Dual boot with XP installation failure

[gold_finger]

I have since bought a new PC with Windows 10 which I hate with a passion! I therefore thought it would be a good idea to try out LinuxLite on the old PC to get some experience of it without putting my main PC at risk.

Good idea.  That's how many people start out and is how I did it myself a few years back.


Alright, from last series of commands can tell that there are Windows boot files on both hard drives and that you do indeed have two installations of LL on the smaller drive.  (Don't know which of the two LL's was which install attempt, but doesn't really matter.)

PC is/was booting from "C: drive", which is the smaller HDD's Windows install.  However, LL installer detected that as the 2nd available drive, "/dev/sdb".  Assuming you didn't manually designate partitioning, that means the boot loader (by default) was installed to the larger drive which was designated as "/dev/sda".  Theoretically, if that's what happened and Bios is still set to boot from the smaller HDD, Windows boot loader was not touched and should still be working.

With that in mind, lets try the easiest things first.

Boot computer and hit whatever key is necessary to get into the Bios settings.  (Should see instructions flash briefly along bottom of screen immediately after powering on telling you which key to hit.  Some of the more common ones are <Esc>, <F2>, <Del>; but keys vary by manufacturer.)  Find section in Bios relating to the Boot order of devices and look at which HDD is first on the list.

• If small HDD is first, then for some reason Windows boot loader got messed-up.  (Don't panic about that.)  If that's the case, change the order so larger drive is first and then try booting.  If my theory is correct, you should then see a grub menu offering two choices for LL and two choices for Windows.
  • Try the first choice for LL and see if it boots correctly.  If "yes", open a terminal and post back result of this command:
    

Code:

lsblk

• • Don't bother trying second LL menu option -- it won't work.
    
  • Reboot computer and try each of the Windows menu entries to see if one or both of them work.  If both work, figure out and make note of which gets you booted into the smaller drive.  (Just look at what's being called the "C: drive" in each of them.)
    
  
  
• If large HDD is set first in boot order, change so small HDD is first and boot from that.  Hopefully that will at least start Windows and possibly show a grub menu if I was wrong and LL's grub boot loader did get installed to the small drive.  If you do see a grub menu, try first listing for LL and the two Windows entries.  Again, don't bother trying second LL entry.
  

Report back results from which ever scenario above applies to current situation.