Dual boot with XP installation failure

[gold_finger]

I am tempted to disconnect the larger HDD to take it out of the picture but I don't want to cause further problems. What do you think?

That is one option I had in mind but was saving for later if booting from large drive did not work.

Bios boot order shows 3rd option = disabled.  Use arrow keys to highlight that 3rd option, then hit <Enter> to see the submenu for it.  Look to see if other HDD is listed there and select it.  Then move choice for that HDD one position up so it is before the first (smaller) HDD in boot order.  (Probably done by hitting the "+" key while having it highlighted.)  If able to do that, follow above instructions to test ability to boot from it into both LL and Windows and report back results (including output from command noted above).

If no luck with any of that, then disconnect cable to the larger drive and boot with LL dvd again.  Open the GParted program (Menu -> System -> Partition Drives).  Small HDD should show in the program's window and its partitions will now show as being part of disk "sda" instead of "sdb".  Do the following to delete all previously set Linux partitions so you can start fresh:

• Right-click the Swap partition (/dev/sda6), choose "Swapoff"
  
• Right-click the Swap partition, choose "Delete"
  
• Right-click and choose "Delete" for both LL root partitions, (/dev/sda7 and /dev/sda5)
  
• Right-click extended partition (/dev/sda2) and choose "Delete".
  
• Hit "Apply" button along top of window, or go to Edit -> Apply All Operations to finalize the deletions.
  
• Now you'll have only the Windows partition and empty space left on the HDD so you can start over.  Close the GParted program.
  

Start the installation again and choose the "Along side" Windows option.  Installer should automatically see and use empty space on the drive.  When install process completes, choose "Continue Testing" instead of "Reboot".  Wait 15-30 seconds until installer program fully shuts itself down, then shutdown LL (Menu -> Shutdown/Logout button).  If shutdown process appears to stall, hit the <Enter> key.  That will normally cause dvd to eject and finish the shutdown process.  If that doesn't shutdown, try holding down the <Ctrl>, <Alt> and <Prtscn> keys while slowly typing out: R  E  I  S  U  B.  If not able to contort your fingers to do that, then you'll have to resort to a hard shutdown -- press and hold power button until machine turns off.


Power system back on (still with large HDD disconnected) and hopefully you'll be able to boot into LL and Windows.  If it boots to LL without showing a Windows option, open a terminal and enter following command to add an entry for it:

Code:

sudo update-grub

Reboot and test booting to Windows.


If all is well booting into both, go ahead and reconnect large HDD and you should be fine from there on out.  Report back results.