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**askrieger** · Jul 03, 2006, 03:13 PM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

I'm not really familar with the Acronis software and I think that the solution to your problem probably resides there. Does Acronis have a support forum?

I can make a guess as to how your problem started. It is a little known fact (at least to new users who haven't used (K)Ubuntu before) that the Espresso installer on the Kubuntu Desktop Live CD gives you no choice about where to install Grub. It just drops it on your MBR. This is perfectly okay for most users, and it saves the unsophisticated from being faced by a meaningless (to them) decision at the start of the install process. However, in a case like yours, it can cause no end of grief.

Sophisticated users are supposed to use the Alternate Installer. I quote: "The Alternate CD includes a text based installer for low memory, LVM or RAID installs." Nice to know after its too late. >

BTW, if and when you get going, you might want to change your F drive to VFAT. Linux can read ntfs, but it can't write it.

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 04, 2006, 04:50 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Hello.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated!

I have tried tha Acronis Support forum but its like trying to get blood from a stone.

I too believe that Acronis is the problem so i deactivated OS Selector but still the problem persists. I have also tried cleaning my MBR, firstly with "fdisk /mbr" (but it said the command was invalid) and then with recovery console and "fixmbr".

WOW, im surprised you say that is a little known fact as i was thinking the same thing and now youve made me feel all clever! I have downloaded kubuntu 5xx as this gives you the option. However, if i recall from when i tried to install this a while ago it had a trouble handling my RAID system.

You see, i have 2x250GB HDD RAID 1 Mirror, Linux (correctly) shows both HDDs in the install process, asking me to choose one, where really i only want it to "see" one (like in lovely XP - sacriligious i know!) so it installs on both physical drives.

Any ideas as to what i should do?

Yes i was going to change my F drive to FAT32 (thats same a VFAT right?) so both OSes can use it. What are the benefits of NTFS over FAT32 btw?

**askrieger** · Jul 04, 2006, 02:19 PM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Kubuntu 5-10 has a difficult (maybe impossible) time with RAID. I did find this Ubuntu wiki page on the subject of software raid, but I have no idea how to make that work with the Acronis software. Moreover, it appleies to Breezy and is relatively discouraging about RAID 1. Sorry I can't be more encouraging.

Yes, VFAT = FAT32. For windows systems, ntfs is both faster and more secure. I believe that it's a modern journaling file system, unlike FAT which dates back to 8 bit processors and tiny disks. unfortunately the details of the way it chooses where to write what are a proprietary trade secret, so while it's possible to reverse engineer reading ntfs, Linux attemps to write to ntfs have been known to (occasionally) destroy the information on the disk.

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 07, 2006, 09:25 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Sorry for my slow reply.

You see i am in a predicament. I try to install Kubuntu 5.10 and there is no (or little) RAID support but this allows me to chose whether to install GRUB or not, or i use 6.06 which is ok with RAID but doesnt let me chose to install GRUB or not.

That wiki looked waaaaay to complicated for me, im very new to linux. I just want to dual boot XP and Kubuntu using Acronis OS Selector, is that so hard to ask!

I think all these problems to do with Grub and Acronis are the fact that they are both trying to use their own MBR. By "wiping" it back to normal, then installing GRUB and then getting rid of that by installing Acronis i should be ok. Do you know of a way to check whats on the MBR or any tools to "wipe" it?

I will convert F to FAT32, thanks.

Thanks for the help and for a lovely OS (if only i could use it!)

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 07, 2006, 09:26 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Oh yes, and what are these "repositories" im hearing so much about just as a newbie question?

**askrieger** · Jul 07, 2006, 11:13 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

I still know nothing about Acronis so I have no idea whther it recognizes Linux partitions or knows how to accomodate them. If it does, then by all means use Acronis. That's what you're used to. If not, I can tell you that Grub recognizes windows and can be set up to perform multiple booting choices, but (because it is not commercial software) the documentation is hard to find and even harder to understand.

