GRUB prompt when installing ubuntu 9.04

[drifter129]

Hi guys - i was trying to install linux on my system to dual boot with windows vista, but had problems. when i tried booting in linux i just got a message saying "no boot device. insert system disk".
I then tried installing linux using the "use entire disc" option, thus overwriting the existing windows install completely. This appeared to go through ok, but when trying to boot up ubuntu, i just get a prompt which says 'grub> ' and don't know what to do.
I have done a search in google but wasn't able to find anything helpful.

[Lampi]

You should boot your live cd of jaunty again, open a terminal, run 'sudo su', mount the partition you installed jaunty into and then type:


grub-install --recheck --no-floppy --root-directory=/path/to/your/jaunty/mount/point /dev/sd<LETTER>

where LETTER is the disc your jaunty partition is on (if it's on sda1 the letter is "a", so use sda)

This will recreate Grub in your Master Boot Record and recreate the entries in your /boot directory

[drifter129]

grub > root
(hd0,0): filesystem type is ext2fs partition type 0x83

grub > root (hd0,<tab>
partition num 0, filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
partition num 4, filesystem type is unknown, partition type 0x82

[drifter129]

thanks lampi will give that a try now

[drifter129]

sorry to be a noob, but to mount the partition, do i type?
mount /dev/sdb1 ?
tried this and didn't work, but in know the drive is definately sdb..

[Lampi]

you can check this by double clicking the disk icon in nautilus. This should mount your drive to /media/<LABEL>

where LABEL is the name you gave your root partition when you installed your Ubuntu from CD

If you didn't assign a name you will find it in /media anyway - it just will show up as block device e.g /media/sda1 if it is sda1

you can check your mount point using:

mount -l

or

cat /proc/mounts

[mountaintop]

When you get grub> message try to press Esc button.

[drifter129]

sorted!!!
thanks for your help lampi