Quad Boot, Linux Boot Problems! HELP!!!

[iainh23]

Ok, I am new here and pretty new to Linux and so you may need to be patient with me

Here is my problem.

I recently formatted my PC that was running Vista and XP on a dual boot, running with no problems but decided to do a clean up. Now I had messed with Ubuntu from a disc and decided to add that to the system. I was installing onto a single 500GB hard drive that I had partitioned.

I installed in this order, XP Pro, then Ubuntu 8.10, then Vista Ultimate. All was running fine with a triple boot and then I decided to add the beta of Windows 7 to test things, again I installed this onto a new partition and again it was all running fine and I chose my system boot from the menu as I started the PC with Vista as the default boot.

I then got a hold of Ubuntu Ultimtate on disc and tested it and liked what I saw so I decided to replace Ubuntu 8.10 with the Ubuntu Ultimate, however I had to uninstall Ubuntu to add the new Ubuntu Ultimate which I did and it installed fine.

Now start the problems, all 4 systems are on ok, but I now only get the Windows systems showing in the boot menu and allthough Ubuntu Ultimate is installed there is no boot option and no way I can start the system on the PC. Now from what I read I am guessing Windows Vista or Windows 7 removed the bootloader that enables Linux to boot and I am clueless as to how to get it back.

If I try to boot into Linux from the menu (I added an entry using EasyBCD) then I just get a black screen saying "BOOTMGR IS MISSING"

I also downloaded and put Super Grub Disc onto a disc and followed some instructions for that but ended with an error message and still I have no luck.

Can anyone help me or give me a walkthrough fix, I am generally pretty competant on Windows systems and with drive partitioning etc, but Linux I am clueless to be honest and so just hope someone here can help me get this started again.

My hard drives/partitions are set up as follows (2x 500GB Hard Drives)

C = Vista (Drive 1 : 300GB Partition)
D = XP (Drive 1 : 50 GB Partition)
E = Storage Space (Drive 2 : 465GB not partitioned)
F = Windows 7 (Drive 1 : 50GB Partition)
G = Linux Ubuntu (Drive 1 : 50GB Partition)
H = Storage Space for Drivers and Instillation Files (Drive 1 : 15GB)

Any help or guidance to fix thios would be VERY much appreciated.


Iain.

[bigtomrodney]

What boot loader are you using?

[iainh23]

What boot loader are you using?

I havnt installed anything and so its just loading from the original Windows bootloader I expect but again I am new to this area apart from running my old XP/Vista dual boot and for that I didnt touch anything once the systems were installed, once I added Ubuntu to that when I formatted (added after XP) everything was fine and so I just assume it was the built in boot from Windows that ran everything.

Sorry if that doesnt explain your question but thats as much as I know on this

[bigtomrodney]

I imagine as you say that Windows 7 installed its own bootloader. If you like (and you intend keeping Ubuntu) we can get Grub set up correctly for you. This will aloow you to boot from pretty much any operating system. If you can download SuperGrub and get it onto a CD/Floppy it will be able to restore Ubuntu's bootloader with only one or two prompts from you. Have a look at this.

Super Grub Disk Webpage

If Ubuntu hasn't already detected all of your Windows installs, such as the newer Windows 7, we can manually add that after we get you up and running with Supergrub.

[iainh23]

I imagine as you say that Windows 7 installed its own bootloader. If you like (and you intend keeping Ubuntu) we can get Grub set up correctly for you. This will aloow you to boot from pretty much any operating system. If you can download SuperGrub and get it onto a CD/Floppy it will be able to restore Ubuntu's bootloader with only one or two prompts from you. Have a look at this.

Super Grub Disk Webpage

If Ubuntu hasn't already detected all of your Windows installs, such as the newer Windows 7, we can manually add that after we get you up and running with Supergrub.

I liked Ubuntu from what I saw of it (only used it a few times and was finding my way around it) and I liked the look of the Ubuntu Ultimate Edition even more so I definatley want this back up and running.

I also have Super Grub Disc and did follow one online tutorial but I got some error (which I didnt note down unfortunatly so I cant tell you wnat it said) but I am happy to try this again if anyone can give me a short walkthrough of what I need to use on this disc.

