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DJGCrusader 08-10-2007 09:36 PM

error during Ubuntu install, now says "Missing Operating System"
 
I had windows xp, my little gem. I had used Ubuntu off the disk demo and decided i should try and install it on along with my XP. So i went into Partition Magic and resized my Windows partition to leave about 7 GB of free space. Everything worked great, just had 7 GB missing from my C:\. Then I proceeded to install Ubuntu. I chose Guided that resized a partition. Since I did not need to resize it, but I wanted to keep it I went ahead and made it 100%. Hit next, next, users and info from XP,next okay. It started installing,and I went on Firefox. at about 70% an error came up saying there is not enough memory in the hard drive. I was shocked as I allocated about 7GB of free space. then the installation just stopped. it simply closed and I was left with my firefox window,the disk stopped spinning. I though cool, it's over, so I logged out and tried to log back in into the user I made. Didn't work. Then I shut down Ubuntu and turned the computer on again. The Lenovo/Thinkpad thing came up, then a blak screen with white letters saying : Missing Operating System. uh oh. restarted and pressed my handy blue Thinkpad button when the screen came up and looked through my bios. there was nothing about selecting the appropriate OS. oh snap. I restarted again with the Ubuntu CD and looked through the 1st screen for any COMPUTER CRISIS PANIC BUTTON mode but there was none. So i booted into "Start/Install Ubuntu". It started, and I checked my hard drive in the explorer and was glad to see all of my Windows files were still there. However when I clicked install and went to the partition portion of the install, there were two options: Manual and Guided(use all the damn space). I hit manual and saw that my windows partition, though having an unknown amount of used space, was fairly intact,using 50059 MB off my 60 Gig HD. I did notice the 2GB Ubuntu install partition, 164 swap partition as well as the old 7 GB "unknown" partition. I went online, checked microsoft help and looked up my problem.

I think my problem now is that I do not have an active partition, or i have the wrong one selected. HELP

syg00 08-10-2007 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJGCrusader
I restarted again with the Ubuntu CD and looked through the 1st screen for any COMPUTER CRISIS PANIC BUTTON mode but there was none.

Good to see you've maintained a sense of humour - can be difficult sometimes.
From the liveCD, open a terminal session, and post the (complete) output from
Code:

sudo fdisk -l
(that's a lower case ell, as in list).
Won't be too hard to fix, but let's see what you've got there.

DJGCrusader 08-10-2007 10:09 PM

wow i ALMOST fixed it! i went to settings, admin apps, and partition manager. then I put a boot flag on my 50GB windows partition. restarted and it kinda worked. The login system (Novell, as per my school's standards) didn't come up right away. I then put in my fingerprint, it loaded, then i got a memory referenced error(I usually get this when playing games like Half life 2 and it autosaves lol). I then had a black screen with my cursor. then It rebooted, took a little whilefor the login programso show up, but it worked! very slow, however, a very slow startup.

I thenwent immediately to Partition Magic, and as it loaded it detected 2 partition errors, and I had the program fix them. then it gave me an error saying Init Failed: Error 117
Partition's drive letter cannot be identified.

Clicked OK, remembered my post and went ahead to update my post. thankfully though I did all this on Microsoft Windows XP =] when the opening music came on it was music to my ears.

Errors:
ridiculously slow startup,
found new hardware(generic volume) always comes up
Partition magic still won't work(see above)

Valkyrie_of_valhalla 08-11-2007 12:12 PM

From what I understand, when you got the no more free space error, Ubuntu had already replaced the mbr, but not completely.

To be able to 100% help you, you should do what syg00 suggested. Put in the Ubuntu live CD, boot from it, open a terminal and type in:
Code:

sudo fdisk -l
And post the output here. It should show us the partition table.

Now, based on what you have told us, here are the steps I would take:
1. Put in the Windows CD and choose repair, so it will boot normally.
2. Boot from the Ubuntu live cd and use the partition program you have found there to set up the partitions.
3. Try and create an ext3 partition out of the 7GB unused space.
4. Set Ubuntu to install on that partition and not the 2GB one.

As a rule, always make sure you have enough disk space to install the partition you want to, or else you'll always have a hard time fixing things...

ishuaia 08-11-2007 01:09 PM

You should make a back up copy for your files too

DJGCrusader 08-11-2007 06:59 PM

wats a terminal? lolz ill search for it in Ubuntu, but im jw is it like MS Dos? ill do that, and how can I get some sort of boot menu asking which operating system I would like to use? that would be nice. I am going to restart to Ubuntu now and open up firefox n try that fdisk thing.

DJGCrusader 08-11-2007 07:12 PM

heres my results
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System
/dev/sda1  *          1        6087    48890488+  7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2            6374        7296    7401240  af  Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3            6087        6353    2144677+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4            6354        6373      160650    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            6354        6373      160618+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

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

My 1st one is def Windows, and I have the "boot flag" on that one. I want to delete 3,4,and 5 so i can clean install Linux again, this time using manual and choosing the 7 gig one.

BTW i dont have a windows CD. I do have a pirated XP cd but i dont ever use it. My Windows is preinstalled.


OH SHIT--> I just used GParted and now it says my entire hard drive is unallocated, however the fdisk thing shows my partitions. =\

Update: 2 more problems
I tried to recover it with my cracked XP disk, and it said No hard disk drive was found. andit restartedmy computer. Then i loaded XP again, and after the opening music, no icons or my taskbar loaded, as if explorer,exe didn't load. I manually powered down and tried again. It worked, but My quicklaunch was nowhere to be found. So i went to settings and activsted it again.


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