I won't try and solve everything in one post. But something caught my eye.
Let me give a briefing on partition tables:
* We are allowed only four primary partitions
* One of these and only one of these must be marked as bootable.
* Theoretically we should be able to boot from any of the four primary partitions. But there are limits. Sometimes if a primary partition starts beyond cylinder 1024 it can't be booted, but can be marked as bootable. If the primary partition being used as an extended partition, it will not boot.
* In spite of all the above, Linux is not a self booting operating system. But the information above needs to be understood.
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I have four primary partitions on all the drives on the machine.
I find that most users only have two primary partitions.
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In your example you SAY you have three primary partitions, but you didn't say it in words. But if what you posted is accurate you must.
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Now lets look at your post:
-HDA0 Windows
-HDA1 Linux
-HDA2 Linux
Linus started counting at one, and uses lower case, so a correction would be:
/dev/hda1
/dev/hda2
/dev/hda3
GRUB developers start counting from zero. So, it's likely that the corresponding GRUB designations are:
(hd0,0)
(hd0,1)
(hd0,2)
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If you would like to complain and register a rant of sorts. I'm personally for that in your case. If you want tech assistance or advice I'm all for that also.
If you can boot a Linux, you could run a little utility and post the output for us. This way, I'd feel confident I'm giving you exact advice.
The command I'll ask you to run is this:
fdisk -l
That's a lowercase L
If you know how to put the output on a clipboard, great.
Otherwise do this.
fdisk -l >> tmpfile.tmp
Then open tmpfile.tmp with your text editor, browser and to the Ctrl+a to select and Ctrl+v to paste in the post.
Here's the output on my computer:
Code: Select all
Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 3825 30724281 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 3826 5284 11719417+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 5285 6743 11719417+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 6744 14593 63055125 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 6744 8202 11719386 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 8203 9661 11719386 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 9662 11120 11719386 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 11121 12579 11719386 83 Linux
/dev/hda9 12580 14593 16177423+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/hdc: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 1 9729 78148161 83 Linux
/dev/hdc2 9730 19457 78140160 83 Linux
Disk /dev/hdd: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdd1 * 1 4863 39062016 83 Linux
/dev/hdd2 4864 8510 29294527+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdd3 8511 12157 29294527+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdd4 12158 30401 146544930 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdd5 12158 15804 29294496 83 Linux
/dev/hdd6 15805 17628 14651248+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdd7 17629 19451 14643216 83 Linux
/dev/hdd8 19452 30332 87401601 83 Linux
/dev/hdd9 30333 30401 554211 82 Linux swap / Solaris
As you can see this tells a lot. Hey, where are my Microsoft partitions? No wonder Windows won't run. Just joking, there are no MS partitions.
