ubuntu craps on my mbr!?

Amleto

Amleto

Amleto

Soldato
Joined
13 Feb 2003
Posts
6,157
As you may have seen, I am having other problems...

Firstly I tried to make a new partition to try out ubuntu, but partition magic semi-cained my mbr. Thanks PQ.

Stupidly I tried to continue with my plan of installing ubuntu. When ubuntu tried to do its piece with the mbr, it royally messed it up.

I move onto a different hdd (ide) because I want to keep the data on the now un-bootable sata hdd. I format/reinstall xp pro, successfully, then try and add ubuntu as dual boot. Taking careful note of the guide found elsewhere on these forums. All of my attempts end in failure trying to install/load the boot loader 'grub'. Lilo also fails. And immediately after, my fresh install of XP wont boot :mad:

Another format and install ubuntu straight off, and here I am. Is there something wrong with my mobo (abit av8 3rd eye)?!?!

As you can imagine, I'm just a bit hacked off atm.

As an aside, there seems to still be a lot of info in the mbr because there are 'doubled' choices for ubuntu (two 'normal' choices, and two 'safe-mode' choices, differentiated by a 'default' appendage), and there is an XP choice (!) which fails when selected by giving the same message as after the partition magic, but before me stupidly trying to install ubunto - (paraphrase)
unable to read/do batch thingy. check if system32 is compressed/corrupt
Click to expand...


Summary::

Anyone know of some good/cheap data recovery utils/companies???
Does ubuntu daefecate (sic) on your mbr?

back to the stella/dark rum for me ... :/
 
Just installed both on our new work laptop this morning, had to format initially as I don't think ntfsresize would work too well on a FAT32 partition (thanks Acer!). Installed XP on half the disk, booted off the ubuntu CD and just told it to automatically partition the remaining free space. Ubuntu itself, recovery mode, memtest and Windows were the options in the boot screen. First time I've installed ubuntu, Fedora was a lot more intuitive for installing on the free space and setting up the boot options.
 
Its easyer not to duel boot im most cases.
Amleto why do you need "some good/cheap data recovery utils/companies"
"Does ubuntu daefecate (sic) on your mbr?" Nope it doens GRUB does though :P different thing altogeaher, there is a guide some were how to install Ubuntu with out using Grub and using a Boot floppy when you want to use it try this : http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-80508.html
 
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Some actual error messages would help. I'm a bit baffled as to where you're coming unstuck installing Grub. It's normally very simple to get that installed when installing any distro.
 
vonhelmet said:
Some actual error messages would help. I'm a bit baffled as to where you're coming unstuck installing Grub. It's normally very simple to get that installed when installing any distro.
Click to expand...

"fatal error - GRUB failed to install in the mbr" or similar. The same thing happens for LILO.

It happens consistently if I haven't done some extra 'cleaning' of the hdd.
 
i deleted my Ubuntu few days ago

got the GRUB error message

boot up the XP CD, press R for recovery console

fixmbr and fixboot

boot up XP perfectly, used partition magic to resized the partition to full
 
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