View Full Version : [ubuntu] MBR Problems
Pratherdude
June 13th, 2009, 07:59 PM
Ok I am haveing a problem with my install of Ubuntu 9.04, I had a dual boot with XP, but after finding WINE and getting all of my mail out of Outlook and wiped everything and am just useing Ubuntu.
Now comes the problem, after deleting all of the partitions and reformating I installed Ubuntu. After the reboot it comes up saying MBR error 1 press any key to boot from floppy, then it gives the error MBR error 2 press any key to boot from floppy. b
I have tried booting from a dos disk and run fdisk /mbr with no help, then I tried booting from an XP disk and running fixmbr and fixboot with no help. I have tried reloading grub from the live disk with no help either. Any suggestions? I really need to get this fixed by tomorrow if possible as I need my system for work.
merlinus
June 13th, 2009, 08:09 PM
Try supergrub.
Zimmer
June 13th, 2009, 08:21 PM
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/index.cfm?action=showthread&threadid=310845&forumid=1
Might be a BIOS problem (from looking at that link above..)
or maybe your reformatting has left the boot flag not set for the Ubuntu partition... you will need to use some rescuing software if that is the case..
(Supergrub disc, the Ubuntu Live CD etc)
One step at a time...
ajgreeny
June 13th, 2009, 09:35 PM
Do you have more than one disk, and if so, is the correct one set to boot in the BIOS?
merlinus
June 13th, 2009, 09:51 PM
@Zimmer
FWIW, linux does not need a boot flag.
hal8000
June 13th, 2009, 11:03 PM
Can you boot with the Jaunty Live CD?
Booting with a live linux CD will always work, even with no hard drive.
Should this fail, your system is trying to boot from a device other then the cd/dvd drive.
If you can get the live CD to work,
post the output of
sudo fdisk -l
Pratherdude
June 14th, 2009, 01:48 AM
Do you have more than one disk, and if so, is the correct one set to boot in the BIOS?
Yes I have more then one disk installed, I have already checked that and verified that the correct disk is booting.
Pratherdude
June 14th, 2009, 05:00 AM
Can you boot with the Jaunty Live CD?
Booting with a live linux CD will always work, even with no hard drive.
Should this fail, your system is trying to boot from a device other then the cd/dvd drive.
If you can get the live CD to work,
post the output of
sudo fdisk -l
Ok here is what was in terminal, I did notice that Ubuntu was showing my SATA drive as the boot drive and that is not correct, my boot drive is suppose to be my primary IDE drive anyway to change that?
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8995f229
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 60801 488384001 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe4b800bb
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 14593 117218241 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdc: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000418d6
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 8199 65858436 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 8200 8503 2441880 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 8200 8503 2441848+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sdd: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xadf8f0a0
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 14593 117218241 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sde: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7b326452
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 1 30401 244196001 7 HPFS/NTFS
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$
Zimmer
June 14th, 2009, 05:46 PM
So, looks like you have 5 separate drives a-e ?
You installed Linux to partition sdc1..
Where did you install GRUB ? To the MBR of sdc? The MBR of sda? Can't remember?
http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p15.html
You can find a link to the SuperGRUB disk here.
and a guide to Multi booting Windows here
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html
No experience of multibooting using multiple drives , only single drive multipartition and external USB HDD.
If BIOS picks a drive to boot it will look for the MBR to tell it what to do next.
Yours (whichever drive it is) cannot tell what to do.
Suggest you investigate EasyBCD and see if that will go some way to providing a solution for your multiboot purposes as you have 5 drives....
and to work out which MBR's need restoring, and what they need restoring to.
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1
ajgreeny
June 14th, 2009, 07:01 PM
Yes I have more then one disk installed, I have already checked that and verified that the correct disk is booting.
When you say "the correct one" do you mean the one with ubuntu on it? If grub is on the mbr of the windows drive (sda) then that is the one which should be first in the boot order list in BIOS, not the ubuntu disk. When I say grub, I do not mean the partition on which the /boot/grub folder is found, as that is not actually grub, just the configuration for grub.
If you already understand this, my apologies; just trying to help in what must be a very frustrating situation.
Pratherdude
June 15th, 2009, 12:05 AM
So, looks like you have 5 separate drives a-e ?
You installed Linux to partition sdc1..
Where did you install GRUB ? To the MBR of sdc? The MBR of sda? Can't remember?
http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p15.html (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p15.html)
You can find a link to the SuperGRUB disk here.
and a guide to Multi booting Windows here
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html
No experience of multibooting using multiple drives , only single drive multipartition and external USB HDD.
If BIOS picks a drive to boot it will look for the MBR to tell it what to do next.
Yours (whichever drive it is) cannot tell what to do.
Suggest you investigate EasyBCD and see if that will go some way to providing a solution for your multiboot purposes as you have 5 drives....
and to work out which MBR's need restoring, and what they need restoring to.
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1
Yeah 5 drives, I had ubuntu and windows on my primary IDE drive which is Disk /dev/sdc. I assume grub is installed to this drive as when I tell grub to find the stage1 file it says it on drive (hd2,0). I only boot from my primary IDE drive all others are for storage. I'll give supergrub a try.
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