The main problem is I have no real experience of installing the bootloaders etc and everything I have done so far with dual, triple and quad boots was done via windows and so I am not that great with the Linux stuff.

Any help on Super Grub Disc would be a good start though and I can try that stuff straight away as I have the disc ready here.

[bigtomrodney]

I owe you an apology, I reread your original post and it seems that you had already answered both of my questions!

It's unfortunate that SuperGrub didn't work for you. Here's the short of it: I would be absolutely terrified to give you a few things to try if you aren't comfortable with Linux, as the worst case is you end up with an unbootable system. That's really not an acceptable loss

If however, you were to reinstall one of the Ubuntu systems it would pick up your other operating systems and create entries while installing Grub again for you. This is less risky, and in this case the best option.

In person this kind of thing would take 5-10 minutes to resolve but remotely like this I'd be quite wary of posting instructions. Good luck anyway and certainly keep asking questions - if there's any help I can give I certainly will.

[iainh23]

I owe you an apology, I reread your original post and it seems that you had already answered both of my questions!

It's unfortunate that SuperGrub didn't work for you. Here's the short of it: I would be absolutely terrified to give you a few things to try if you aren't comfortable with Linux, as the worst case is you end up with an unbootable system. That's really not an acceptable loss

If however, you were to reinstall one of the Ubuntu systems it would pick up your other operating systems and create entries while installing Grub again for you. This is less risky, and in this case the best option.

In person this kind of thing would take 5-10 minutes to resolve but remotely like this I'd be quite wary of posting instructions. Good luck anyway and certainly keep asking questions - if there's any help I can give I certainly will.

No problem and you are right that I really dont want to make the whole system unbootable, I could recover it all but it would take time I dont want to waste setting everything up from scratch again and so allthough it wouldnt be critical for my PC I dont want to have to be starting from scratch again.

I also did try reinstalling both Ubuntu and Ubuntu Ultimate (after this boot problem initially happnend) and unfortunatly it doesnt seem to fix the boot problem for me

I was hoping that I it would have fixed things and maybe I just needed to make a Linux entry on EasyBCD but no such luck and when installing Linux again I have tried simply reinstalling after an uninstall and a clean format on the drive partition for Linux and then the install and allthough they install fine everytime I still dont get that boot option showing up. I can then make the Linux boot option with EasyBCD and its there in the list but I still get the "BOOTMGR IS MISSING" when I select the Linux option.

From what I can gather you can go straight after XP with Linux and there wont be a problem (I had this working like this) but if you follow a Vista or Windows 7 install then those systems remove the bootloaded that anables the Linux boot and reinstalling Linux doesnt seem to do anything once this has happened.

Looks like I need some way to install the bootloader manually but like I say I am not great with Linux as I am a novice with it and was only just finding my way around and so allthough I can follow basic Linux instructions or instructions on say Super Grub Disc I am not great when it comes to more complex stuff.

I also tried to follow an online tutorial to add Grub from the Live Linux disc but again I got errors along the way and that also failed.

This is very annoying as I know its just one thing that wants putting back yet there seems no easy way to do it

If you post any instructions I can follow basic stuff and I know my limitations so dont worry if you post a fix that I get stuck on as I wont risk going too far unless I am sure I understand it beforehand.

[devils casper]

Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and post the output of sudo fdisk -l command here.

sudo fdisk -l

[iainh23]

Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and post the output of sudo fdisk -l command here.

sudo fdisk -l

Ok, hope this is the correct info and that I didnt do anything wrong.


Disk /dev/sda: 300.0 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcab10bee

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 6805 54655972 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 6805 9354 20478976 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 9355 10084 5863725 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 10085 36481 212033902+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 10085 33195 185639076 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 33196 36481 26394763+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4e4fb9cc

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 60801 488384001 7 HPFS/NTFS
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[yancek]

My hard drives/partitions are set up as follows (2x 500GB Hard Drives)

The line above is from your first post, the output of the fdisk command shows a 300GB and a 500GB drive?? As you can see from that output, there are NO Linux partitions! Did you do a wubi install where you install Ubuntu inside windows as a folder? I'm not familiar with wubi installs so...?