Hi everyone,

(excuse me for posting this question as a freshly signed up newbie,
I'll see if I can answer some webdev-related questions in return)

I'm experiencing this problem with windows NTLDR and GNU GRUB bootloader.

I'm able to boot winXP just fine by telling my computer to boot from my first hard disk, but when I'm trying to boot winXP using grub boot loader (which I've been using for quite some time without any problems) the system keeps telling me that my NTLDR is missing (which seems INCORRECT to me, as I'm perfectly able to boot winxp as explained before).

on the internet I found numerous articles about a missing NTLDR file, but not one covering my problem.

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I think it might be useful to know how I created the problem...

well I had a dual boot winXP (media center edition 2005) (located on my primary drive, 160 GB NTFS)
and Ubuntu (2.6.17) (secondary drive, secondary partition, another 150 GB EXT)

I used GRUB to select the OS to boot, and it worked fine.

then I recieved my vista upgrade DVD, and not wanting to risk my winXP VERSION I decided to install it seperately, thus buying a new hard drive, installing XP on it, upgrading XP to vista and then hope it'd work.
it didn't. at first, the XP installer didn't recognize it's installation partition, so I had XP install delete this partition (which by the way inevitably had to delete the partition in which I STORED my primary HD's backup image,  )
I formatted a new partition with XP install, NTFS again, and MADE it install winXP on that partition. install went wrong eventually when it tried to reboot, so I formatted it again for reuse, but on my systems primary drive, the boot.ini had been adjusted by the winXP install, so I restored it back to its previous state. as GRUB was behaving really strange (wasn't able to boot linux anymore) I reinstalled it to the MBR again using super grub disk.
after that linux still wasn't able to boot, and I found out that it had 'changed' the linux root. I was now able to boot linux on (hd0,1) whereas previously I had to boot from (hd1,1). since then the problem occurs, I'm not able to boot winXP from grub.
after one retry, this time winXP finished installing succesfully (i had the primary and secondary drives disconnected during install) and I upgraded it to vista. I'm able to boot vista from grub (root = (hd2,0); chainloader +1; boot)

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things I've tried:

-my ntdetect.com, boot.ini and ntldr do exist and aren't corrupt. I even copied ntdetect.com and ntldr from my winxp installation disk to my C-drive.

-in GRUB command thing I tried several combinations, including...

root (hd0,0) <-- the should-be winXP partition
chainloader +1
boot --> will try booting something and then get stuck/loop endlessly.


root (hd1,0) <-- the partition winXP is most likely to be installed on, regarding the 'swapped' linux hd (see above)
chainloader +1
boot


root (hd1)
chainloader +1
boot -> forgot the result, didnt work


root (hd0)
chainloader +1
boot -> forgot the result, didnt work


etc. etc. I tried everything in GRUB with and without 'makeactive'.

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that was about all the information I can give you. If you need more details, just ask.
If one or more of you guys know the sollution to my problem, that would be GREAT!!

btw...
-I'm a linux noob
-I'm a hardware noob
-I'm a windows intermediate

btw2..
I paid for my windows CDs, they're very legal.

Thanks in advance,

C.Whenever you go to install/re-install an OS  it writes to the C:\ root...
Your efforts PROBABLY corrupted the GRUB loader in the process.
Back up what you need from all partitions/drives and start over.Thanks for the information.

I should've mentioned that the one thing i'd like to keep in tact is my old winxp setup including all installed programs etc.

(stupid) question: how come winXP can corrupt GRUB while grub is installed on a drive (secondary) that isn't connected during winXP install?

or has it been corrupted indirectly..Grub isn't installed on another partition...if i'm not mistaken GRUB has to be installed on an active partition of which you can have one per drive.
That would be C:\ by default.

Your Linux install is on another partition.