Dualbooting with XP on an extended partition

[Nordhav]

Hey, I installed a gentoo-system awhile ago on my laptop and no problems there. Since I had a copy of windows laying around, I figured I'd install it.
Here is my hdd-layout: (1x100gb)

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Name                Flags            Part type      FS type             [Label]                  Size (MB)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hda1                 boot              Primary        ext2                                           131.61

hda2                                   Primary        swap                                           509.97

hda3                                   Primary      ext3                                            20480.95

hda5                                   Logical        ext3                                            53686.41

hda6                                   Logical          ntfs                  [^B]                    25210.49

hda1 = boot, hda2 = swap, hda3 = root, hda5 = /home, hda6 = winxp

GRUB.conf:

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default 0
timeout 20
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title = Gentoo Linux-2.6.17-r7
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.17-gentoo-r7 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192   rea$initrd /initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.17-gentoo-r7

title = Windows XP Pro SP2
  rootnoverify (hd0,5)
  makeactive
  chainloader +1

Gentoo works fine ofc, but I can't boot into my winxp part. I read through the manual for GRUB and "makeactive" apparently doesn't work when booting from an extended part. If I remove it, there's no errors but still it won't boot.

I googled around but found no solution. Should I just redo my partitions or could someone enlightenment me?

[Cybersorcerer]

Hi,

it looks like the boot flag is missing on /dev/hda6

[Nordhav]

Does that really matter? I use GRUB in the MBR to boot both OSes from hda1 anyway, right? (or at least it should )
Tried it out anyway, doesn't change anything.

Thanks for your reply btw!

[cyrillic]

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title = Windows XP Pro SP2
  rootnoverify (hd0,5)
  makeactive
  chainloader +1

Gentoo works fine ofc, but I can't boot into my winxp part. I read through the manual for GRUB and "makeactive" apparently doesn't work when booting from an extended part.

GRUB doesn't have any problem with extended partitions. It is NTLDR (the Windows bootloader) that can only be installed into a primary partition.

Trying to chainload Windows from an extended partition (hd0,5) simply won't work because NTLDR isn't there.

[Tin]

cyrilic, you are right. It is the windows loader that WANT to be on the first partition
BUT
There is a way to make it believe that it is on the first one.

My brother used this configuration and it worked for him.
Adapt it to your configuration if needed, but the "map" commands do the trick

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title Windows
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

[cyrillic]

cyrilic, you are right. It is the windows loader that WANT to be on the first partition
BUT
There is a way to make it believe that it is on the first one.

The map commands allow you to boot Windows from the second (or third, etc.) harddrive. NTLDR still needs to be in a primary partition on that harddrive.

[Tin]

Oups
You are right...