Install & boot problem

[pizzicar]

Running Windows XP. I made an ISO and ran the live CD fine. I decided to install to the computer and the install process seemed to go fine. When the partition section came up during the install, It defaulted to installing on my second drive - which is what I wanted. I accepted all defaults and when it was time to reboot, the system hung on grub 1.5 with an error 17.

I did some searching and did not find a good solution. At this point I could not boot into either windows or Kubuntu due to the grub error.

I put in the XP install disk and went into the recovery console and did a fixmbr. This allowed me to boot into windows XP again. I tried running the live CD again but after seeming to load, it just stays at a black screen with a flashing cursor.

Any suggestions? I would love to get this running.

[dibl]

Re: Install & boot problem

Try an Alt-F1 at the flashing cursor. If you get login prompt, give it the user name and password that you set up when you installed it. If this works, we'll give you the rest of what you need to get a GUI desktop running.

[pizzicar]

Re: Install & boot problem

When I rebooted, the live CD loaded this time - so I am at the desktop now. There was no login prompt - I assume because I booted into the live CD.

[dibl]

Re: Install & boot problem

Oh -- I thought you had installed, but booting the installed OS would throw you to a blinking cursor? Sometimes that means the video card has been wrongly recognized. There's little procedure to get around it, if you need to.

There's lot of material about such problems on this forum, and even more on the Ubuntu Forums.

[pizzicar]

Re: Install & boot problem

Thanks for your replies by the way

I did install but could not boot due to the grub error. I had to kill grub by fixing the mbr on the boot disk. So the installed files are still on my second drive - but there is no way to boot to it right now.

Should I run grub manually? If so, what would the parameters be given that the boot drive is C: but Kubuntu is installed on a partition on the D: drive.

[dibl]

Re: Install & boot problem

Are your hard drives both IDE/PATA, or is one of them SATA?

[pizzicar]

Re: Install & boot problem

They are IDE drives

[dibl]

Re: Install & boot problem

Hmmm -- well, it sounds like you did the installation procedure correctly, selecting the second drive for Linus, so something went awry with the Grub installation to the MBR. I've seen multiple threads here and on Ubuntu Forums on that topic, but I had no such problem. Between your two hard drives, there should be only one partition marked "Active", which is the one where Windows has the MBR. After you complete the Kubuntu installation, and you say "Yes" to installing Grub on the MBR, you should, upon reboot (and with the live CD removed), get a Grub menu that offers at the top your Kubuntu Linux and then Win XP about 4 lines down. Being a hard-head, I would try the installation a second time, just to make sure that there wasn't some anomaly the first time. If it doesn't work right (again), then if you search on "move Grub", "place Grub", and "edit Grub", there are about a zillion threads on the subject.

Hope this helps ...

EDIT: I forgot -- get SuperGrub Disk (iso image) -- it is the key tool to deal with Grub issues. Here it is http://supergrub.forjamari.linex.org/