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tim.is.awesome
April 14th, 2010, 11:20 PM
first off, im a noob and i apologize if this question has been answered many many times, and for wasting your time if it has been.

guys i need some assistance. i was installed ubuntu 9.10 and i installed the boot loader to /dev/sda and now i cant start up windows or ubuntu for that matter.

i installed ubuntu to my external HDD. and windows is on my internal HDD. i was trying to have it so when i had my external HDD plugged in it started up ubuntu and when it was unplugged it started up windows.

any ideas how i can fix this and accomplish what i was trying to do in the first place?

i thank you before hand.

here is a pic of the possible places for the boot loader (if it helps) http://twitpic.com/1fmklg/full
2hot6ft2
April 14th, 2010, 11:26 PM
You should have installed it to the usb drive (/dev/sdb) instead you installed it to the internal hard drive (/dev/sda). See this guide section 16 for fixing the internal drives boot and it will tell you how to install grub2 to the usb drive as well in section 13.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275
tim.is.awesome
April 14th, 2010, 11:32 PM
You should have installed it to the usb drive (/dev/sdb) instead you installed it to the internal hard drive (/dev/sda). See this guide section 16 for fixing the internal drives boot and it will tell you how to install grub2 to the usb drive as well.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275

thank you. so i now when i install it i should put the boot loader in /dev/sdb?
2hot6ft2
April 14th, 2010, 11:39 PM
You're welcome and thanks for saying I'm awesome.:-\" All those things you have open having to do with the grub menu.lst don't apply to grub2 it's a lot different and doesn't have a menu.lst. You'll see in the guide.
presence1960
April 15th, 2010, 03:49 AM
You are still going to need to fix the MBR of the internal disk. You can do that from the ubuntu Live CD or from an installation of ubuntu. Open a terminal and run
sudo apt-get install liloIgnore the warnings.

Next in terminal run
sudo lilo -M /dev/sda mbrYour internal disk will now have an MBR that will boot right to windows when the external is unplugged.