, Gentoo 64 bit, but until I sort out my dual boot issue, I can't do this.

I have 4 physical SATA disks installed, 2x750G and 2x1TB

I have currently setup the 2x750G as a software mirror for my linux parititions on these disks, for a total of around 150G, the remaining 500G is partitioned as NTFS and not raided. I did this so I would have some space for windows apps, as windows can't access my linux partitions. Also, I didn't use hardware raid or raid the NTFS partitions, one, because I couldn't get windows and linux to agree that they where raided and secondly, windows is unimportant to me so it didn't need the redundancy.

The remaining 2x1TB drives currently have windows XP installed on one and the other is the one I am about to try re-use.

The thing is, in order to install windows, I had to unplug my linux 750G drives, otherwise, windows wanted to take them over. Once the install was finished, I re-plugged in my linux drives, tweaked my grub and off I went.

The problem is, it appears that the 1TB drive that does NOT have windows on it seems to have the NTLDR on it and I can't seem to convince windows otherwise.

The only difference between the two disks MBR is the partition table and disk serial number.
/dev/sdd drive unique code, as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record#Disk_identity

A summary of my disks is as follows :-

wswartzendruber · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 5:53 am Post subject:

I'm confused as to which version of Windows you're trying to install. The only two I know of that do this are the NT6 series (Vista and 7).

lyallp · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 6:10 am Post subject:

Windows XP, it's already installed, works, dual boots. It's just finding the NTLDR on the wrong disk...
_________________
...Lyall

wswartzendruber · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 6:39 am Post subject:

What does \boot.ini say?

lyallp · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:28 am Post subject:

As mentioned in the original message (I edited it to specifically state BOOT.INI)

The problem is, this grub config loads up the NTLDR on /dev/sdb1, using the BOOT.INI, which contains

Knute · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 362 Location: Fargo, ND

So edit your boot.ini file and remove the offending entry.
_________________
Knute
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The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
-- Mark Twain

If you want proof of that, take a look at windows sometime.

lyallp · Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:50 pm Post subject:

I have another BOOT.INI on another disk, which is the one I want. Hence, I identified the one I don't want, so I know I am finding the right/wrong one.

If I remove or change the current BOOT.INI in any way, the windows system won't boot.

I think the problem is the arrangement of disks such that the MBR is looking in the primary interface, when the windows disk is in the secondary (or something similarly obscure).

My current feeling is I will have to re-arrange the physical plugs of the disks, potentially lose grub, temporarily, and re-install grub using the rescue disk. I just don't want to screw my system over completely.
_________________
...Lyall

Knute · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 362 Location: Fargo, ND

Why?

Go into bios, turn off all the disks that don't have windows on them.
Boot up to your windows disk, and start the recovery console and tell it to repair the installation.

Then, it should reset up your MBR and boot.ini, and everything else.

After that, make sure that windows boots up, then, reboot to the bios, turn the other disks back on, and you should be good.
_________________
Knute
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The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
-- Mark Twain

If you want proof of that, take a look at windows sometime.

lyallp · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:43 am Post subject:

This is basically how I ended up in this situation.
I unplugged my Linux disks so windows would leave them alone, I installed windows then re-enabled my linux disks and twiddled things till things booted.
Unplugging/disabling the linux disks simply leaves me with a working, bootable windows. nothing to repair. It's the fact that the windows disks are being shuffled around after I re-enable the linux disks, and I think windows is expecting to find itself in a particular place, that is my problem.
_________________
...Lyall

Knute · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 362 Location: Fargo, ND

Windows expects to find itself on the first partition of the first disk in the system.

From what you said, you left sdb and sdd active when you loaded windows. If you disable sdb as well, then windows should stop booting, and therefore there would be something to fix. Right?
_________________
Knute
----------
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
-- Mark Twain

If you want proof of that, take a look at windows sometime.