I installed ubuntu today, all seemed fine with downloads etc to start with but I am unable to boot my computer after installation. I get "error: no such device: 28390e87-5199-4e7c-8eef-7bfe7fe7fcd035a.
and then the command prompt "grub rescue>_"
I cant boot windows XP anymore (was supposed to be a dual platform installation) , I can access ubuntu via the installation disk I made today (via the trial option) but everything else has gone. How do I get my system back??

Hello,

Have you researched grub rescue>

It might be your only hope at this point. Grub is roughly analagous to boot.ini in the other OS.

Did you partition your disk? If so, you've lost your XP installation and will need to install from the live CD. Which distro are you using?

Good luck.

please tell us exactly what did you do, so we can help you.

I wanted to see what linux was like so I downloaded ubuntu from the official site, burnt a boot dvd, ran it, installed ubuntu alongside windows XP pro, it then downloaded all the add-ons etc required for the installation and when it finished I rebooted the computer and got the error message in my first post. I can use the boot dvd to access the trial version of ubuntu but cant start my computer without it. I also tried going through the installation process on the initial start screen of the boot disk (using the option of not downloading anything this time) but still couldnt boot my computer without the boot disk in the drive. Basically I just want XP back! and no I didnt partition any drives.
can I burn a windows boot disk from somewhere to get going again?

try this command in grub rescue >
update_grub

Boot Info Script 0.60 from 17 May 2011


============================= Boot Info Summary: ===============================

=> Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 1 of
the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks
in partition 1 for .

sda1: __________________________________________________________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows XP
Boot files: /boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM

============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System

/dev/sda1 * 63 488,375,999 488,375,937 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS


"blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/loop0 squashfs
/dev/sda1 DA641CD0641CB16D ntfs

================================ Mount points: =================================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

/dev/loop0 /rofs squashfs (ro,noatime)
/dev/sr0 /cdrom iso9660 (ro,noatime)
I have just run "boot info script" that I found on a forum - does this help?


================================ sda1/boot.ini: ================================

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================

unlzma: Decoder error