It was my intention to install feisty on my removable hard drive. I sort of accomplished the mission in the sense that there are now Ubuntu files on it.

However, 2 problems have arisen:

Issue #1. When I switch to booting from the primary hard drive, instead of getting Windows (this should happen) (or Linux), instead I get an error message along the lines of:
"Failed to load grub 1.5
Error 21"

these look suspiciously like Linux error messages to this poor sot.

Issue #2. The removable drive won't boot up Linux now. It worked once ~ the time immediately after installation. So I've had to use the cd to boot up.


Failed solution to #1: I tried using the windows cd recovery console as well as the installation recovery option. No dice either way.

Does anyone have a quicker solution than reformatting and reinstalling windows?


Proposed Solution to #2: If I physically disconnect all of my hard drives except the removable and then reinstall feisty on it, will that fix the boot problem there?

You have installed to the MBR of the internal disk - Ubuntu may well not give you an option. There is so much to dislike about "smart" installers ....

Anyway - what did you try from recovery console ???. fixmbr should be all you'll need to get windoze fired up and active.
As for the external, you'll need to have USB booting enabled in the BIOS, then it might be a matter of playing around for a while till you get something that works.
Best bet might be to install grub to the root partition, and copy the bootsector record across to 'doze, then use ntldr to handle things. Much less mess when you boot the box with the USB drive disconnected.
Plenty of how-to's around; including here on LQ.

Thanks for the advice.

I tried the bootcfg rebuild and something else that looked good at the time (don't remember what exactly)

I started the fixmbr command but chickened out when it said "warning" with exclamations and capitalizations about possible failure and the resulting dire consequences.

er, how often do the dire consequences happen?

I have some (relatively) important stuff in other partitions on that drive. Reinstalling windows in the c: partition would be much more preferable than losing it all.

I'll try to copy/paste that stuff over to another drive after booting with the feisty cd, then try that fixmbr command again tonight.

here's hoping it works.....

The messages are just what is known this country as "arse covering" by M$oft.
Never heard of a problem.

However, note my sigline ...