Whenever I try to install Linux on my laptop, grub-install says it can't install. When doing it manually, it says the file system is not recognized, or something, says the partition type is 0x06.

It's happened only when installing on my laptop, with both Kubuntu and Gentoo (Gentoo said stage 1 not read correctly)

What is going on here?!?

Update (2010): no reason to interest yourself in this thread, laptop is no longer functional (monitor and Hard Disk failures)

What commands are you using to install grub on the drive? Could you please post the commands you are using, and the exact output that grub is giving you?

--jrtayloriv

I don't know what Kubuntu does, but with Gentoo I tried

grub-install
[Stage one was read incorrectly, or something]

and through the GRUB shell,

setup (hd0,3) [or whatever tells grub where it's files are]
[gives me the error about my fs]

I gave up on Gentoo (thought it would be easier then LFS, trying to conserve disk space here!)

Once again, could you please provide the exact output that grub gave you instead of "was read incorrectly, or something" and "the error about my fs".

--jrtayloriv

didn't write it down, so I can't do anything about that.

I think the fs error was

Filesystem not reconized. Partition type is x06

partition type 0x06 means fat16..why fat16?i think no one formats a disk with fat16 these days.

WHAT THE.........HOW........................?
IT'S EXT3, MY LAPTOP HAS NOTHING THAT IS FAT16, NOT EVEN ANY OF THE SD CARDS IN MY HOUSE (no floppy drive )

The second partition is NTFS, first is FAT32(AKA vfat) (used to be something of a factory restore from Gateway, now used to transfer big files from Windows to Linux and Vice-versa (case of driver errors on 1 OS))

What happened? Formatting error? I chose to repartition with Win Vista (heard some iffy stories about repartitioning and the boot up process of Vista) Then, I had left #3 blank, no fs.

Afterwords, I boot into Gentoo install CD and formatted it ext3, doing so again with the Kubuntu live install (9.04)

Something happen to GRUB? (When removing the remains of Gentoo, I accidentally erased the lost+found folder, can that do anything?)

Would it help that Windows has #3 identified as RAW?

Windows will probably wrongly identify any partition that is not NTFS or FAT32. Also, your laptop might have a boot sector virus protection option that might not let grub write to the MBR correctly.

Compleatly forgot about that, now all I need to do is disable it.

Does Vista or AVG Antivirus include MBR protcetion?

I saw something somewhere..... but now I can't find it.

Does the laptops BIOS do anything like this (I know it's not likely)

Sometimes there is a diagnostic partition at the beginning or end of the hard drive, I've installed Linux on Windows machine and sort of inserted it (Linux) in between those partitions. At least one of em looked like CP/M to fdisk.