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I installed Ubuntu 12.04 alongside windows XP SP2 .Instead of using the automatic dual boot option, I installed it manually on to a custom partition .After the PC reboots at the GNU GRUB i can well boot to Ubuntu but XP won 't boot at all. The screen just blanks off and returns back to the GNU GRUB screen.

Please help.. It will be a great honour

Thanks

Sydney..

2 Answers 2

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I think you might have accidentally formatted your Windows partition, I'm afraid. Please open the Dash and search for "Disk Utility" or "Disks". Click on your hard drive in the list on the left hand side, and provide a screenshot. That way we can be a bit more certain as to what has happened.

Also, when you open up the file manager, do you see your Windows partition in the list on the left? When you click on it, do you see the content that's supposed to be there (Documents and settings, Program files, Windows, ...)?

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Didn't set the boot directory

If it was installed to a custom partition, did you change the boot directory or not? If not, grub would have overwritten Windows boot partition and even though Windows is installed, it'll not be able to boot. Do the following in case the above was true-

  1. Back up all your data in a secure place (cloud, external hard drive etc). You may have to format your hard drive completely (and you'll definitely have to reinstall Ubuntu).
  2. Boot into Windows Diagnostics using the Windows Boot Disk (CD/DVD that you installed XP from) and try to repair the Windows boot partition. It'll overwrite GRUB, and you'll loose Ubuntu, but will get back XP. I can't help you with the specifics of how to do this as I've never done it ever myself, but it shouldn't be too difficult.
  3. Now you have XP, go on and reboot it a couple of times. This ensures that it configures itself, and if any problem occurs with it, we'll have to deal with that before installing Ubuntu.
  4. Now, follow this tutorial here. That is how I dual booted my Windows 7 system with Ubuntu 12.04. It's a similar story for Windows XP.

If that wasn't the problem

If that didn't solve your problem, or you set the boot directory, please provide us with more information and images of your problem.

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