New user HELP!!

[steve Ambrose]

Hi Everyone I am completely newbie and I have just installed version 10.10 I followed the prompts on the CD to install alongside windows (vista) . Ubuntu works fine and Im really impressed with the speed and looks.
However when I shutdown and reboot I cannot get back to windows I have pressed several F keys but the screen seems to lock and when I let go of the F key ubuntu boots. I am given no choice of OS.

Thanks Steve

[Trooper_Max]

Normally, you should not have to press any F keys while booting. Just wait and you should get a GRUB screen that displays your boot options from which you can use the arrow keys to select an option and enter to boot.

If for some reason you don't see what I'm talking about, go ahead and go into Ubuntu and open up a Terminal prompt from the application menu (think it's under accessories). Use the following command to update your grub menu:

sudo update-grub

This may take just a little while depending on your configuration, but as it is running, it should list the different operating systems it finds. Let us know what it lists.

~Troop

[Iowan]

There should be a moment when Grub displays options for loading. On my system, the arrow keys (DOWN in particular) lets me select a different boot option.

[steve Ambrose]

Hi Everyone I am completely newbie and I have just installed version 10.10 I followed the prompts on the CD to install alongside windows (vista) . Ubuntu works fine and Im really impressed with the speed and looks.
However when I shutdown and reboot I cannot get back to windows I have pressed several F keys but the screen seems to lock and when I let go of the F key ubuntu boots. I am given no choice of OS.

I have gone to the terminal and put sudo update-grub and this is what is listed. By the way I have a sony Vaio laptop

steve@steve-VGN-NS20J-S:~$ sudo update-grub
[sudo] password for steve:
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-25-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-25-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-22-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
done
steve@steve-VGN-NS20J-S:~$


Thanks Steve

[hansolo4949]

I'm sorry steve, but I think you're hosed. There is a glitch in the Ubuntu installation software that is very rare, but when it manifests itself, even if you choose to dual-boot, it will wipe out any other oses. Do you see any other hard drives when you go into the "places" menu? if you do, try and open the one that is not named file system (make sure you have no external drives attached for simplicity. If it opens, you can access the vista partition on your hdd, and get your info off of the drive, if you cannot open it, it will be a lot harder to recover your data, and if no others show up, vista is gone forever, and I hope you have a backup. Please tell us what happens, because we are all standing by waiting for people in distress to come calling.

[Guilden_NL]

There are two possibilities, one good, one bad.

The bad one is that you somehow mistakenly partitioned your drive and formatted your entire drive, wiping out Windows.

More likely it is the good, I have had this happen twice with 10.10. I had to correct the device mount for the Windows partition.

Rather than do it from memory and forget something, let me go find a post that has step by step instructions and post it back here.

In the meantime, go to System/Administration/Disk Utility then click on your drive, do you have a NTFS or FAT partition?

Also, do this in anticipation of needing more info to help you:
Use a LiveCD to boot the computer, choosing the option to try without any changes.

1. Download the boot info script from here: http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/
2. Move the boot info script to the desktop.
3. Open a terminal and run the
Code:

sudo bash ~/Desktop/boot_info_script*.sh

Then post here, using the code command in the Advanced editor (hash or pound # button) or typing [CODE*] before the text and [/CODE*] after the text, leaving the asterisk out.

[hansolo4949]

Thank you, Guilden_nl for giving out that info. I hate sounding all gloom and doom, but from experience on these forums, if you cannot fix the problem soon, and start mucking around with 500 different possible "fixes" the person normally ends up hosing their data or gets frustrated and reinstalls everything, so thank you for chiming in

[steve Ambrose]

Thanks Guys, there is no other drives in the places menu only filesystem in the my computer screen. I did a full windows backup on an external harddrive before I started. I did follow the install correctly , I wish now I partitioned manually but thought as a newbie it would be better for the install to do it for me.

I await your further instructions.
Steve

[Guilden_NL]

Thank you, Guilden_nl for giving out that info. I hate sounding all gloom and doom, but from experience on these forums, if you cannot fix the problem soon, and start mucking around with 500 different possible "fixes" the person normally ends up hosing their data or gets frustrated and reinstalls everything, so thank you for chiming in

Ain't that the truth!!! I have a feeling it got the Windows partition wrong. I've never had the problem before but on two, no three now that I think of it, 10.10 blew it. It's a GRUB2 bug and I've reported it along with many others.

I'd like a prompt that asks "If you know what you're doing, here's what I plan to write, if it is wrong, update it here before pressing "Commit": insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd2,msdos1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1ed7dfa6-12cf-4d01-bc43-4961c3abf5fa
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-25-generic root=UUID=1ed7dfa6-12cf-4d01-bc43-4961c3abf5fa ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-25-generic

[Guilden_NL]

Thanks Guys, there is no other drives in the places menu only filesystem in the my computer screen. I did a full windows backup on an external harddrive before I started. I did follow the install correctly , I wish now I partitioned manually but thought as a newbie it would be better for the install to do it for me.

I await your further instructions.
Steve

Steve, it won't see your Windows drive under Places because it is not properly mounted as a device.

Go to System/Administration/Disk Utility and tell us what that shows for Volumes.