Ubuntu not starting from GRUB

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Braedley
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Ubuntu not starting from GRUB

Post by Braedley »

So after installing XP twice last night (the first time I had a RAID 0 array that linux didn't like all that much), I installed Ubuntu. The install went fine, and when I restarted, I was greeted with grub, as expected. When I selected Ubuntu, I got an Error 17, which is something along the lines of grub can see the partition, but can't load what it needs. I can still boot into windows.

My partition map (approx.):

Code: Select all

name	boot	size	fs	   function
sda:
	sda1		 30GB	 NTFS	 Windows main drive (C:)
	sda2	*	60GB	 ext3	 Ubuntu root
	sda3		 1GB	  swap
	sda4		 ~160GB	NTFS	primarily windows storage
sdb
	sdb1		125GB	FAT32	shared storage
	sdb2		125GB	FAT32	shared storage
I've tried editing the grub loading file (menu.lst) to change the Ubuntu drive to sda2, but that still didn't work.
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Darth Holbytlan
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Post by Darth Holbytlan »

What's the relevent line in menu.lst look like? You want to make sure that the "root" line really references the correct partition. You may also want to re-run grub-install.

My lines look like this (for Debian, with /boot on hda2):

Code: Select all

root            (hd0,1)
kernel          /vmlinuz root=/dev/mapper/main-root ro 
initrd          /initrd.img
I think your menu.list should currently have something more like this:

Code: Select all

root            (hd0,1)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro 
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.17-10-generic
(Assuming that your BIOS is mapping your SCSI disk to the first drive.)

Also, what does your WinXP menu.lst lines look like, and do they work? And what are the contents of device.map?
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Braedley
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Post by Braedley »

It's fixed now. It was trying to boot from the windows partition. Amazing what one little letter will do.
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Pu-239
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Post by Pu-239 »

No point in making shared partition FAT- Ubuntu writes to NTFS (safely) now. So you can just make the partitions in sdb1 one big partition.

Ubuntu root is also unnecessarily large- you should have it around 10 gigs or so, and mount /home as a separate partition, so when you do upgrades or something it's safe to blast away the root partition (after backing up /etc) .

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Braedley
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Post by Braedley »

Pu-239 wrote:No point in making shared partition FAT- Ubuntu writes to NTFS (safely) now. So you can just make the partitions in sdb1 one big partition.
Yeah, well I read that some NTFS writes may fail, so I didn't want to take the chance.
Ubuntu root is also unnecessarily large- you should have it around 10 gigs or so, and mount /home as a separate partition, so when you do upgrades or something it's safe to blast away the root partition (after backing up /etc) .
I'll remember that for next time.

Now for another problem that I've gotten myself into. Despite removing it from the autostart, Beryl still wants to start up when I log on. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except that it isn't configured properly and produces only a white screen. Apparently, I can interact with the desktop, but not being able to see what I'm doing makes it next to impossible to change anything.
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Braedley
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Post by Braedley »

Beryl's solved now. I just need to decide if I want to try and reinstall it.
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Pu-239
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Post by Pu-239 »

Braedley wrote:
Pu-239 wrote:No point in making shared partition FAT- Ubuntu writes to NTFS (safely) now. So you can just make the partitions in sdb1 one big partition.
Yeah, well I read that some NTFS writes may fail, so I didn't want to take the chance.
There are actually 3 ntfs drivers- the one that comes w/ the kernel w/ unsafe write (which is usually disabled by default, captive-ntfs that uses the windows drivers, and ntfs-3g, which runs using the FUSE interface. The latter two should be safe (and ubuntu uses the last if you install the package for enabling NTFS write).

ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer


George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor
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