[bug #30796] Unable to boot WinXP - ntoskrnl.exe missing or corrupt

[James Duffy]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?30796>

                 Summary: Unable to boot WinXP - ntoskrnl.exe missing or
corrupt
                 Project: GNU GRUB
            Submitted by: supay
            Submitted on: Tue Aug 17 11:15:59 2010
                Category: Booting
                Severity: Major
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Software Error
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: 
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: 
                 Release: 1.98
         Reproducibility: Every Time
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

Installing Grub2 onto a system already containing Windows XP prevents XP from
being able to boot.
The Grub2 menu contains a listing for Windows XP Professional and selecting
it takes me to the Windows XP loader where I get a choice of booting to
Windows or to Recovery.  Selecting Windows returns an error of:

"NTOSKRNL.EXE is missing or corrupt."

It is not missing or corrupt and neither is my boot.ini file.  All are there
and appear correct.


Running fdisk returns:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000001

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       38305   307684881    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           38306       60194   175817728   83  Linux
/dev/sda3           60194       60802     4882432   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000972e0

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1      182401  1465136001   83  Linux


XP is in sda1, Ubuntu is in sda2 and sdb1 is an external hard drive for data
storage.

This error did not occur when I used Grub Legacy on the Ubuntu 9.04 and only
began occurring after Grub 2 was introduced in 9.10.  Running recovery on Win
XP and restoring the Windows Bootloader allows booting into XP but now no
options for my Linux installs.

I have repeated the error over and over, using different hardware and
different copies of Windows XP, Home and Professional, different Linux
distributions and allowing Grub2 to install automatically as part of an OS
install or manually myself.  A friend's system has been tested as well and
reproduces the same error.
Grub Legacy works every time, Grub2 does not.

I'm not a hugely experienced Grub user, so if this is well known and I've
done something stupid, please advise.  However, I find this error with Grub2
commented on all over the place with noone seeming to know what is happening
or how to fix it.  All suggestions so far have failed to work.

I include a copy of my current grub.cfg.  If anything further is required,
please email me and I can provide.



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File Attachments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Aug 17 11:15:59 2010  Name: grub.cfg  Size: 5kB   By: supay

<http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/download.php?file_id=21241>

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