Dual Boot Linpus and XP - Idiots' Guide

Madlac, I'm trying to decipher your post.

You can boot to XP OK?

You cannot boot to Linpus? Just get a flashing cursor?

Or you cannot boot at all to anything? Flashing cursor?

The DEV directory (?) in Windows is empty? There is no DEV directory in Windows, are you talking about partitions?

I'm afraid I can't follow your post so try and calm down a bit and state clearly what is happening so that others can decipher the problem. Above all, in the good tradition of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy: DON'T PANIC!

 

Try to do the second part of point 15 while in gpart.. It worked for me!


Cheers,
Pedro

 

Sorry, I guess I'm too lazy to type .
Yes, I can boot into XP after changing grub.conf properly and hold down the TAB at boot to select it, and with a little utility I can see the Linpus partition from within XP ( ext2ifs). When I try to boot into Linpus, goes to black screen, no cursor and the caps lock LED starts to flash, to get it back I need to power it down.
I even tried to boot the gparted usb, mount sda1 and copy the /dev from usb to /dev on sda1, no luck. I guess it has to be built by the OS ? No /dev on the recovery DVD, in a log it says that /dev was located on the different filesystem and it hasn't been dumped. In hdc1.log.gz, sda1.log :"./dev/ tar: ./dev/: file is on a different filesystem; not dumped ".
I'm not a novice with computers/Winblows but just at the beginning of learning Linux

sda1, boot : linpus, e2fsck says linpus healthy, hasn't been resized or anything, I just split the original swap to create sda2 -FAT32
sda2 : micro xp
sda3 : linux swap, etc/fstab modified accordingly

 

First question for you: do you really want to use Linpus on your Acer? This is not a leading question. Although I went through the "challenge" of getting my AAO to dual boot, in hindsight I would have done better to format the hard disk and just install Windows XP on it. I thought that I might use Linpus but the truth of the matter is that I don't ever fire it up.

Assuming you really do want to use Linpus, let's explore a few options. Having a flashing cursor when attempting to boot into Linpus is, appparently a sign that your GRUB install is a bit knackered (although the fact you can boot to Windows is a mystery, to me anyway).

There are instructions on this very thread on how to reinstall GRUB so that it will boot to Linpus again (I'll leave to search the thread - all 15 pages!) as others have had the same issue after installing XP. Relatively straightforward to fix, involving the grub.conf file. DJ_Steve (the originator of the Guide text) left instructions on how to do this.

Of course, if you have amended /dev/sda1 in any way (eg copying from a USB stick!!!) then you may never boot it up for all I know (a bit like trying to replace the Windows folder, I should imagine). Even splitting the swap may have changed things around a bit. You may have to ask DJ_Steve for help if you get stuck, because like you, I have minimal Linux experience. Check the obvious in the grub.conf, such as partition numbers being correct.

Don't give up, just persevere. Have you loaded all the XP drivers OK?

 

Haha, I guess you're right, I hate to say it but I might just stick with Micro XP. I've tried to install XP full before and it was painfully slow on SSD, but micro xp is great so far, just have to rebuild some of the stripped functions I would like to use.
Drivers were a no brainer. I liked Linpus but some stuff just not available for linux and if it's a USB hardware, it won't run in Wine either ( like Vag-com for my car) so I needed XP no matter what.
As I said, grub looks ok, menu/splash screen comes up etc. I only copied /dev after I seen it's empty so I thought I have nothing to loose. I guess I screwed up something at step 15.

 

There is a setting for speeding up SSD disk accesses for the AAO when using XP. Mentioned many times in these forums, perhaps you had not set that?

 

I might have missed it indeed but nothing matches the Micro XP speed :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

Just want to share my experiences with following the guide for dual booting.

Overall the process went well although i did have issues but following the advice in this thread and the idiots guide I finally got there.

My main problem was I had issues with getting XP to boot from my external cd drive. Everytime I attached the drive via usb to the acer it shut down the external drive. The drive did have its own power supply so not too sure what was going on there.

Anyways I followed this guide http://komku.blogspot.com/2008/11/insta ... -disk.html to boot xp from a usb stick. This bit took ages, about 1h 20 minutes to prepare the install so dont try and do this in a rush (and try putting the kids to bed at the same time LOL)

So once i got a bootable usb disk with xp on I then had every error that everyone else seems to have had.

