Any ubuntu experts out there?

Jon_01

My lads just installed ubuntu 9.1 on his system.

The installer said it could repartition and dual boot with XP, so that's what he's done.

The problem now is the system only boots to XP ? Should there be a 'which op system do you want to boot to?' screen ?

He's tried to reinstall ubuntu but it say it's already installed !

So, how the heck do you boot into it ???

OneADay

If the install went ok, the boot installer should have been installed and a menu should come up when you switch pc, only lasts about 5-10 seconds so you have to be quick to spot it.

But by sounds of it the boot installer is not installed. It could be various reasons for that.

Whats the disk/partition set up?

Jon_01

I'm assuming (he's in Cumbria and I'm in Bristol, so I'm trying to sort him out by phone and text!), that as XP was already there it's reduced his C drive and made a D where it's installed ubuntu.
That's what I'd have expected any way !

OneADay

Sounds like grub bootloader is not installed properly into the MBR.

Is he using the latest version of linux boot cd?

If its XP - it should be no problem (vista/win7 can prove problematic)

I would do another reinstall but this time when choosing the new partitions for linux, delete the old ones first and let ubuntu repartition the free space by itself (making sure of course not to get rid of windows partition).

If he is installing into an external or usb drive of sort - then it wont work unless the bootloader goes onto the main boot disk in the pc (i.e. the one with C windows drive).

Jon_01

Yes, latest version (9.10) downloaded this afternoon.

I'll get him to try again and see what happens. Thanks.

gaming_guy

reload grub:

scroll to the section named 'Reinstalling GRUB 2' here

c0rneL

is windows that you will need to work on.
if you have windows XP you can go to start=> run and then type msconfig

in the tab called boot.ini you should see a list of operationg systems, you'll have windows and also ubuntu

you will notice timeout which might be 0 in your case. If it is 0, change it to 5 seconds(or10, etc) and then save, and restart

you will then have 5-10 seconds to choose the operating system.

PS if you have vista, it is similar option

gaming_guy

c0rneL wrote: »

is windows that you will need to work on.
if you have windows XP you can go to start=> run and then type msconfig

in the tab called boot.ini you should see a list of operationg systems, you'll have windows and also ubuntu

you will notice timeout which might be 0 in your case. If it is 0, change it to 5 seconds(or10, etc) and then save, and restart

you will then have 5-10 seconds to choose the operating system.

PS if you have vista, it is similar option

a timeout setting of 0 will just make the selection screen sit there until you select an option.

the only way i know of to make linux boot from the windows boot loader is to use something like easybcd.

I find it easier to let grub be the default boot loader when dual booting windows& linux

fwor

A quick solution to this can be to download the Super Grub Boot Disk, boot from it, and let it fix your MBR and bootloader problems. I've used it a couple of times and it works well.

candtalan

Jon_01 wrote: »

I'm assuming (he's in Cumbria and I'm in Bristol, so I'm trying to sort him out by phone and text!), that as XP was already there it's reduced his C drive and made a D where it's installed ubuntu.
That's what I'd have expected any way !

I trust that the live CD worked with no problems? This verifies that the hardware is all picked up ok, so there is less uncertainty going to an install. The CD can also be self checked too. A good move, some CD burns can be flakey, so *do* use the self check of the actual CD in the actual target drive. It sounds like he chose to boot from the CD and install. This is the traditional way, and yes, it will offer to resize the windows partition. It will then create an extended partition in the space and inside that it will create two logical partitions, one for swap, and one for the system. So if you later examine the partitions you will see a Windows partition (ntfs usually) and three other entries. The Ubuntu CD (the normal live CD) has a partition editor (gparted) included so if this CD is again used to boot from, then the partitions can be observed (or changed, so take some care). If you want to install Ubuntu again from scratch, then it is easiest (at this stage) to use the live CD, using gparted, to first delete the Ubuntu partitions one by one, swap, system and extended. Swap may request to be set as off (swapoff) to allow deletion. Subsequently for install choose the option to install into 'largest free space on drive' because the Windows partition is already sized ok.

turbobob

gaming_guy wrote: »

the only way i know of to make linux boot from the windows boot loader is to use something like easybcd.

There is a way. On one PC where I was dual booting Ubuntu and WinXP, I had some problems getting grub to boot Windows. It would stop at "unable to find ntoskrnl.exe" or similar. Despite trying all sorts of different things it would not work.

The final solution I was given was to install grub, then use commands in Linux to copy the bootsector to a file on the C:/ drive and then restore the Windows bootloader. The Windows bootloader can then be used to start grub. All the steps are on this post here - http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4187629&postcount=11