BDPNA
August 22nd, 2009, 10:17 AM
I could really use some help here as this has happened twice now on two different hard drives, so I know it's not a fluke.
I set up my Mac Mini for a dual boot setup, using the common guides to split hard drive into 2 partitions (windows and osx) and let Ubuntu do the rest.
Both times I used rEFIt as the boot manager, but the second time after I synced the partition tables, I removed it and just had the machine boot into Ubuntu by default.
Anyway, Ubuntu 9.04 was working great, until I realized what caused the problem BOTH times. Instead of doing a SHUTDOWN, I tried a RESTART. As we know, the mini cannot do either under 9.04, but for whatever reason, when you try a restart, something causes your partition tables or mbr to go wacky. Really wacky. Now, no matter what I do (option at startup, etc), BOTH partitions will not boot. I get no bootable device when I select ubuntu, or the NO symbol (circle and line) eventually when I try OSX partition.
How can I fix this? Note - Booting from CD also does not seem to be working. Booting from the Ubuntu CD gets to the "ISOLINUX 3.63 copyright" line and just sits there. I think it's because it absolutely cannot access the hard drive at all.
I know this is not a fluke because the first time it happened, I gave up and put a new hard drive in, and now it's happened again, to this hard drive. I rebooted 20 times using the "shutdown" command from ubuntu without issue, but the second I picked "restart" instead of shutdown from 9.04 I have an unbootable system.
What can I do? PLEASE help? I'm out of ideas. Pretty frustrating that such a simple thing as a lockup when shutting down can render a hard drive useless TWICE. Helllp!
I set up my Mac Mini for a dual boot setup, using the common guides to split hard drive into 2 partitions (windows and osx) and let Ubuntu do the rest.
Both times I used rEFIt as the boot manager, but the second time after I synced the partition tables, I removed it and just had the machine boot into Ubuntu by default.
Anyway, Ubuntu 9.04 was working great, until I realized what caused the problem BOTH times. Instead of doing a SHUTDOWN, I tried a RESTART. As we know, the mini cannot do either under 9.04, but for whatever reason, when you try a restart, something causes your partition tables or mbr to go wacky. Really wacky. Now, no matter what I do (option at startup, etc), BOTH partitions will not boot. I get no bootable device when I select ubuntu, or the NO symbol (circle and line) eventually when I try OSX partition.
How can I fix this? Note - Booting from CD also does not seem to be working. Booting from the Ubuntu CD gets to the "ISOLINUX 3.63 copyright" line and just sits there. I think it's because it absolutely cannot access the hard drive at all.
I know this is not a fluke because the first time it happened, I gave up and put a new hard drive in, and now it's happened again, to this hard drive. I rebooted 20 times using the "shutdown" command from ubuntu without issue, but the second I picked "restart" instead of shutdown from 9.04 I have an unbootable system.
What can I do? PLEASE help? I'm out of ideas. Pretty frustrating that such a simple thing as a lockup when shutting down can render a hard drive useless TWICE. Helllp!