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| Thread ID: 75883 | 2007-01-13 09:49:00 | Curly one, Linux/windows boot failure | PPp (9511) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 515504 | 2007-01-14 08:20:00 | Thanks for the replies. I'm pretty confident the HD is OK as the situation arose immediatly the Live CD was run(Well after I closed it down). My surmise is that it somehow effected GRUB which is still hanging on to the boot processes but not booting? A reinstall of grub sounds good. I was not able to access the HD through the normal W98 boot disc tools. I've tried unplugging the computer overnight but that made no difference, next option after the GRUB reinstall could be to remove the MB battery to reset the BIOS? Incidentally the live CD was xubuntu not kubuntu. |
PPp (9511) | ||
| 515505 | 2007-01-14 08:27:00 | See 8.6 on this page: www.linuxtopia.org |
johnd (85) | ||
| 515506 | 2007-01-14 09:50:00 | Thanks for the links, as I said I have virtually no idea how Ubuntu "works", I don't even know how to get to the boot prompt! or any prompt for that matter. What happens is the computer says "Verifing DMI Data" then says what it is booting from, and then says DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. After that nothing. Well now some good news I thought about using the original Ubantu cd as a live load and see what I could do. It has a menu and F1 help Fifth option on the menu is Boot from 1st hard disk, this results in windows98 booting so everthing is there, just not easily accessable. there isnt any thing too relivent except item 3 on the F1help says about booting into boot rescue mode. Basically to type rescue at the boot: prompt followed by parameters Example: boot:rescue acpi= off I realised at this stage I didn't have any idea how to get to the boot prompt and also I was in a live CD OS not my original installation. So what do I do from here, can I operate from the live CD Ubuntu to fix my HD installed Ubuntu? and if so can someone prompt me to the prompt(boot prompt that is) |
PPp (9511) | ||
| 515507 | 2007-01-14 10:30:00 | From the LiveCD, type: cat /proc/partitions Then tell us what each of the partitions is, like /boot, SWAP, /, windows98 partition... From there, I'll let you know what you needa punch in to get it sorted :) |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 515508 | 2007-01-14 10:34:00 | "johnd" has posted the info you need already. (on this page and the previous) Basically the "boot prompt" appears at the begining of the linux boot process and is normally represented by the word "boot" followed by a colon ":" . If you type anything at this point, you'll see it appear after the colon. So this can be used to enter commands to control/customize the boot process or even repair/maintain your system. (commands vary depending on your distro) Unfortunately I don't use Ubuntu myself so I can't talk you through re-installing grub using your Ubuntu live cd. But I would imagine the main difficulty you would encouter with that method would be getting root access. (So you'll need to read that link "johnd" posted, which shows you how to do it.) Once you get root access though it's simply a matter of typing: grub-install /dev/hda at the console/terminal. |
dchip (1426) | ||
| 515509 | 2007-01-15 04:23:00 | OK, I have found the boot prompt by pushing the Esc button after the live CD menu comes up. Unfortunatly any commands I enter return "Could not find kernal image:" with the typed in command after that.??? |
PPp (9511) | ||
| 515510 | 2007-01-15 04:35:00 | Can you give us an example of the commands you're trying please? If you don't enter ANY commands, does it boot to the Ubuntu desktop? |
dchip (1426) | ||
| 515511 | 2007-01-15 05:17:00 | grub-install /dev/hda cat /proc/partitions Esc (for the grub menu) rescue and maybe a few more from Linuxtopia link. The menu page gives a few options(safe grapics mode ,check CD etc) but has a 30second timer for default live installation, this stops on clicking any option. Is it possible I have to have the live CD installed and running, and then revert to the boot prompt somehow?? |
PPp (9511) | ||
| 515512 | 2007-01-15 06:17:00 | The menu page gives a few options(safe grapics mode ,check CD etc) but has a 30second timer for default live installation, this stops on clicking any option. You don't need to wait, once you've choosen the option you want press "enter" to boot into Ubuntu. Is it possible I have to have the live CD installed and running, and then revert to the boot prompt somehow?? The word "installed" is messin with my head in that statement as a live distro runs from the cd. (nothin to do with your hdd or installing, although most can be "installed" to the hdd too). You certainly can boot all the way into the live OS and then click open a terminal/console, to work from there...but you'll need to be "root" user to re-install grub. (and that's what the "8.1" step was all about except it got you to boot AS root) However that dosen't seem to be working for you. If nobody else here helps you with this, is it possible for you to d/load & burn puppy (www.puppylinux.org), As I knw I can help you re-install grub with that, and it will be VERY simple. (keep it in mind if you get no appropriate solution.) ;) |
dchip (1426) | ||
| 515513 | 2007-01-15 06:34:00 | I suspect you might have "accidentally" installed (or partially installed) the version from the live CD. I do not like any CD which "installs unless" . Partial installation would make the system unbootable from the hard disk. A boot manager has to know what it is managing, and if the file it gets that information from has been changed (or if it has been changed, but the file hasn't been :( ) it stops working. Since you were just playing, I doubt if there is anything very important in that Linux system. Boot into DOS from a W98 boot floppy and do "FDISK /MBR". That will make it bootable into W98. Then use FDISK to delete the "Non DOS" partitions. (Leave the W98 alone ;) ) Then just install the version of Linux you want. That will be the quickest way around this problem. |
Graham L (2) | ||
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