Not able to boot from DVD after installing Kubuntu 11.04

[RaviSG]

Hi,

I am not able to boot from win vista DVD after installing kubuntu 11.04 in Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop.
I am 100% sure that
a. i have given boot from CD/DVD has highest priority.
b. Bootable DVD is 100% Healty, got from Dell while purchasing and hardly used

But no sense of reading DVD in DVD R/W rom i mean no DVD read head noise even to think that DVD may currupt.

Please think possible way of failures with no issues in boot menu and DVD.

please help me to install Windows in my laptop.

Regards
Ravi

[oz]

Hello

Not sure why, but some machines have problems reading Windows install disks once GRUB is installed to the MBR. You can clear the MBR with the following command by running it from a console or terminal, and your Windows disk should then boot again:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1

You should receive a short message about records in and records out, then you can reboot with your Windows disk. The MBR clearing process should only take a couple of seconds at most.

If you have more than one hard drive, you can use the fdisk -l command to determine your device name (in bold text) for the command above:

fdisk -l

[yancek]

I'm not sure why windows install CDs sometimes fail in this situation but the solution posted by ozar is the most common one I've seen and should work. There is a link below which shows how to install vista on a machine with Linux. Don't know that it will work if you can't even start the install from the CD. The only change is that if you want to back up your Grub file, on Kubuntu 11.04 the file is grub.cfg rather than menu.lst

How to dual-boot Vista with Linux (with Linux installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

I don't know if you want to dual-boot Kubuntu but, if you do your vista install will overwrite the master boot record and you will either need to configure vista bootloader to boot Kubuntu with third party software (EasyBCD) or reinstall Grub to the mbr.

This is a very common problem which you will find if you just google it.

[RaviSG]

hello OZ,

after doing this "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1" in terminal i did resterted my laptop, but not booted from dvd neither its not loaded kubuntu also. getting a blank screen with blinking underscore at right top.

Regards
Ravi

[oz]

The command given above clears the MBR meaning that you have no bootloader after running the command, hence the blank screen with a blinking cursor. Once you install Windows by booting your machine with the Windows installation disk, you will have the Windows bootloader residing in the MBR once again. If you should decide to keep Linux, you can restore GRUB to the MBR and have a dual-boot system where you choose Windows or Linux at boot time. Otherwise, you can delete any unwanted Linux partitions with your favorite partitioning utility, then do whatever you want with the unallocated space.

[yancek]

after doing this "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1" in terminal i did resterted my laptop, but not booted from dvd neither its not loaded kubuntu also.

As the above posts indicated, that dd command will wipe the master boot record and of course make your Kubuntu system unbootable as it deleted the Grub file in the mbr. As ozar stated, you can reinstall Grub later. Do you plan to dual-boot? Does your statement above mean that even after clearing the master boot record, you are unable to boot from your vista installation CD?

The blinking underscore is what one would expect after deleting the code in the mbr.

If you can't boot the vista install CD, verify that you have your CD drive set to first boot priority in the BIOS. If possible, see if the vista CD will boot on another machine.