Operation System Missing

[Bwomp]

I installed Kubuntu 8.04 on my 1st sata master hard drive. When it reboots after installation it just says: "Operation System Missing". What am I doing wrong :s

[toad]

Re: Operation System Missing

Tell us as much as you can about your computer setup. Is it a laptop or a desktop. If the latter, how many hard disks have you got? Were there any other operating systems on it? Did you intend to keep them? How did you install? How did you go about partitioning?

You get the gist, tell more and I'm sure we can sort you out

[Bwomp]

Re: Operation System Missing

It's a desktop. I wanted a dual-boot system. I thought it would be possible with the grub loader (2 years ago my desktop was dual boot with grub-loader).

I have 3 SATA hard drives:

1st sata master: seagate 160 GB
2nd sate master: WDC 160GB
3rd sata master: WDC 160GB

I tried to install it to the seagate-drive (recently bought it).

The Partitions:
The seagate-drive has two partitions: 1 ext3 partition and 1 small linux swap partition
The 2nd sata master has also two partitions. One NTFS partition (where Linux is on) en and fat32-partition. (this is just for documents, games, ...)
The 3d is has 1 partition. NTFS for music.

How I installed. There was menu at the beginning and I chose install linux (not run linux live-cd). And I just followed the wizard. Obviously I chose the ext3 for installing linux (mount point /).

Hope this helps you to help me

ps: I also tried an older version of kubuntu (5.10) and slackware. Neither of them worked.
pps: What I forgot to say is that is was linux 8.04 64-bit edition (for the 5.10 it was also 64bit edition)

[toad]

Re: Operation System Missing

Thanks, Bwomp.

So you have three sata masters (I didn't even know that was possible )

The seagate should have a small swap partition, a 10gb / partition and the rest should be /home (well, this is how I would do it)
Your second drive, the first WDC, is your other OS, but which one? For all things windowze please refer to http://apcmag.com/the_definitive_dua...stepbystep.htm - if your other os is linux or bsd I really don't understand your problem... And with windowze I have absolutely no experience

BTW, what exactly happens after the BIOS comes up? Do you just get there is no OS or is grub kicking in? If the former check your hardware connections, for the latter refer to the link I gave you.

[nilsA]

Re: Operation System Missing

The first thing I would have done is try changing the boot sequence in BIOS. If I remember this correctly (but it has been a long time since I saw that one) the message means that the PC boots to the DOS MBR. Then, and the windows boot system don't find anything to boot.

This would probably mean that grub is not installed where the BIOS settings try finding it, and when the BIOS don't find anything bootable on the C: drive (or drive 0), it will search for the next drive. If you then have windows on the 2nd master, it will find the Windows bootloader there. As you have instlled the new drive as the first, the windows bootloader will expect to find windows on the first disk, not the second.

The simplest thing to do, if changing the boot order don't work, is to change the sata drives so that Windows is on the first one, and then reinstall Kubuntu to the second or third. It is quite possible not having Windows on the first disk, but my experience is that it tends to mess up tings every now and then during major upgrades, and you will have to deal with grub. It is no t very difficult, but a pain where you know when it happens and you have other things to do

[aged hippy]

Re: Operation System Missing

Is it possible that the BIOS won't accept three Master drives?

I (like toad) didn't know that it was possible.

I would be inclined to re-set the jumpers on the Seagate as Master, and the two WDCs as Slaves, then to create - on the Seagate - a ~80Gb partition and format it as ntfs (for a Windows installation) and ~10Gb formatted as ext3 to be mounted as /, and the rest (ext3) mounted as /home, with about 1Gb at the end to be mounted as /swap.

Don't forget that if you use XP, it is not capable of seeing Linux partitions, insists on being on the C: (boot) drive which must be master, and it will gleefully over-write the MBR (but not damage the partitions).

If you want access to the ntfs partition from Linux, tell the installer to Use this partition as ntfs, mount it as /windows/XP (or Vista, whatever), and it will be mounted at boot, or you can tell the installer to Do not use this partition and it will not be mounted (but you can mount it manually).

On the first WDC drive, i would be inclined to format the ntfs partition (with the present Linux installation on) as ext3, and mount it as usr/local, and the fat32 partition, to tell the installer to Use this partition as fat32 and to mount it as /windows/Docs (or whatever name you want).

