Sorry I know there must be a lot of threads like this - I know have probably gone through them all, but I cant find a decent explanation how to solve this problem.

I recently decided to install ubuntu. I have XP installed as my primary OS and I wanted to dual boot. I gave ubuntu a 15 gig partition and XP the rest of the 160 gb drive. Install went smoothly but when I restarted I got the grub 18 error upon boot.

Now from what I have been researching this could be due to a number of reasons (I am really a noob on this stuff, so please excuse me if I say anything that sounds stupid).

A couple of the solutions I've read:

1. create a 32 mb /boot partition at the beginning of the drive (can someone please explain how to do this in simple terms? I found a tutorial how to do it but it doesnt tell you how to do it if you are dual booting)

2. enable LBA mode (once more I have no idea how to do this)

About my computer:
Really old dell (1999-2000)
160 gig hd
384 mb ram

from what ive read the error is probably due to the old bios not being able to recognize the size.

Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks

To create the /boot partition you load Ubuntu via the cd/dvd. Click Install and choose 'manual' partitioning. You'll see your windows partition, and the Linux one. Resize either windows or Linux 32mb smaller than it is; this creates 32mb of free space. Click that free space, choose to create a new partition there, name it /boot; check the box beside it so it will be formatted. Go through the install again, but make sure the checkbox beside your Linux partition (not /boot, the other one, /) is unchecked, so it won't be formatted this time around. This will make the install go faster.
HTH.

Thanks a lot I will make sure to try that when I get home

Couple of comments:
- this is a BIOS problem, not a grub problem; see if a BIOS update is available. Should fix everything.
- 32 Meg won't be enough. The Ubuntu update mechanism is stupid - make /boot (at least) 100 Meg or you'll be doing this all over again.
- Anytime I tried this XP didn't like having the beginning (left on the graphic) of its partition moved.

Ok I have followed the suggestions above, but I have another problem. When partitioning using the live cd this is what i see:

/dev/sda
/dev/sda3 ext 3 /boot 115 mb (this is my new /boot partition i have the box next to it checked for formatting)
/dev/sda1 ntfs 183407 mb (windows partition)
/dev/sda5 ext3 15784 mb (linux partition)
/dev/sda6 swap (i assume this is the live cd)

When i click next i get the following error:

"No root file system is defined please correct this from the partition menu"

Can someone please tell me how to correct this and which one of the drives to make the root file system? Thanks once more

Ugh I'm getting close to giving up on this thing... I looked online for how to do this and tried what they said, now I have a grub 15 error.. Any idea on how to fix that one now?

In the partitioner you should be able to highlight a partition, then hit a drop box to assign mountpoint. You'll need to do this for /boot, / and swap for their respective partition.
At least this is how it works on the "alternate" CD - I haven't used the standard desktop CD for several releases.

Avoid installing from a live CD
Make a swap of ~500+mb
It will be better to redo the partitions from scratch

Think of it as educational - follow these instructions so were can see what's what.
You can attach the file rather than post inline.

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