[SOLVED] Screwed up partitions and boot and swap and MBR and UBUNTU

[Skinpete]

Hey if you're gonna screw up do it BIG!
I tried making one big partition to run UBUNTU alone on, system was fragmented from many installs.
anyway here is what I am left with

37.28 GiB QUANTUM FIREBALL

2 partitions
/dev/sda1 ext2 19.53 GiB with a boot flag
/dev/sda2 extended 17.74GiB unallocated
I think it thinks it's like (0,0) now instead of (1,1) to (1,6)

Don't worry I saved all my pornography before I started messing with the partitions.

Anyway, Live CDs work fine (using one now) just wondering how to reclaim my drive.
I can kinda follow directions and cut and past things into the console but I'm no power user.
I don't have to save anything on it, a full wipe is OK I just wanna use it again.

Skinpete

[Dougal]

You should be able to get things working again if you simply format the drive when installing. This is done in the allocating partitions section.

[Skinpete]

Nope, tried letting UBUNTU format whole drive as a new install tried using just one partition install won''t do it automaticly.Install fails.

What state does drive have to be in to do install?

like format and drive partition numbers ect...
and how do I get it in that state?

Skinpete

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

The Parted Magic LiveCD makes easy work of dealing with partitioning chores, so I highly recommend it if you aren't comfortable with the command line:

Parted Magic News

[Skinpete]

Parted Magic Live CD.....thankyou
I'll find it and give it a shot.
I will post again with results tonight, still open to other options if anyone wants to chime in.
I'm not too screwed on the comand line so I can try some stuff if anyone has ideas

Skinpete

[D-cat]

The typical install method is to use about 20G as the root partition, then put the rest in an extended partition. Inside the extended partition is a small swap area (based on your RAM), then the rest is given to /home. The reason for doing it this way is that all your personal files go in /home/(user), thus, whenever you have to reinstall, upgrade, or just change your distro, you can safely format and install fresh on the root partition and not have to worry about losing any personal data.

It looks like the Ubuntu installer was trying to do that, but somehow got confused.

You are absolutely welcome to install the whole shebang on one partition (this would be a manual partitioning job in the installer), just make sure you keep your, umm, collection safely backed up on external media.

[Skinpete]

Fixed!!!!! Fixed!!!!
Got the Parted Magic Live CD iso file....burned it and followed the directions here to the letter.
partedmagic.com/documentation/119-using-gparted.
Thanks for the pointer ozar!
It's directions for a dual boot windows and Linux set up but once I got the structure back in place I just let UBUNTU install itself on the whole disk.
And thanks D-cat, I followed your partition size advice regarding root and swap.
Dougal, thank you as well, once I got the structure back I did exactly what you said, worked great!

My hat is off to you all!

Well actually I never wear hats but if I did I would grasp the brim and tip it in a jaunty yet masculine way in your general direction.


Skinpete