LVPM: Upgrades Wubi installs to dedicated-partition Ubuntu installs

[tuxcantfly]

Dammit dammit dammit dammit. I'm an impatient idiot. Not even an hour later and I've trashed my system. Here's how it happened...

1) Reread this thread top to bottom, came across this post...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...1&postcount=78
..and wondered if I had installed an outdated version of the partition manager.
2) Read this post...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...1&postcount=83
...and followed those instructions.
3) Disaster, "Other OS" entries were gone, entering any of the Ubuntu kernels resulted in a GRUB Error 15 (I think it was "File not Found") could only load Partition manager but rebooting afterwards resulted in the same error. Could not enter Windows recovery at startup by pressing F10 anymore.
4) Panicked, and I know this was my ridiculously foolish and crucial error... I entered the partition manager and deleted all partitions except ntfs (sda1) and fat32 (sda2).
5) Complete devestation. Now booting only shows...

GRUB Loading stage 1.5

GRUB loading, please wait...

Error 22



I now have web access only through a Puppy Live CD I had. I'm pretty sure I have an Ubuntu Live CD at work. Any chance I will be able to restore Windows at least, so I can reinstall Wubi and take it from there?

Lesson - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm not sure about the first error, GRUB Error 15, but the second error, Error 22, is because you deleted the Ubuntu partiton, on which the GRUB configuration files exist, so GRUB can't start up. Since you're already deleted your Ubuntu partition, you can't restore your Ubuntu install anymore (had you just booted the Super Grub Disk and told it to repair GRUB, that would have fixed it, but too late for that; I've added it to the first post though so others don't make that mistake again).

If you want to restore windows, if you have a Windows XP recovery CD, just boot it, press R to get into recovery mode, then once you get to the prompt, type in:

fixmbr

and you should be able to boot Windows afterwards

[hhh]

I don't have a Windows recovery CD, as i said, Windows recovery is on my D drive which I can no longer access. Advice?

[tuxcantfly]

I don't have a Windows recovery CD, as i said, Windows recovery is on my D drive which I can no longer access. Advice?

use the super grub disk, and select the "boot windows" option, or boot an Ubuntu LiveCD, create a new ext3 partition to store the temporary grub, and repair grub, info at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...tallingWindows

[hhh]

Thanks, I'll work on that tonight and post back tomorrow. I appreciate the help!

[hhh]

Thank you thank you! Super Grub WFM, I can boot Windows and Wubi again. More questions...

I still can't access my recovery drive (F10 on startup), even though the Windows boot manager is restored. Is that feature gone from my system forever?

Partition manager won't let me grow my ntfs partition into the now unallocated 60 gigs of space, it gives an error. I saved the details to "root" but I don't see the file in my Root folder. Any ideas?

What about the fat32 partition, should I delete that before retrying to make Wubi a permanent Ubuntu install? Any chance that's why I can't grow the ntfs partition?

When I asked if Partition Manager when installed now automatically partitioned a drive, was that correct or not? If not, how did my drive get repartitioned originally, as I didn't do it?

What is the proper procedure for purging/reinstalling Partition Manager so other's don't go through what I did?

Thanks so much again for the help and your programming work.

[theartak]

So, after employing an external hard drive to free up a lot of space (and definitively solve the "be able to access my files from any OS on my computer" issue) I ended up going ahead with the partitioning using LVPM.

And it went nearly flawless. I say nearly because my power flickered and my computer shut off, so I had to do the procedure twice. Luckily, there was no damage to anything.

But LVPM worked without a hitch. I used version 78 instead of 79 (just a note...there is a huge discrepancy in size between 78 and 79, is all of 79 there? That might explain my earlier issue if it isn't...) because of the nervousness it caused me when trying to resize my virtual drives. But no problems were encountered.

So, thank you tuxcantfly, well done.

[tuxcantfly]

I used version 78 instead of 79 (just a note...there is a huge discrepancy in size between 78 and 79, is all of 79 there? That might explain my earlier issue if it isn't...

Everything is there, I just removed some unused GRLDR files

What is the proper procedure for purging/reinstalling Partition Manager so other's don't go through what I did?

Synaptic/apt-get/dpkg install/remove are all that should be needed, the instructions you followed were right, and worked fine for others... I still don't know what went wrong in your case, I've never encountered GRUB error 15, I'll see if I can reproduce that error.

What about the fat32 partition, should I delete that before retrying to make Wubi a permanent Ubuntu install? Any chance that's why I can't grow the ntfs partition?

The NTFS error might be because it needs to be checked and defragmented; just boot Windows, run "chkdsk /f", reboot, let it check the drive, reboot back into Windows again (a 2nd time), run the drive defragmenter, then reboot back to the partition manager, see if that gets it fixed.

I still can't access my recovery drive (F10 on startup), even though the Windows boot manager is restored. Is that feature gone from my system forever?

That's probably because it needed some custom MBR to boot that. Usually, the recovery software that comes with your new computer has some tools to restore that custom MBR, the computer manual usually says where it is, at least that's how it is on all the Dells, Toshibas, and HPs I've seen.

When I asked if Partition Manager when installed now automatically partitioned a drive, was that correct or not? If not, how did my drive get repartitioned originally, as I didn't do it?

It isn't supposed to do anything automatically; it's only supposed to do the partitioning after you reboot, specify the partitioning, and press apply. Something went wrong there, I'm not sure if it's just something with your hardware setup or some bug I didn't notice, I'll see if I can find anything.

[hhh]

Thanks for the replies. I'll post back with anything relevant.

[lingwu]

Hello,

I'm a linux newbie and has been trying out ubuntu via wubi for a couple weeks now. I've got everything set up to my liking and have learn a lot during this process as well. So having come across lvpm, i thought of moving it to a proper partition. The instructions seem simple enough, so I thought there wouldn't be any problem...but alas...

What i did was I ran the partitioning work on Windows (I used Acronis Partition Manager), set it to 35gb, and set it to format as Ext3. Xp rebooted and did the work no problem.

After that I booted to Ubuntu, looked for Lvpm on Synaptics, found that it was an old version, so I went to sourceforge and download the latest version (79). Ran that, select the correct steps and partition (I made double sure by running fdisk-l) and set it on it's way. Left it running for a couple hours, after I came back, I was pleased to see the promt asking for reboot and didn't show any error messages.

After rebooting I check around, and find that I booted back to the Ubuntu on the virtual disk and not the partitioned Ubuntu! Checking wubi/boot/grub/menu.lst, I find that all the boot options remains pointed at the virtual disks. (at wubi/boot)

Did I mess up somewhere?

[hhh]

All running smoothly again, thanks again tuxcantfly. A disc defrag, some more work in gparted, a Windows disc check/log-in, and rerunning the transfer has it working perfectly. Cheers!