Installed Zorin 8 alongside Windows XP...but where is it?

Germiston

Sun Apr 13, 2014 2:43:29 pm

Hello. Im one of those people who are fleeing XP in fear of bugs, viruses & other nasties. I now realise I know little about computing other than how to hit Windows keys.
I installed Zorin 'alongside' XP. All went well but I need to access important work on XP. When i turn the PC on it goes immediately into Zorin. If I hit the 'BOOT' key at start up it only offers me the choice of booting from HD or DVD drive. The work on XP is some of daughters University work that she forgot she had done here rather than at Uni.I want to be able to choose either XP or Zorin each time I switch on, that is what I thought I was doing installing 'alongside'. Your help would be very much appreciated but please keep it as simple as you can :oops:

Wolfman

Sun Apr 13, 2014 2:50:57 pm

Hi,

open your home folder (Nautilus) and look on the left hand side, does it have the brand name of your PC showing there?, mine is a HP Compaq PC, if you see a name like Acer or Asus or whatever, click on it and it should automount and then you can search through the folders for your files and copy or drag them over to Zorin!.

As you can see from the pic below, it shows my Windows folders on my Win7 partition!.

Germiston

Sun Apr 13, 2014 4:18:01 pm

Wolfman...great, thank you. That solves the most pressing problem ... when I find the file. BUT is there a way to make a choice, each time I switch on PC, as to whether I want XP or Zorin to open?

Wolfman

Sun Apr 13, 2014 6:53:01 pm

Hi,

open a terminal with Ctrl + Alt + t and enter the following text:

Code:: sudo update-grub

It should then show an entry for Windows in the boot menu!.

Let us know if that helps.

Germiston

Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:29:36 pm

Hello. I did this and the terminal looked like this (the 'x's being my private details)

x@x:~$ sudo update-grub
[sudo] password for x:
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found theme: /boot/grub/themes/Zorin/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-19-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.11.0-19-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-17-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.11.0-17-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Windows NT/2000/XP on /dev/sda1
Found Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition on /dev/sda2
done

When I restarted the PC & hit 'Esc' to get the BOOT MENU it only gave me boot from DVD drive or HD. Choosing HD just made Zorin load. I want to be able to either make a choice (not sure which screen this would be from) OR just get rid of Zorin ....Im sure you have better things to do rather than hold my hand so much.Thanks in advance

Wolfman

Mon Apr 14, 2014 12:38:12 pm

Hi,

it is certainly showing that you have Windows installed so why it doesn't show you a boot menu is a little puzzling.

You should be pressing "Shift" and not "Esc" btw!. Esc will only show you what different ways to boot from different devices you have available to boot from on your PC!.

Go here and download "Boot repair" and create a boot disk from the downloaded ISO file and once burnt, boot your PC with the Boot repair disk inserted and run the repair function:

http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd/home/Home/

See also:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

TheTexasRAT

Mon Apr 14, 2014 1:13:01 pm

I can not figure out how to either bookmark or subscribe to this thread so I opted to leave a post so that I can find it again through "view my post". I am awaiting my Ultimate DVD and will be trying to Dual Boot Zorin and XP as well. Hope this issue can be resolved.

Wolfman

Mon Apr 14, 2014 3:09:47 pm

TheTexasRAT wrote:I can not figure out how to either bookmark or subscribe to this thread so I opted to leave a post so that I can find it again through "view my post". I am awaiting my Ultimate DVD and will be trying to Dual Boot Zorin and XP as well. Hope this issue can be resolved.

Hi and welcome,

please take the time to read the links below so things go smoothly for you:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6643

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2601

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4848

Germiston

Mon Apr 14, 2014 6:41:14 pm

Hello Wolfman. I did the business & clicked recommended repair/connected to internet etc etc BUT all that changed (or that I realised had changed) was that 'GRUB Loading' appeared in the top left of my screen..
In Boot-Repair I was prompted to record the following ' http://paste.unbuntu.com/7251030 '.
No doubt this means something to you. Regards

Wolfman

Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:05:14 pm

Hi germiston,

are you saying that it didn't rewrite your Grub menu and you still cannot see the Windows entry?.

If you press "Shift" when booting, do you have any options or menu to choose from?.

