Hey people. Hope this isn't somwhere else, but I'm doing a sneaky from work! I have tried reomving Ubuntu cause I want Fedora 9 instead. Problem is I keep getting a Grub Stage 1.5, error 22 msg when I try to boot from the DVD I downloaded from said site. I have booted Ubuntu using the live version and used Gpart to nuke any partitions that are illustrated. I now get an error 17 (you'll have to forgive me if the syntax is a little out). As it took me an age to get the distro. I am loathed to try and just re-download 3Gigs of data again. Is this a common problem? How can I rectify it? Any help will be appreciated.

There never was a spoon.

You must try to boot from the dvd and not from the hard disk. For that, change your boot sequence in the bios. Hit the 'delete' or 'F1' key immediately after starting the computer.

Hi Amani. Thanks for your very prompt reply. I am now at home. I am trying to get Fedora 9 onto a IBM T23 laptop. As Ubuntu installed without a hitch I assume the HW is OK. I have checked the boot sequence. That is OK. I know the drive is sound as I have run a live version of Ubuntu as well as installing a full version. I can only assume the DVD ISO is naff in some respect. I am going to test it on my tower box (this one) see if it boots or not. Failing that I mauy just try to DL the CD version. Thought 1 disk would be better than 4 or 5. Still any thoughts are going to be welcome. Thanks in advance.

Hi, thought I'd get in on this one.

So I suppose I'm a bit confused. You mention that you want to uninstall Ubuntu to install Fedora on a computer, which your having issues wiping the partitions, which is sounds like you may have squared away if you booted from the DVD. Yes, when you install a boot loader, it typically loads it to the first sector of the HDD to the MBR (Master Boot Record), in which the only way to clear that is by installing something completely new over it, or by using something like an old Windows 98 floppy and typing "fdisk /mbr" 3 times to wipe the MBR clean.

But then you mentioned, you loaded up Ubuntu on another computer? So were you using Ubuntu on the rest, but not that one computer?

Hi jmbrink26 & amani. The T23 is the only system that I have installed Ubuntu onto. No other system is in the frame...at the moment. I originally used FDISK to remove the two partitons created when installing Ubuntu. I didnt realise you could just run a different distro over the top. I will try the fdisk MBR switch to see if that rectifies the problem. I just want to isolate whether or not it is the distro on the DVD or an issue caused by me not removing Ubuntu properly. I only have 1Mb link and it can take a while for the ISO to download (which I got from the Fedora site). Thanks for your help though.

The reason you're having errors with GRUB is because, by removing the files/partitions, you've taken away some files it relies on (those held in the /boot directory).

The best way to install a new distro is to leave the old distro, boot from the new distro's installation disk and overwrite the old one, including making any partition modifications. Any good distro should be able to replace the existing GRUB installation.

Yeah, just like Total-MAdMaN said, GRUB and LILO both rely on files in /boot, which completely corrupts the data in the grub.conf or lilo.conf, making the bootloader unusable entirely. Yeah just stick with what you are doing with fdisk /mbr and installing the new distro, and you'll be good to go.