Another Support Thread!!! Kubuntu 7.1 & Vista

jquindlen

Member
First of all, thanks for the free product and support. I run a software company myself, and I know how difficult it can be to keep up with support threads and ungrateful users (note, if you're a customer of mine, I'm not talking about you :grinning:) Anyway, I've tried to be as thorough as possible and to include the exact error messages for SEO purposes. Alright, so I've been struggling with this the last 4 or 5 hours, and I'm finally ready to ask for some help after reading 30 odd threads and rebooting 15 or 20 times. Here's my setup:
  • hd0 Kubuntu 7.1 with Grub installed to hd0,0. This is an IDE drive.
  • hd1 Windows Vista Ultimate. This is a SATA2 drive.
The Vista bootloader works fine. Let me walk you through how I set everything up. - First, I installed Vista in June. - Today I downloaded Kubuntu 7.1 and installed it to my IDE drive - When I rebooted I didn't get a GRUB bootloader and it went straight into Vista. This is what led me to EasyBCD. - I first tried adding a Linux entry with the "GRUB isn't installed to the bootsector" When I rebooted, I selected the linux entry from the bootloader and got this error when I selected any of the linux entries in GRUB:

Code:
Unrecognized partition table for drive 80.  Please rebuild it
using a Microsoft compatible FDISK tool(err=28)

- So next, I came here and read your wiki instructions. I then used the live CD executed the following commands successfully:
Code:
sudo bash
grub
find /boot/grub/stage1
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
quit
And GRUB seemed to install successfully. I followed this up by deleting the first Linux entry I had made.

- Now I added a new Linux entry with Type: GRUB, on Drive 0, Partition 0 which is my linux partition. I also reinstalled the Vista Bootloader from the Manage Bootloader toolbox. When I rebooted and selected the Linux entry, I am greeted with this error message:

Code:
BootPart 2.60 (c) 1993-2005 Gilles Vollant http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
Loading new partition Bootsector from C.H. Hochstätter
Cannot load from harddisk. Insert System disk and press any key.
Thanks for any help. I appreciate it.

Edit: I hate vBulletin. For some reason it stripped out all of my line breaks and I had to edit this a bunch to make it readable again. :frowning:
 
Last edited:
Hi jquindlen, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

I've seen this happen before on computers with partitions made under certain circumstances (where the first ends, second begins; the tool used to make the partition, etc.).

Before you go about debugging all this, I'd give "GRUB isn't installed to the bootsector" a shot.

Just delete your old Linux entry (again!) and create a new one, this time making sure to use the checkbox for the "GRUB isn't installed to the bootsector" entry.

With this option, EasyBCD itself will search for Ubuntu at boot time instead of trying to locate and reference it ahead of time.

Good luck & let us know how it goes.
 
Thanks for the response. I tried your suggestion by first removing the linux entry I had and then recreating it with the "GRUB isn't installed to the bootsector" check box selected again.

Unfortunately, upon rebooting I got the same results as I had last time:
Code:
Unrecognized partition table for drive 80.  Please rebuild it
using a Microsoft compatible FDISK tool(err=28)

^ This would occur no matter what entry I selected in GRUB, including the linux kernals, the memory test, or Vista.

Any other ideas on this? I can provide more information on my setup if needed, but I think the first post has pretty much all the important details.

Thanks again. :smile:
 
OK, here's what I got:

* EasyBCD and the Vista Bootloader are working perfectly ATM.
* NeoGrub loads its config file and executes it just fine.
* When Kubuntu's menu.lst is read and executed by GRUB, it's failing.

I'm going to need your menu.lst from /boot/grub on the Kubuntu partition - you can get that with a Live CD (the Kubuntu setup CD/DVD should do just fine).
 
I've got exactly the same problem after upgrading to 7.10.
Fiesty Fawn was working fine with Vista installed on a SATA drive (hd1) and Ubuntu installed on the 2nd partition of an IDE drive (hd0).

After some fettling and even a reinstall of Ubuntu 7.10 I boot into the Vista loader and select the EasyBCD entry for Linux (grub not installed in MBR). It lists the usual Ubuntu entries but all of them appear to throw a wobbler when the loader tries to execute the commands.

I don't have the exact error to hand but it is along the lines of 'unrecognised partition table for drive 80, Rebuild using FDISK tool (err=26) C/H/S=16383/240/63. The line is then repeated but this time for disk 81.

All Linux entries begin with root (hd0,1) as the first line when selecting to edit commands in grub.

It may be coincidence but I have added a SATA DVD drive since the original install.

I have also tried booting the LiveCD and reinstalling grub in both (hd0,1) and (hd0). Neither make a difference but then it looks like grub is loading OK.

The following are the active lines from /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=1e282854-8399-43a5-8097-06a894b46827 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=1e282854-8399-43a5-8097-06a894b46827 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic

title Ubuntu 7.10, memtest86+
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
root (hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1
 
Last edited:
Try this instead:

Code:
title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic
find --set-root /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=1e282854-8399-43a5-8097-06a894b46827 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic (recovery mode)
find --set-root /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=1e282854-8399-43a5-8097-06a894b46827 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic

title Ubuntu 7.10, memtest86+
find --set-root /boot/memtest86+.bin
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
root (hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

If it works it means your (hd*) numbering is incorrect.
 
Guru,

Thanks for your assistance, changing to 'find' did indeed fix the problem even though it still throws up a load of partition errors as it is polling the partitions.

Regards

Dave
 
Hey Dave,

That sounds good to me! :grinning:

Those errors are to be expected as GRUB searches for the right file. It takes about a second longer than pre-defining (hdx,y), but what's a second compared to the two minutes it takes for the OS to boot? (and what's a second between friends? :smile:)
 
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