Dual-Boot on Dell Dimension 3000

[devils casper]

hmm... did you edit file correctly?
boot up from Ubuntu Live CD, open Terminal and edit menu.lst file again.

sudo mkdir ubuntu
sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/hda4 ubuntu
nano ubuntu/boot/grub/menu.lst

remove mapping code and save file.

GRUB is not working properly with your machine's BIOS. i will look for solution.

[ltcmdrdata]

sudo mkdir ubuntu
sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/hda4 ubuntu
nano ubuntu/boot/grub/menu.lst

When I do this on the install cd, nano opens with a blank page.
Do I need to reinstall linux?

Also, when I look at my partitions now (through the install cd), the windows partition is there (but it looks empy, like all the data has been earased).

Could I have earased windows when I originally installed grub? (since I installed it to the windows partition).

I backed up all my data on an external hard drive before I did all this, so its no big deal if I have to reinstall everything.

[devils casper]

no need to re-install Linux. its easy to fix this problem. GRUB install doesn't erase Windows data. did you mount WIndows Partition to check its contents?

try prefixing sudo before nano command.

sudo nano ubuntu/boot/grub/menu.lst

if it opens blank file again, check the contents of grub folder.

ls ubuntu/boot/grub

does it list menu.lst file?


if you are planning for re-install, i suggest to install Windows in First Partition only.

[ltcmdrdata]

I did not mount the windows partition before checking its contents, so that's probably why it looked empty.

I edited the ubuntu/boot/grub/menu.lst file and took out the two map lines.
But, it had no effect. The computer still says
"Loading PBR for descriptor 3...done.
Bad PBR"
when I boot up.

When I put the install cd in, and check the menu.lst file the 2 map lines are gone, so the edit worked.

[devils casper]

hmm... try to re-install GRUB. boot up from LiveCD and execute this

sudo grub-install /dev/hda

check the contents of Windows Partiton too.

sudo mkdir win
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hda2 win -o defaults,umask=0
ls win

[ltcmdrdata]

sudo grub-install /dev/hda

Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.


sudo mkdir win
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hda2 win -o defaults,umask=0

Mount: wrong fs type, bad option, badsuperblock on /dev/hda2,
missing codepage or other error,
In some cases useful info is found in syslog – try
Dmesg | tail or so

[devils casper]

did you change partition structure? i am suggesting commands according to the output of fdisk -l that you have posted in post #3.
execute 'sudo fdisk -l' command again. does it display same partition structure?

[ltcmdrdata]

Device ----- Boot -- Start -- End ----- Blocks ----- Id --- System
/dev/hda1 ---- ------- 1 ---- 5 ------ 40131 ------ de -- Dell Utility
/dev/hda2 --- ------ 6 -- 15185 --- 121933350 -- 7 --- HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 --- * --- 19010 - 19452 ---3558397+ --- 82 -- Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda4 ---- ---- 15186 - 19009 -- 30716280 --- 83 -- Linux


The * character under the Boot column is now in row 3 (before it was in row 2).
I didn't change anything.
It's possible that I made a typo in my earlier post, but I don't think I did.

[devils casper]

if you have backed up everything already, i suggest you to re-install.
there are a few ways to activate/deactivate partitions like SuperGRUB and UBCDs.

[qoodos]

Hey guys, Leave Windows at all. Now Dell is itself providing Linux as an officially loaded on their computers.

Check: http://linuxera.com/content/view/26/5/

Go for Ubuntu or Debian, two biggest and fastest growing Linux distros...

Best Wishes!