12.04 will not boot after clean install

[farledagain]

I have a Compaq SR5130NX (originally Win7) which was given to us with no HDD. I installed a Seagate 40G hdd in the machine and installed 12.04 from the Live CD. No install errors reported. After install the computer will not boot - we get a Read Error.

Tested the HDD with SeaTools (DOS), drive looks good. Erased HDD and reinstalled 12.04. Same failure.

Downloaded Super Grub2 Boot CD and tried to boot from the CD. Got a "Not a known file system" message. Used the Grub2 Boot CD to examine the partitions. Found "Device hd0: Not a known filesystem. Total size 16434495 sectors. Partition hd0, msdos1"

Used Live CD to look at partitions and it shows /dev/sda, /dev/sda1 ext4, /dev/sda5 swap.

Again tested HDD with SeaTools and this time I noticed that SeaTools showed the drive as "Security Freeze Locked". Did some research on that and found recommendations to boot from a DOS disk and do fdisk on the drive.

Did fdisk, reinstalled 12.04, still doesn't work.

My guess is that the OEM BIOS is keeping the HDD Security Freeze Locke and preventing the boot. While I know how to troubleshoot problems, I'm not very familiar with Linux. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Realheiny]

I've had the same problem.
After trying installing it by a live cd for 3 times, I tried to install it by a Bootable USB-drive, and that worked for me... However I still got the problem that it doesn't show the GUI after startup

[farledagain]

Unfortunately, I can't get the PC to boot from a USB drive. The USB doesn't show up in the BIOS boot order and F12 doesn't do anything. Hitting esc to get into the boot order doesn't list a USB (or removable) option.

[farledagain]

I've continued to wrestle with this issue off and on. Tried to install Mint 13 to see if a slightly different distribution might make a difference. Same issue - "File Error" on reboot - no GRUB errors, nothing. As noted above the drive has been tested. MBR Boot Lock is probably the issue.

Downloaded Boot Repair CD found elsewhere on this forum and ran it. Let it use defaults, no improvement. Report from Boot Repair disk is at: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1136869/

Inspired suggestions would be appreciated.

[Bashing-om]

Guys, will dd over write that block code ???

[mwl128340]

i believe it will. ive never heard of a boot lock but have did some research and it sounds lioke dd will clear the mbr as fdisk will only write the mbr if it is not there. its probably gunna require another reinstall but invoking the dd command sounds like itd be worth a try.

[mwl128340]

but you would need to zero out the drive with dd

[Bashing-om]

Welp ... it is a new install ... and with 2+ hours invested in zero'n out the drive.. the time to re-install should not be a significant factor.
Do some looking into the VERY destructive dd command .. and if you want to go this route I can tell you how to proceed. (I did this not long ago and it does/will work)
hth BDQ