The other WDC i would tell the installer to Use this partition as ntfs, and to mount it as /windows/Music (or whatever).

I don't know if this helps, but i hope so.

[tinker]

Re: Operation System Missing

It's a desktop. I wanted a dual-boot system. I thought it would be possible with the grub loader (2 years ago my desktop was dual boot with grub-loader).

I have 3 SATA hard drives:

1st sata master: seagate 160 GB
2nd sate master: WDC 160GB
3rd sata master: WDC 160GB

I tried to install it to the seagate-drive (recently bought it).

So, the newest drive is drive number one if I read your post correctly.

As poster nilsA suggested, the error message you received is what happens when the MBR of the first drive hasn't been written. Now, since one of those other drives must have been the first drive before you got the new one, that drive is going to be the one that has the MBR written to boot your system and the one that points to the boot directory where grub menu.lst lives.

Depending on how experienced you are with GNU/Linux the easiest way might be what has already been suggested, put drives back in the order they were before the new one and add it as the third drive, then make necessary edits to menu.lst telling grub where to boot Kubuntu on the third drive. Once they are back in position, grub menu will probably come up rather than the error message. If the install went okay you probably don't need to reinstall, just point grub to the correct partition.

[nilsA]

Re: Operation System Missing

If you are not familiar with grub, this may help:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0

[Bwomp]

Re: Operation System Missing

About the 3 sata master thing: In the bios is it possible to put 4 sata masters. Because sata has no slaves it seemed abvious to me that that can't be the problem.

I just putted the wdc with windows xp as 1st sata master. The 2nd wdc is 2nd sata master and the seagate sata is 3rd.

When I install Kubuntu, at step 6/6 there is an advanced option, where I can say where to install the boot loader. The standard option is hd(0). Is this right in this case? I don't know enough about linux to know which HD is hd(0).

I tried to mount the windows partition (mount point /windows), but then it says it failed to mount /windows (or something like that) and it goes back to the beginning.

[dibl]

Re: Operation System Missing

Some motherboards/BIOS are looking for the "boot" flag to be set on the partition where grub is installed (the Master Boot Record). You might try running gparted and set the boot flag on the partition where you intend to install grub, then you might get by with running grub-update from a Live CD, or else you might have to reinstall.

[Troberg]

Re: Operation System Missing

I've seen BIOSes where you have to set which HD to boot from. If you can select, make sure it's the right one.

[nilsA]

Re: Operation System Missing

When I install Kubuntu, at step 6/6 there is an advanced option, where I can say where to install the boot loader. The standard option is hd(0). Is this right in this case? I don't know enough about linux to know which HD is hd(0).

hd(0) is the first one, the one that in Windows will be seen as C:

In your PC this should be the first SATA disk.

[Bwomp]

Re: Operation System Missing

I ran GParted and saw that there where to disks (or partitions) with a bootflag. The partition where windows xp is installed on an the partition where linux is installed on. I removed the bootflag from windows XP. Then I opened the bios en moved the seagate-HD (where linux is installed on) to the first position in de drives part under BOOT. And it all worked. Linux is starting perfect. Windows is starting perfect.

Know I just have to fix the sound, but I'm sure that that won't be such a problem as this.

Thanks y'all

[toad]

Re: Operation System Missing

Well done for sorting it

Could you edit the topic of the first post and add SOLVED please so others can learn from your experience...

[tinker]

Re: Operation System Missing

Some motherboards/BIOS are looking for the "boot" flag to be set on the partition where grub is installed (the Master Boot Record). You might try running gparted and set the boot flag on the partition where you intend to install grub, then you might get by with running grub-update from a Live CD, or else you might have to reinstall.

Dibl, I don't have experience with new hardware but in the past it wasn't necessary to set the boot flag on a Linux partition in order for it to be bootable, it was always the Windows partition that required it. I'm fairly confident that grub doesn't care. I'm fairly sure only one partition on a system can have the boot flag at any given time. There is a grub command, makeactive, which, if included in the stanza in menu.lst sets the grub root device as the active partition and I have always included that just before, chainloader+1. I always assumed the makeactive command was included in grub for the specific purpose of booting an unsupported operating system like the Redmond one. But, as I stated, I don't have experience with new hardware. I also don't know anything about GRUB2, so I will have to learn. Are you sure it's necessary to set a boot flag on a Linux partition ?