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General discussion

Dual Boot XP and Ubuntu Problem

Sep 28, 2010 7:59AM PDT

ok so i have a laptop that has the ability to accept en external hardrive by taking out the CD/DVD Driver...both of my hard drive are SATA. In the internal HDD Windows xp Pro SP3 is installed and in the external HDD Ubuntu (whit the last kernel) is installed...now the problem is that when i was installing Ubuntu in the external HDD I stupidly made the external hardrive to be the main or the mother boot. In other words if i where to take out the external HDD (where ubuntu is installed) and put back the CD/DVD driver...the computer would not boot up.....and it wont allow me to boot from Window...

Now i know the easies solutions is Reinstall but i dont want to do that so if anybody have some advice on what i should do then that will be great...

P.S i havent made any changes to neither of the boots (GRUB - which the linux boot) and the windows boot...

P.S.S I am completely new to this kind of things i have some what of knowledge but please try to keep it simple..Thank u in advance (and English is not my first language)

Discussion is locked

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I am wondering...
Sep 28, 2010 9:32AM PDT

If you throw the XP CD and use the Repair choice it will install the NT Loader.

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Repair Windows/Linux bootloader
Oct 15, 2010 10:16AM PDT

Hi,
I new to Linux as well and I found a great app called EascBCD by at neosmart.net to repair a Vista/Linux install. I believe they also have a version for XP. EasyBCD a bootloader creator/editor/repair tool that will allow you to repair your Windows bootloader on your Master Boot Record (MBR). After performing the repair, boot back into Windows and then run EasyBCD again. This time add an entry to your Windows bootloader for your Linux OS (I like Grub2)so you can dual (or more) boot. The support documentation at neosmart is very good. Good luck.