Linux won't boot. Help?

[Totakeke]

I've tried installing Linux a few times before using the guided partitioning, but it doesn't seem to be working. Every time I try to boot it tells me that my nVidia boot thing failed, then prompts me to insert the system disk. I do that, launch the Live CD, and install Ubuntu all over again. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

[Pumalite]

Post your specs.
If you can; from the Live CD:
sudo fdisk -lu

[tuxxy]

It should be loading GRUB, maybe you have a bootloader that could be disabled in the BIOS?

[Totakeke]

Specs

nForce 780i SLI motherboard
2 250 GiB Western Digital SATA (will RAID eventually...)
8800 GTX
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 GHz
2 GiB DDR2 800

Oh, did you want the results of the fdisk? Here they are anyway.
------------------------------------------------------
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x85b373c7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 488394751 244196352 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x85b373c7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 488394751 244196352 7 HPFS/NTFS

------------------------------------------------------


It should be loading GRUB, maybe you have a bootloader that could be disabled in the BIOS?
And that's the thing. Before it WOULD load GRUB, but I could never get to the desktop. Now it doesn't even know that Ubuntu is installed.

[Pumalite]

You don't have Ubuntu according to your sudo fdisk

[Totakeke]

Gah, I probably shouldn't have ran that on my hard drives that have Vista installed lol. I'll try installing Ubuntu again and then I'll run fdisk and see what happens.

[Pumalite]

What do you have Vista or XP? Are you planning to install Ubuntu where Windows is; or are you installing in 2nd hard drive?

[Totakeke]

I had Vista RAID 1ed with two 250 GiB hard drives, but I wanted to RAID 1 Linux on them. But ever since my luck with Linux hasn't been so good, I'm just concentrating on installing it to one disk, to see if it's something I want to make my permanent OS.

No, I don't plan on dual booting.

[Pumalite]

If you disabled your Raid, look for 'Dualboot Two Hard Drives' in this Forum (Search)
If not; take a look at this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=408461&highlight=raid
http://ohioloco.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=630644
http://www.ubuntu-in.org/wiki/SATA_RAID_Howto

[Totakeke]

Well, my Linux installation failed again (I still can't boot into it) but here are the new results from fdisk:

--------------------------------------------------------
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00036c8a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 476246924 238123431 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 476246925 488392064 6072570 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 476246988 488392064 6072538+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdd: 259 MB, 259522560 bytes
65 heads, 32 sectors/track, 243 cylinders, total 506880 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 32 506879 253424 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(249, 64, 32) logical=(243, 44, 32)
--------------------------------------------------------

[Totakeke]

Any help? (I've resorted to installing Windows again because I needed to use a faster computer (than the other one we have)).

[Pumalite]

Post your exact error message. Do you get to see Grub?

[Totakeke]

I can't exactly post the error messages, because I've reinstalled Windows and would have to go through the trouble of resizing partitions. (And since my first attempt at that wiped Windows, I'm reluctant.)

But they weren't very specific, they just said that the nVidia boot agent failed, then gave some copyright info about the boot agent. It did this a few times then asked me to insert a system disk. I never even got to GRUB.