Dual-booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04 failed..
 

Hi all,

Just got back online after having to completely re-install Windows 7 after trying to install Ubuntu 11.04 didn't work, apparently. :banghead: :banghead:

I have no idea what I did wrong. 500GB HDD, I popped in the CD, followed the instructions ,set a 80GB partition for Ubuntu, it did it's stuff, then asked me to reboot. I did, and right after the "To boot from CD, press any key now.." screen I lose video signal. Windows 7 didn't boot. I tried to repair it, I tried a system restore, etc, to no avail. Had to wipe everything and start from scratch.


What went wrong? I've never experienced that before. Thankfully I saved a lot of stuff on flash drives, but I've got to re-install all my programs.

This is a 500GB HDD, Windows was using 34XGB for Windows 7, 60GB for Vista, and (was supposed to use) 80GB for Linux. I Deleted and formatted the Vista partition before I went about installing Ubuntu, because I never use Vista on this machine. Then I went to install Linux, and it "crashed" more or less.

So what I have now, is 324GB for Windows 7, a 60GB blank area formatted in NTFS, and a 80GB partition with Ubuntu on it (I assume) that I cannot access.


I'm worried that if I try this again, the exact same will happen, and I'm not sure how many times I can use this Retail key..

I tried to select the 60GB partition originally to install Ubuntu, but it wouldn't let me, since it's all on the same drive. It didn't even show it, for some reason.

Has anyone run across a similar problem? I don't want to re-re install everything. :banghead:

Grub has to be within the first 128Gig of the drive atleast that is what I've read, but nobody mentions it anymore maybe that has changed. Read post #2
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1285159
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...67&postcount=2

How do I go about putting Ubuntu in the first 128gb? Apparently the LiveCD doesn't do that automatically.

Grub should put itself in the MBR (where Windows is) and control the boot sequence. This is taken care of during the install. Ubuntu is pretty easy and will do it for you, just take your time and read the screens.

There are multiple articles posted on how to fix the MBR after a failed install, it is pretty easy.

I have Windows 7, Gentoo, Vector, Ubuntu and Fedora (soon to be removed) all running on the same laptop. Don't be afraid, try again, enjoy and good luck.

To get some useful information to post, I would suggest going to the site below and downloading and running the bootinfoscript and posting the results.txt file here. Use your Ubuntu CD to do this:

http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net

Did you change boot priority back to the hard drive?
Which option did you select when installing Ubuntu, you should have had three?
Did you install the Ubuntu bootloader to the master boot record?

Did you scroll all the way down in the main window to check?

Along with the boot info script post output of "fdisk -l"

Hi all, I apologize for the delay, but it appears I've fixed it!

Thanks to a forum post I was able to find on Google, I had to go into the Terminal and Uncomment (remove the #) one of the grub files, to make it appear just as text, vs. a graphical page.

I discovered this time, when the screen didn't load, the HDD indicator was still lit, so I waited. Sure enough, Ubuntu booted up. After that file tweak, it now loads perfectly.

Thank you all so much, I appreciate you all leading me in the right direction. :D


Wouldn't any variation of fdisk format the HDD? Or does that "scan" it and report on all the partitions on it?