Helps, Error 17

[funkbuster]

Hey. Ok, my brother's wife ganked up his xp installation and we don't have any windows install disks. All they use the computer for is internet so I was like, I will install Linux on it for ya, since I have used it a few times in the past in my operating systems class. Anyways, so I tried Open Suse, and it comes up with an error when loading, couldn't get it working, so I got Ubuntu v8.10. I got it installed without a problem, but it wont load, it starts loading grub and then comes up with error 17. I have wiped the hard drive clean when I did the install so it is all that is on it. With the cd in or out of the drive it comes up with the error.

any help would be appreciated

[D-cat]

This is a grub error and not specific to Ubuntu. It happens when the values for the hard drive passed on by the BIOS and the ones GRUB detects do not match.

First, you should check your BIOS settings; let the BIOS detect the best setting for the hard drives (AUTO on all accounts, do not force LBA or NORMAL).

If this doesn't fix it, I suggest downloading and booting with the SuperGrub disc. SuperGrub knows about a lot of common problems and install errors and can fix them almost automagically.

Good Luck!