Installed Porteus after Windows XP...now broke. [Solved]

[donald]

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Hi Ed
I'm really a big big fan of disk imaging programs
I got used to them back in the (windows) days..long,long ago.
It was "power quest's" drive image.Having this program at hand,
I completely lost the fear of damaging my system.
(you can't even imagine how often I tweaked my system to death)
This is the best way to learn how things work..by simply doing them..without the fear to damage the OS

In the Linux world we have e.g. clonezilla for this task
about speed / time:
Imaging a 40 GB disk (in a 14 years old box) was done in less than 7 min.
because only used sectors are backed up (compressed) not the empty space.
restoring the Image is even faster and yes, the MBR is included.

I admit that one have to get familiar with clonezilla before one can use it's full potential.

However let us stay on topic (again)..

[tome]

Most important - this method won't work:
Install XP -> install Porteus bootloader on the same partition -> possibility to boot XP.

Maybe you have had ntldr and boot.ini on second partition and Windows directories on first.

Only solution in this way is to modify boot.ini
You can see at http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=4457

[Ed_P]

It was "power quest's" drive image.Having this program at hand,

I remember Power Quest's Drive Image and Partition Manager, before Norton bought them. Favorite apps for a long time.

In the Windows world I use Drive Image XML. And run restores with it via BartPE.

In the Linux world we have e.g. clonezilla for this task

Unfortunately Porteus doesn't have clonezilla. Not even in USM.

about speed / time:
Imaging a 40 GB disk (in a 14 years old box) was done in less than 7 min.

Wow!! Mine usually takes longer but the hdd is much larger.

Most important - this method won't work:
Install XP -> install Porteus bootloader on the same partition -> possibility to boot XP.

An interesting approach. And while you say it won't work this way it will if the Porteus bootloader step is replaced with a grub4dos bootloader step. XP and Porteus can exist, and boot, on the same partition. Porteus just needs a save.dat file for persistence.

You can see at http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=4457

An interesting posting tome.

[phhpro]

...

[francois]

I remember the menu.lst from my old grub days (openSUSE 11.4), but could not find it anywhere on Porteus. There is no "/boot" directory.
I tried adding what you indicated in the porteus.cfg file instead, but that did not show up as a menu option.

Grubconfig will create the boot directory itself.

Given your fdisk output:

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...
/dev/sda1              63   268818431   134409184+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2   *   268818432   390721535    60951552   83  Linux

1.0 With the porteus cd or usb key, install /boot and /porteus folders of porteus on sda2 directly (copy-paste).

2.0 Create the boot directory and install grub legacy on sda1 and sda respectively:

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root@porteus:~# grubconfig

Then add the following input to the four requests of information:

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simple 
standard 
/dev/sda2 
/dev/sda

That is it (see the bottom note).
before rebooting:

2.0 Inserting in the menu.lst instructions. Make sure that the two entries begining with title appear just after the timeout instructions:

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timeout 10 #10 seconds time out to choose between the options, personnally I prefer 3 instead of 10

title Win Vista/7 (loader) at sda1 #if inserted first this will boot windows automatically after the timout specified
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title porteus  on sda2   KDE or XFCE or ...
root (hd0,1) # sda1 is identified as (hd0,1) 0 for first hdd, 1 for second partition (the first hdd or partition being 0)
kernel /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz from=/dev/sda2 changes=EXIT:/ login=root # will log you in root mode and will create a save changes partition in /
initrd /boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
boot

Note: In the /mnt/sda2/boot folder you will have a new folder installed by grubconfig /boot/grub/ including the menu.lst file. This is the file to focus on.Forget about syslinux for the rest of the manipulations. Do not reboot now as you would like porteus to boot also.
If you would reboot now you could choose the windows option:

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Win Vista/7 (loader) at sda1

However, porteus is not recognised yet.

[Ed_P]

Chances are, he has the boot flag set on both partitions,

Wow, there's something I never considered. Is it possible?

francois, you do realize that rgroner posted that quote 2 weeks ago.

[phhpro]

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[thom_A]

The more the thread grew the more complicated it became.

Still busy, are we? hehe... and still not solved. Funny, how I didn't think of this before, but having had a quick fly-over last night, I stumbled across a line, where the OP mentioned boot disk error or so. Chances are, he has the boot flag set on both partitions, which of course will never work.

Boot off a live disk, which has gparted; most have; run gparted and wait for the partitions to be loaded. May take a moment, just be patient. Now check the flags. If both partitions are set bootable, remove the b flag from the Porteus partition, save changes, remove the disk, and reboot. With some luck your XP comes back in all its glory.

This post doesn't even make sense to me. As the title suggests, the OP wants a dual boot. The post above doesn't indicate whether you can dual boot, or merely recover XP. If that is the case, he would have just re-installed XP.

And in the ideal world, the post above would have been the easiest. If he was able to boot Porteus, but lost XP, then he could have just used Porteus' Gparted and did what you posted here.

[Bogomips]

@thom_A

Unfortunately you seem to be one post behind. After several failed attempts, it seems that at last someone is on the right track.

[francois]

@phhpro:
To my knowledge the installation with grubconfig (grub legacy) will override whatever flag there is. But you suggestion is surely worth trying. In fact I did not know about it.

I went to the dump this weekend to get rid of old window stores and found a desktop computer. It came with two hdd (75 and 150 gig), an intact win7. It is a Dell optiplex 745. The old owner was a gamer from what he left on the hdd.

With grubconfig I installed porteus on it within less than 10 minutes with an already functional porteus usb key. This included the download of porteus 3.1 xfce iso. I had an old version of porteus on the usb key with the grubconfig.xzm module on it. I used gparted and fdisk to have an idea of the structure of the box.

@bogomips:
And what is the good solution according to your judgement? 8)

@all:
We cannot say that there is no help on this forum.
I hope that we will not loose rgroner from a porteus or linux attack. It is been a while since he was on this thread.

[Bogomips]

@ francois
The elimination of unknowns. If you want xp to boot first, then it's a good idea to have the boot flag on the xp partition, in any case, doing it manually using fdisk. (Not rely on the fact that some program may or may not do it for you) 8)

Btw good job with the dump Did you have to pay to retrieve it?

[francois]

The dump is called ecocenter here in Montreal. They disassemble the computer to recuperate rare metals. I did not asked and just picked it up. The week before leaving an old TV at the ecocenter, I asked the guy if I could pick up an old ampli-tuner. I was not as lucky. It would not function properly.

I wonder if I should not start a project which would recuperate these old computer boxes thru the installation of performing linux systems and giving them to poor children. Maybe I should try a few.

[phhpro]

...

[Bogomips]

A tad like putting the shard upside down with the eye on top, init? Spot on!

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Sorry, but I'm lost in double dutch. If it's Shakespeare, it's a tad too literary for the likes of me.

[thom_A]

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Hi Ed
I'm really a big big fan of disk imaging programs
I got used to them back in the (windows) days..long,long ago....

I'm a big fan of backing up partitions as well, or whatever inside that partition to an image. Been using Paragon 10 for years and it hasn't failed me. It's a Win utility program with a straight-forward GUI that you can run to backup/restore main drive as well as neighboring partitions. It's got a linux-based Recovery media builder utility to create bootable CD or USB, which you will need, of course, outside of Windows. The bootable recovery media it creates starts pretty slow, but it's fully graphical and easy to use.

Paragon has a free edition (version 14) for home users, which I found out just a while ago. (Might as well start using this free edition and discard my older version.)