MBR Problems

[Pratherdude]

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]

Try supergrub.

[Zimmer]

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]

Do you have more than one disk, and if so, is the correct one set to boot in the BIOS?

[merlinus]

@Zimmer

FWIW, linux does not need a boot flag.

[hal8000]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.