Swarfendor437

Mon Apr 14, 2014 10:31:36 pm

Germiston wrote:Hello Wolfman. I did the business & clicked recommended repair/connected to internet etc etc BUT all that changed (or that I realised had changed) was that 'GRUB Loading' appeared in the top left of my screen..
In Boot-Repair I was prompted to record the following ' http://paste.unbuntu.com/7251030 '.
No doubt this means something to you. Regards

That link does not work!

Germiston

Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:21:28 am

Morning. No nothing happens. I tried using Boot Repair again and this time got the reference as before but with the number 17253612.
Just a note on installation of B-R. After the disk was ejected the B-R screen stayed on for over 30 mins with the dots blinking. After that I shut the PC down and restarted. No joy. Another thing, I presume of no consequence has been that just prior to Zorin kicking in a box opens saying 'Signal out of range...change settings to 1280-1024 -60Hz'. I am confused / concerned as all of the online magazines I read about replacing XP , and I looked at lots and downloaded several Live disks,said that Zorin was the best and that installation was simple and hassle free and that dual booting with XP was too. I guess I'm unlucky?Thanks in advance...again.

Germiston

Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:58:05 am

Morning Swarfendor437. I went to look at that link and as you say, it doesnt work. But that is what B-R told me to record & report.

Wolfman

Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:45:58 am

Hi,

did you do a disk install and did you follow this advice?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4771

When you manually shutdown the PC, are you holding in the power button (soft power off) or are you simply pressing the switch?. This will destroy your HDD in a matter of a few forced shutdowns if you are!.

I cannot think of any other reason why you cannot install correctly.

All I can suggest is you open Gparted (Zorin Menu > System Tools > Admin > Gparted) and take a screenshot of your partition layout and post it here, then we can look and see how you have things setup, the other option is to try the Lite version of Zorin!.

Germiston

Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:59:52 am

Hi.
No i just went with the speed that Roxio automatically defaulted to. The Live disk seemed to perform OK?
Shutdowns - usually do 'soft ones', those being using the GUI with mouse etc rather than holding in the Power button.
I've taken a screen print but cant see how to include it on here.
I will look later & include it, unless you know the answer off top of your head?
I used Gimp & converted it to JPEG. Cheers.

Germiston

Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:28:42 am

Wolfman

Tue Apr 15, 2014 3:34:08 pm

Hi,

if Roxio chose the highest speed, you will most likely have read/write errors on your disk even if the live CD boots okay, I would reburn at the slowest possible speed and re-install as I think that is where your problem lies!.

Swarfendor437

Tue Apr 15, 2014 4:25:15 pm

Check out the guide here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6180

Germiston

Fri Apr 18, 2014 6:23:51 am

Morning. Would using NeoSmarts easy BCD do the job instead?

Wolfman

Fri Apr 18, 2014 6:30:28 am

Hi,

regardless of which burner app you use, you must make sure it only burns the ISO at the slowest possible speed, Roxio will do the job too, just make sure you look at the speed settings before starting to burn!.

http://forums.support.roxio.com/topic/8 ... urn-speed/

Germiston

Sat Apr 19, 2014 3:12:55 pm

Hi all. I think that I am now content not to be able to see XP as I have 'mounted' (if that is the correct phrase) all the stuff in XP I need onto/into my Zorin desktop.
I still dont see GRUB loading or rather it appears for a second & then nothing...no menu as I now realise there should be. Will this cause me problems when it comes to a future update to Zorin 9? Im now liking Zorin having gotten rid of that dreadful default desktop...as ever, thanks in advance

Swarfendor437

Sat Apr 19, 2014 5:07:12 pm

Hi there, glad you are sorted. Unless the devs have been able to work on a 'roll-up' of 8 (Like Trisquel do with their distro) then you will need to do a fresh install when 9 comes around I'm afraid!

Germiston

Sat Apr 19, 2014 6:43:08 pm

OMG...expect lots of posts re printer drivers...

Swarfendor437

Sat Apr 19, 2014 7:26:01 pm

Have you done an update? Have you tried following the advice from this post that Wolfman made?

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6978&p=33036&hilit=how+to+repair+grub#p33036

Wolfman

Sat Apr 19, 2014 8:17:58 pm

Hi,

you can keep all your current data intact if you follow this advice when doing a full system update:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4848

This is a static archive of the old Zorin Forum.

Installed Zorin 8 alongside Windows XP...but where is it?