Acer Aspire 5000

[Chipneta]

Hello all, I have a little problem with a laptop here. I have tried Ubuntu a few times and probably will be successful someday with it, but for now it just takes too much time messing around with partial drivers etc. So I had a bad hard drive, I got that changed and thought I would try version Ubuntu 12. I didn't get too far for the same reasons. Anyway, I put in my windows XP recovery disks, did what they said, but now I cannot get past error: unknown file system grub rescue>. I can't boot from a CD anymore either, no matter how I get to the BIOS screen I always change to boot from anything else but the hard drive but there it is again. I am considering removing the hard drive and putting a magnet to it. Any better ideas?
Thanks in advance!
Chip

[mörgæs]

Hi, welcome to the fora.

Please begin with a complete hardware description.

[Chipneta]

Hi I did not see your reply until I went to this page, I thought I would see it in my email... duh. The install was Ubuntu 12, I didn't know about the other ones! Sorry I am busy with other things and don't put in the time with computers much. Thanks for asking. I did do an install of Ubuntu in another laptop I dug out of the closet, this time I connected the internet via Ethernet, and checked the 2 boxes asking for third party software and install updates. That one works just fine so far. I bet I will now be able to get familiar with the system and I may prefer it!
Chip

[Chipneta]

OK also the laptop is ACER Aspire 5000. I don't know the rest off the top of my head or what you may want to know, I would just like to be able to reformat the hard disk somehow, but the BIOS will not accept changes. I ask to boot from cd or floppy, and it just changes to HDD I guess, of never saves the new changes?? I can get it if i can just get past the grub rescue thing.

Chip

[Chipneta]

Hey how bout another question? I now have that other laptop running Ubuntu 12 smoothly, can I join the other messed up laptop together with it using an Ethernet crossover cable, and format it from the good computer using Ubuntu?

Thank you.
Chip

[mörgæs]

Now I was the one to not see your post...

For a complete erase of the disk I recommend Killdisk.

According to this
http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/no...e5000sp2.shtml

your computer has SiS graphics, which are sometimes a pain for Buntu. I recommend trying a selection of Lubuntus, not only the latest.

[Chipneta]

OK Kill disk sounds good, I have a couple cd's I use one is the ultimate boot cd which has what I need but I cannot boot from a disk or usb. I was hoping to do it with a crossover cable I still haven't tried it.
Sounds like I need to find someone familiar with the computer, not the OS on there, which is corrupt beyond repair by now. Everybody tells me what I know already, go to bios and change boot to cd. Problem is that wont do it.
So thanks for the help, I may try pulling the drive out and putting a magnet to it or something.
Chip

[mörgæs]

Have you tried changing the BIOS battery?

You could also move the hard drive to another computer and install a vanilla Lubuntu (no closed-source drivers). After that move the drive back.

[Chipneta]

I didn't think about moving the hard drive to another computer, what a good idea! That will do it fine I bet.
And I don't know what the BIOS battery is either, but that's ok. I'm gonna swap HD's when I get to it again.
Thanks a bunch.

Chip