Boot process freeze with XP/SimplyMepis dual boot

I'm attempting to set up a dual-boot PC. I have installed WinXP Pro on an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ and then installed SimplyMEPIS on the same PC. I used GRUB to set up the dual boot. When I reboot, I can boot MEPIS just fine. But when I try XP, I get these messages and the boot process freezes:

Booting 'Windows at hda1'
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
savedefault

So I played around with /boot/grub/menu.lst to no avail. This is my partition info:

Number Partition Type Status Usage

01 /dev/hda1 ntfs Active Windows XP
02 /dev/hda2 ext3 Linux mount
03 /dev/hda3 linux-swap Linux Swap
04 /dev/hda4 ext3 Linux Home

What am I missing?

As it happens, I ran into exactly this same problem when doing a dual-boot install. As I remember (this was all about a year ago, so my memory might be a bit hazy), I ended up having to modify the drive characteristics in bios to enable LBA. If you do some poking around the Internet via a search engine, you'll come across a number of postings on this topic.

In the end, I was concerned that, since I would inevitably need to reinstall Windows, I would run into drive formatting issues. I ended up buying a used box to install Linux on. Another strategy would be to install a second drive and put Linux there.

Never fear -- this problem can be solved and you're not that far away from the solution!

Related Resources

Expert Best Practices: Using Linux for Data Center Consolidation –SearchDataCenter.com
LinuxONE For Dummies –IBM

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