Repositories are collections of software packages. First, a software package contains the compiled code of a prgram or a library, together with scripts for installing, and removing the software. There are two main software systems in Linux, RPM and DEB. (K)Ubuntu uses DEB. Each repository contains a collection of software. Repositories are separated in two ways. There are national collections of repository types, and there are several types of repositories, the primary ones being, main, universe and multiverse. You can learn about this on the Ubuntu community help site: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 09, 2006, 07:01 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Sorry for my slow reply.

This is really starting to annoy me. Ive tried to do some research and some thinking and was wondering whether any of these following options are possible...
1. Do something with GRUB using the live CD (dont really know what im talking about but maybe sometinhg like this http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...nstalling+grub maybe reinstall, uninstall, configure it or whatever),

2. Wipe my HDD (and so MBR) and start again.

3. Delete GRUB from install CD to stop if from being installed.

Any of these sound sensible?

Thanks for the help

**askrieger** · Jul 09, 2006, 12:23 PM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

One of the reasons, I stay at this forum rather than Ubuntu Forums is that I hate 8 page threads (let alone 22 page threads), but as far as I can tell the technique in that thread requires the Breezy install CD. I'm not sure it would work with the Dapper "Desktop" CD, although it might work with the Dapper Alternate installer CD.

It's always possible to wipe your hard drive and start again, but rarely neccesary.

Deleting something from a CD (or even from the iso file) is beyond my knowledge or experience. So given a choice, I'd go with the alternate install CD (unless you have a Breezy CD around). But that leaves the RAID issue moot.

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 09, 2006, 04:21 PM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

OK, i think im getting somewhere. I think the answer lies in the 6.06 Altrenative CD that has more flexibility with GRUB and supports RAID.

I have been asking on the computer shopper forums. (This will sound wierd but i can not post a link as anywhere i go i just get www.computershopper.co.uk in the task bar. go to IT Foums, Linux and im close to the top). What do you think of my problems there?

I was basically going to do this http://users.piuha.net/martti/comp/ubuntu/raid.html but afrer i selected create MD RAID 1 i got an error and now im stuck again.

Im sure im getting close here, any ideas?

Thanks again

**askrieger** · Jul 09, 2006, 05:01 PM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

What was the error?

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 10, 2006, 03:34 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

OK, sorry for my slow rely but it was a long error message i had to write down! Here goes. This is what i get after selecting "create MD" (the 4th screen shot from http://users.piuha.net/martti/comp/ubuntu/raid.html)

"No RAID Partitions avaliable.
No unsued partitions of the type "Linux RAID Autodetect" are avaliable. Please create such a partition, or delete an allready used multidisk device to free its partitions.

If you have such partitions they might contain acutal file systems, and are therefore not avaliable for use by this configuration utility."

Also i get a warning message after selecting set up RAID that i did not notice in the guide. It reads

"When RAID is configured no additional changes to the partitions in the disks containing physical volumes are allaoed. Please convince yourself that you are satisfied with the current partitioing scheme in these disks.

Keep current partion layout and configure RAID? YES / NO

Reading that guide do i have to do something about creating RAID partitioms?

Thanks again for all your help

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 10, 2006, 07:55 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Im off away for 2 weeks now, so i might not be able to get in contact too much in that time (ill be away from a pc). Hopefully we'll have an answer by the time i get back!!!

**askrieger** · Jul 10, 2006, 11:42 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Reading that guide do i have to do something about creating RAID partitioms?

Considering the error message you received, I'd say that you do. My guess is that you have to answer yes to the previous question question. However, I'd try to be VERY sure that I wasn't about to destroy my windoze partitions, if I were you.

**Major_Disaster** · Jul 17, 2006, 10:08 AM

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Heya

Sorry for my veeeery slow reply, but im on holiday and away from the pc in question.

Hmm yeh i think i need to read that really carefully. But what if the worst did happen and the HDDs were COMPLETELY wiped. I could just reinstall windows from the cd right?

It gives me an option where to install the grub bootloader, something about on a HDD or on a boot sector, where should i? I think this is kinda important!

Thanks

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