Hal.dll error in XP, the gpart software didn’t really seem to do anything with the boot order, flashing cursor in top left of screen. However with patience and reading I got there. I have a couple of errors on booting into both O/S’s but I think this is down to me not changing the boot files correctly so I will revisit this tonight. The only step I found a little dodgy was number 15 where I had to rebuild the linpus boot bit. Oh and those 1 (ones) do look like “L” s. I took about 3 attempts before the penny dropped.

So thanks to all the contributions in this thread and the guide, if anyone is struggling to get this working I will try and help as its still fresh in my head what I had to do to get it working

 

Hi
I've just been reading through the 'Dual boot Acer Aspire One 110/150 with Linpus & Windows XP' guide and have a couple of questions.

Currently I have Linpus & Ubuntu 8.10 installed as dual boot using Grub. This was as simple as booting from a LiveCD USB Key and letting Ubuntu sort it out.

But I'd like to add XP to the mix. What is the simplest way to do this ??

1. I could remove Ubuntu 8.10 and return the Acer to factory settings and start following this guide.. but at what point would I install Ubuntu ?
Is it just a matter of follow this guide and once this is working, let the Ubuntu LiveCD sort the Ubuntu & new Grub Installation ?

2. Is there anyway I can install XP without removing my current setup ??
(Linpus & Ubuntu have there own Swap Partitions, It would make sense to bring that into one.)

Any advise would be gratefully received.. Once I've done mine I'll have to sort my kids as well. (they have the same model with Linpus & Ubuntu)

Many Thanks

 

I don't see why you can't just install Windows in exactly the same way as specified in the Idiot's Guide, making allowance for the partition numbering.

Perhaps a knowledgeable Linux/Linpus person could comment (eg DJ_Steve)?

 

I shall revisit my web pages to see where this occurs and change the font. Have you any specific examples I could concentrate on?

 

General Note regarding Idiot's Guide to Dual Booting

If anyone has any suggestions or corrections for the guide do drop me a PM with details and I will endeavour to make it better!

Mind you, if you find it less than perfect you should have tried to follow DJ_Steve's original text, all lower case, no punctuation... (just kidding Steve, worked like a charm for me ).

 

hi,

In step 15

all the references do there

Oh and just thought of another bit to add to the guide if possible. On the

section the statement

gave me 10 minutes of fun and a lot of errors over filesystem not recognised. After a search on the forums I found out that you have to download the ntfs info before you can run this statement. This was the command to install the file system

Other than that top work.

 

Thanks. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions before i try this I would appreciate them.
Details on my partitions etc are here:
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=11009&start=0

Thanks

 

chroot doesn't work

I need help, please, i have destroyed grub! I have only a black screen.
when I follow the guide, this is what happen:

Code:

…
# chroot /sda1
chroot: cannot run command '/bin/zsh': No such file or directory
# grub-install /dev/sda
could not find device for /boot: Not found or not block device

Notes:
I started from an XP machine, so I Ghosted XP, then used a Linpus Recovery CD, then adjusted partition and ghosted back XP on dev/sda3.
The USB booting disk (for Gparted and grub editing) is a http://www.sysresccd.org/ 1.1.5
What am I missing?
Thank you ;-(

edit: I tried also to remove and reinstall grub as suggested in the guide and I obtained a non-booting system (no grub at all - black screen hanging). The only way to get back was to get back the ghost image of the linpus partition.
My system is an Acer One 150 bw model LG5 -please help!

 

Ok, got as far as the preparations stage up to .... "make USB drive bootable" button. Once complete quit live USB helper. Remove the drive from your computer and plug into your Acer Aspire One (AAO).

Booted from this on the AAO and it did not boot as described, it just went back into the linpus desktop / system ?

The whole idea as I see it is to get the AAO to boot into another linux then use the Gparted live to partition the hard drive for XP / Vista, then be able to dual boot into either system.

Seems straightforward, so why wont the b****y gparted usb drive boot on the AAO ?

Any ideas....

 

Ok silly question but did you hit f12 to get the ones boot device selection menu up? (May have to visit bios on one and enable this option if pressing f12 does not work)

 

@ dj steve

Hi Steve!

On the related subject of pressing F12 to boot from another disk, why is it that my external USB disk is not even recognised by the BIOS as a disk that can be booted from - it's totally ignored.

My pen drives (plugged into the same USB socket) are always shown.

Any ideas?

Best Regards
Aresby

 

Yes done this ... and it works fine when booting into the recovery AAO USB and will also boot XP / Vista (setup) from a USB.

I now need to get the HD partitioned to NTFS to get XP/Vista installed ..... gparted live is needed to do this according to the guide ....

 

sounds like the usb stick is not bootable. have you tried it on a differentpc just to confirmit boots