I have an Acer Aspire One that came loaded with Windows XP Home. I installed Kuki Linux, didn't like it. Then Ubuntu's netbook remix, really liked it. Ubuntu has been working great - until...

I ran update manager yesterday and it said there wasn't enough space on the hdd to install updates -- free up some space. I booted into XP (probably my first mistake) and ran partition magic. I resized my "C:" drive from approx 150g to 100g and chose to allocate the 50g to what I thought was my ubuntu partition. Seemed to go well. Rebooted and have been getting the "Grub Loading please wait - Error 17" message ever since. Nothing installed works on the computer. (Live Ubuntu on USB does work.)

I thought I had removed the Kuki install by installing Ubuntu over it. However, as the info shows below, that didn't happen. I would like to get my computer functioning again with the dual xp/ubuntu boot. Also- how can i get rid of the Kuki partition and just have xp and ubuntu with a 50/50 split of hdd resources between them?

I've been looking around for answers. I read that I could reinstall Grub but when I try to locate /grub/stage1 anywhere on my computer I get "File not found". Another solution found was reinstall Ubuntu. At the partition stage I noticed this configuration and I figure this has to have something to do with my woes:

/dev/sda1 ..... Windows NT ..... FAT32 ..... 4.9gb
/dev/sda2 ..... Windows XP home ...... NTFS ..... 139.2gb
/dev/sda6 ..... (ext3) ...... 2.3gb
/dev/sda7 ..... (linux-swap) ..... 172.5mb
/dev/sda5 ..... (ext3) ...... 2.3gb
/dev/sda8 ..... (linux-swap) .... 172.5mb

I ran sudo fdisk -l and got this:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x11a8ba38

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 637 5116671 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda2 * 638 18805 145934460 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 18806 19457 5237190 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 19132 19435 2441848+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 18806 19109 2441817 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 19110 19131 176683+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 19436 19457 176683+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 4039 MB, 4039114752 bytes
125 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1017 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7750 * 512 = 3968000 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb0bcd68e

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 ? 415919 447748 123339962 78 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(518, 102, 15) logical=(415918, 36, 50)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(743, 0, 62) logical=(447747, 120, 15)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 ? 55855 155943 387841909+ 10 OPUS
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(205, 7, 0) logical=(55854, 42, 14)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(920, 235, 50) logical=(155942, 71, 34)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 ? 241234 488877 959615034 8b Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(260, 125, 54) logical=(241233, 109, 56)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(893, 46, 60) logical=(488876, 58, 35)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4 ? 225884 226958 4161547 a OS/2 Boot Manager
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(269, 111, 50) logical=(225883, 70, 43)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(226957, 64,
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

THANKS FOR ANY AND ALL HELP!!

You used partition magic to add free space to the beginning of your ext3 partition?
That will break it.

Have you tried running a fsck on it from an ubuntu live CD?

/boot/grub/stage1

believe the fdisk -l entries.

Hi Simon -

Thanks for responding.

I used partition magic to free up space on my hdd, yes. I know nothing about adding the space created from "C:" onto the beginning (or end) of the ext3 partition though. That stuff didn't come up when I ran the software.....

I am running the full version of Ubuntu from a USB stick to get online with this computer. I noticed that if I run the installer (for full Ubuntu not the netbook remix version) i have the option to edit or delete existing partitions and then do the install. would deleting the four partitions created with the Kuki and Ubuntu Netbook Remix install and then just installing Ubuntu simply fix this? As in, a new MBR would be created from all of these actions and there would be no question that I have an xp pro installation and a ubuntu installation and that's it.

I just tried this and here's what I got: fsck 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)

did this and got: bash: /boot/grub/stage1: No such file or directory

ok - but I don't know what that means....

Thanks for any hints/replies!

see reply on ubuntu forums

Yes - got it. Thanks! For anyone else looking for an answer to this see http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubu...tml#post704213

Yes.The short version: reinstall. Let the ubuntu installer fix the issues for you.

When you goin experience you can learn how to fix this sort of thing without a reinstall - meantime, remember to make backups.