Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

[Kyro]

I selected to wipe my entire HDD and install kubuntu, that worked fine.
It ran all the way through the installer program without any problems. It then asked me if i wanted to reboot or continue using the live CD.
I selected to Reboot.
My screen displayed information about "kubuntu and where to find out more information".
It then does some "unmounting stuff" (i suppose like windows shutdown, but this just telling you what it does)
I was then asked to remove the CD, which i did and then close the cdtray and press enter.
My computer restarts but then it just sits on the same screen. with the text
"GRUB" and an blinking "_" , ive tried typing, but nothing is displayed, just continues to display "GRUB _"

I dont know what went wrong.. The installer never displayed an error.
Ive read the installation and boot guide, but it doesnt help.

[Volvo_Guy]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

Did you have a previous version of Linux installed? Or a boot loader like Boot Magic? Also, it takes less than 10 mins to install kubuntu to that point, have you tried reinstalling the CD or checking the MD5SUM of the disc? Read here: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=5621.0

Will

[Kyro]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

no i didnt have another version of linux or bootmagic.
And it takes alot longer than 10 minutes because this is only a Pentium 2 with a 32x Cdrom.

[analyticalman]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

Well I have no idea what went wrong but lets try and see how much kubuntu is on your system

First of all we'll see if grub has any commands to boot your system. At the Grub prompt type
find /boot/grub/menu.lst You should get something like hd (0,0)

If you do, type this
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
Hopefully you will see a file that you can scroll through - near the bottom it should say something like

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-26-386
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-26-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-26-386
savedefault
boot

then press escape to get back to the prompt
try it - and if it does, you may be able to boot your system in the following way:

at the grub prompt type the commands between title and savedefault. e.g the commands you need to type in the example above are:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-26-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-26-386

adjust them to whatever your file says

If this works, then when you reboot next time and you are at the grub prompt type

root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)

If none of this works I would try to reinstall using the "alternative" CD

[Kyro]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

i cant type anything in so i cant do any of those commands you suggested.
I dont have the bandwidth to download the alternative cd image

[analyticalman]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

Can you type at all? If you type c first does that drop you to prompt that you can type in?

[Kyro]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

No i cant type anything, no matter what key on the keyboard i press or what combination of keys nothing comes up or changes.
I still get this "GRUB" with a flashing "_".

[analyticalman]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

I've seen a few reports on the internet about "frozen" grub where you can't type but I've never seen it myself and haven't found a solution. As your computer is effectively frozen then all I can suggest you do at this stage is to try to reinstall -Sorry

By the way - you should be able to order the alternative installer CD from Shipit as far as I know

[Kyro]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

Ive tried a Reinstall but it still doesnt do anything different. Also i cant find any Alternative CD for kubuntu on ShipIt.Kubuntu.org maybe im just blind but i cant see any reference to Alternative cd's

[analyticalman]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

Yes - I think your right - its just the live CD that Shipit does by the luck of it. Just a couple of questions - has the CD you used been used before - was it downloaded / md5 checksum verified?
Do you have any peripherals or dongles attached or optimised bios settings that you could remove or return to default and try again?

[Kyro]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

The CD was used to install Kubuntu on my laptop and that worked fine. and it wasnt downloaded it was from shipIt
I only have what is needed to run. mouse/keyboard/monitor/computer.
The bios is already on default.

[Volvo_Guy]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

One for thing we can try is to use fdisk /mbr. If your laptop has a floppy drive, you can use an old Windows bootdisk and run fdisk that way. If it doesn't, you can download the Ultimate Boot Disc iso image, burn it, and use a different vartiation of fdisk. This is what I had to do because I was having problems with 2 drives, with GRUB installed on both of them. I used fdisk to clean the master boot record on the secondary drive (primary IDE channel) so my primary drive (primary SATA channel) could boot. Then you could re-install once again (i know it's frustrating), but Kubuntu is fabulous software that is worth spending days trying to get working.

Will

[analyticalman]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

That could work (and the fixmbr from within the recovery console will certainly remove the borked Grub installation) - the reason I didn't suggest UBD was because of kyro's limited bandwidth for downloading.

One thing we could try without any downloading is to boot your computer with your live CD then you can try to reinstall grub from within that environment (I'm assuming that everything is OK except Grub here). There is a guide for doing that here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351

[Kyro]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.


YAY, thankyou, booting to the LiveCD and going to the terminal worked like a charm.
I now have a Desktop with Kubuntu, along with my Laptop with Ubuntu!

[analyticalman]

Re: Installed Kubuntu, but it wont boot.

Nice one Welcome to Kubuntu!