As per topic title, I am trying to tri-boot between Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04), Windows 7 and Windows XP. I'm using GRUB, however for some reason XP does not like being booted through GRUB.

This is what I've added to the end of my /boot/grub/menu.lst file:


Fdisk -l shows my partitions:


For the record, this computer has only 1 physical HDD, partitioned into 4 logical partitions.
sda1 is the linux partition
sda2 is the 100MB partition that Windows 7 makes to store the boot information
sda3 is the actual Windows 7 partition which holds the OS and data
sda4 = no idea how it came to being
sda5 = the actual Windows XP partition

The good news is, the GRUB boot menu works:


However, it refuses to boot into XP, citing a non-existent partition. However, a little bit of work with EasyBCD later:


I can get the Windows 7 boot loader to see the XP partition:


And boot into XP!


In a nutshell, to get into XP, its:

In addition, I can use GRUB to override the MBR, so from GRUB I can select Windows 7 directly, and it boots without any problem (other than the clocks being off-sync). However, the same GRUB MBR refuses to load XP, no matter what I do.

Before I get any questions:
1) I need XP, because its probably the best OS Microsoft has ever made
2) That, and most firmware flashing programs only work under XP
3) No, the said firmware flashing programs do not work under Windows 7 (drivers don't work with 7 unfortunately)
4) No, XP mode in 7 does not resolve the issue with my firmware flashing programs
5) Virtualising XP under Linux/Win 7 is NOT an option, despite the joys of USB passthrough. We're talking about a 5 year old single core notebook here.
6) Yes, Windows 7 works happily with the 5 year old single core notebook. Not bad eh?


Any ideas on how to make GRUB and XP live together in a tri-boot environment? The current way of daisy-chaining the Windows Boot Manager to GRUB to get to XP is really messy, and I would love to be able to select XP from the GRUB menu.

The best way for triple booting for your set up would be installing the OSes in this partition order:

XP, followed by Windows 7 and Ubuntu

This is based on my own experience except I used Windows Vista instead of Windows 7.

I do have WinXP + Win7 + Fedora 11 on my PC too. My issue was that I could boot into WinXP and Win7, but not to Fedora, since GRUB was scrubbed by Win7's bootloader.

So I used EasyBCD and added a new entry to the bootloader. You have an option there to add a Linux entry, choose it, and choose GRUB. There'a another option too that says 'GRUB not installed in bootsector' or something like that, can't remember.

Then add that entry. It will boot using EasyBCD's version of GRUB, NeoGRUB. Now you need to edit the Neogrub's menu.lst. Click on the Neogrub tab, and choose configure.

Then... I forgot what I put in my menu.lst, and I can't look it up since I'm in the office now. If you're patient, PM me after 7pm and I'll send you my menu.lst.

Basically it goes along something like:

root (hd0,3) // hd0 is 1st hard disk, 3 is 3rd partition where i installed Fedora, so i'm guessing urs shld be (hd0,0)
boot blabla
init blabla

Not sure what I had for my blabla though. Could be the kernel files, or it could be I don't have those at all. I managed to get everything booting from the Windows 7 bootloader, so I'm pretty happy.

PM me later if you're still having issues

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Added on October 27, 2009, 11:06 pmOkay I have it:

title Fedora 11
root (hd0,2)
configfile /grub/grub.conf

So yours should be

title Ubuntu 9.04
root (hd0,0)
configfile /boot/grub/grub.conf

This post has been edited by g933299: Oct 27 2009, 11:06 PM

Just use VirtualBox.

No need to go thru so much hassle, and also make it easy for reinstalling or version upgrade in future.

But then that would mean reinstalling everything, which should be avoided if possible.

@ TS: did you try the Neogrub loader?

just fyi, sda 4 is the extended partition, and the sda5 is the logical partition inside sda4.

this might help you http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/gr...DOS_002fWindows