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-   -   unable to boot after installing ubuntu 10.04 (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/unable-to-boot-after-installing-ubuntu-10-04-a-832848/)

jayakkumar 09-17-2010 11:00 AM

unable to boot after installing ubuntu 10.04
 
recently i installed ubuntu 10.04 from a cd to my pendrive. it worked fine but i can boot only with my pen drive inserted. i visited two more threads in this forum with same topic but no answers worked for me(i have not tried any third party mbr repair softwares). i have to go through grub to access my recovery drive which is a part of my hdd.( i do not have any command prompt options in my windows recovery console which is in my hdd. i want to be able to use grub and linux but i dont want to insert my pen drive for every boot.

business_kid 09-17-2010 11:55 AM

Why not install ubuntu to your hard disk? That's what people who don't want to use pendrives do.

jayakkumar 09-19-2010 03:02 AM

thanks for the reply , but i am sort of short on space on my hdd.
i did try backupmbr software referred in a similar thread. it worked and i got my win7 working from hdd
but i want to use ubuntu now n then
from browsing here and there i am just making a guess here:
ubuntu changed my hdd boot sect to boot grub
grub is actually in my pen drive ( i can still see grub inside /boot/grub..)
after using backupmbr i have reverted to win7 boot sector
two questions:
1.can i still make my pen drive boot grub and load into ubuntu
2.should i copy contents of pendrive to hdd and install grub on hdd to be able to boot ubuntu and win7

ronlau9 09-19-2010 04:44 AM

To be sure .
Where did you install GRUB ?
On the MBR of the pendrive ?
OR on the MBR of SDA ? = windows drive
How great is you're pendrive ?
Which was the first boot drive during install ?
The internal drive or the pendrive ?
Do you BIOS allowed you to boot from the pendrive ?
Booting only UBUNTU from the pendrive can means that you have to change the sequence in the BIOS during boot .

jayakkumar 09-19-2010 04:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronlau9 (Post 4102329)
To be sure .
Where did you install GRUB ?
On the MBR of the pendrive ?
OR on the MBR of SDA ? = windows drive
How great is you're pendrive ?
Which was the first boot drive during install ?
The internal drive or the pendrive ?
Do you BIOS allowed you to boot from the pendrive ?
Booting only UBUNTU from the pendrive can means that you have to change the sequence in the BIOS during boot .

this is what i did
i installed ubuntu from cd onto my pen drive
it had an option to install ubuntu alongside windows which is what i did
my pen drive is 16gb it was repartioned as 12 gb linux and 2 gb swap partition, the initial 2gb was left unchanged ( this info is from gparted)
about boot sequence:
i can boot from usb, but after this install i had to disable boot from pen drive to be able to boot into ubuntu
i tried to boot from usb by using another pendrive which has slax in it and it worked fine
so as i stated earlier i think grub was installed in hdd but the main grub files are in pendrive along with other linux files

ronlau9 09-19-2010 06:00 AM

If you really write GRUB on the MBR of the pendrive it means that the MBR of sda is unchanged .
So booting windows should not be a problem even if the install on the pendrive fails
I have never install UBUNTu on a pendrive but I did it with Fedora and it works without effecting the boot of my other HDs.
What I do know is that UBUNTU standard install GRUB in MBR of sda unless you have used the Advance option with come after choosing where to install UBUNTU (so after the partitioning option)
Did you use that ADVANCE Option

jayakkumar 09-19-2010 09:46 AM

yes i did use the advanced option to install to sdb
i have used mbrfix a program sugested by someone else on a similar thread. now i am able to boot into win7 directly like i used to before linux.
excuse me if i am repeating this but i want to be able to boot into linux from pen drive , i know i can use unetbootin but it loads like a live cd so my changes are not saved

linus72 09-19-2010 09:52 AM

so you have Ubuntu installed to usb as a hdd install?
not as a liveusb?

when you boot off the usb, then do "fdisk -l" as root
does it see the usb as sda or sdb?

can you post the /boot/grub.cfg on the usb and also the /etc/fstab
of the usb?

jayakkumar 02-05-2011 11:39 PM

i have used what business kid suggested and installed linux on my hdd, now it works fine , i am a sailor so i was not able to get access to a comp for the last 6 months thanks every one
i dont know how to close this thread , somebody can pls do it for me, thanks again

business_kid 02-07-2011 03:04 AM

Click on one of your posts and you often see "mark this thread as solved" if you are the OP. Alternatively edit post #1, go advanced and change it there.

Aquarius_Girl 02-07-2011 03:07 AM

or scroll up the page and look carefully at the top right corner ;)


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