Is this a new laptop?

I want to say thank you very much to all of you who have offered help to me! I'm sure there is a solution, but I know I couldn't figure it out without your help! I'm sorry I didn't tell you that about the windows safe modes screen originally, but because I don't know what I'm doing in this realm, I didn't realize it was such an important piece of information. I will try to be more detailed.

1. Metrofox: Thank you for the encouragement. What did you mean to "post the outputs of the code tag?" Should I run the boot_info again? (after I changed the menu.lst in post #13) Or are you asking me to post the menu.lst boot command? ...or something else? I'm sorry I don't understand! I'm trying to learn these terms. I will be glad to do what you are asking, when I know what it is! :-)

2. syg00: I downloaded gparted using another computer, and made a live CD (as suggested on the sites I visited to get it, and to figure out what it is and how to run it, etc.) --I did it this way because there is another problem with my laptop, but I hadn't wanted to mix two questions in this thread: I can't get online in Linux because, evidently (from much online research) my built-in wireless card needs a driver compatible with Linux or ndiswrapper or madwifi to recognize/install (or whatever they do!) the Windows driver for my wireless card (Atheros). I have gotten as far as to install ndiswrapper and try many times to get it to "install" the Windows Atheros wireless driver for Linux, but I really don't think it has done anything. Since I don't know much at all about working with code, I usually don't fully understand what's being suggested to try; and also, the threads I have read about this wireless issue have all had slightly different issues, computer (wireless card) models, or Linux OS's. I'm sure much of what they say could easily be applied to my situation with a few simple changes, but it takes me much frustration and dead ends to try to figure out what those are. One of the last things I read was to enable backports on the software source application, but that's not listed there in mine. So another place said to download the file: linux-backports-modules-2.6.27-14-generic, (a meta file) which is supposed to include ath5k, which, I guess is designed for Atheros wireless cards. I can download these things with no problem using my desktop, (and saving to a flash drive) but then what do I do with them?! Maybe I can find that answer online too, but right now I'm at a loss for trying to get on the internet with my Ubuntu/"Windows XP" laptop.

ANYWAY, so I made a live CD of gparted, and I was reading about it online to see what I was supposed to do with it, and according to http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Gparted, it's a partition editor. So, I want to ask before I do something that sounds dangerous to me. Are you asking me to boot to gparted, and use it to make the NTFS the only active/bootable partition, and once that's the case, to run chkdsk? (how do I run chkdsk?) Would it fix any errors it finds?

Also, I looked at the site you gave me about the Windows recovery CD. I don't think I received a CD at all with my computer; rather, I think I remember reading somewhere that instead of sending a CD, they put all of that information in the D partition of the hard drive. I have two questions about this: 1. Since I can see the contents of D drive in Ubuntu File Browser, could I possibly use that somehow instead of the CD? 2. You said that I could use a friend's real XP CD (I'm not sure who I know would have one...)--but did you want me to use that only to run chdsk without being in Windows? (which, you said would probably fail) If so, would it be better to go the route of booting in gparted, making the NTFS the only bootable partition, and then running chkdsk?

I'm sorry I'm so full of questions--I'm sure what you said makes complete sense to someone who understands anything about this subject, but before this in life, my experience with computers has been limited to installing & using Windows applications.



3. Hern 28: Yes, it's a new laptop: Toshiba NB205

When I booted from the Ubuntu/Grub live CD the only choice that looked plausible for this situation was "Boot from first hard drive." I selected that option and pressed Enter, and it took me directly to the Grub screen where I'm supposed to be able to choose which operating system I want to boot with.

I can't unmount the Linux drive (it's not a choice on the drop-down menu, like it is for external hard drives, etc.), and the Windows drive won't mount at all now, saying that "the NTFS is marked to be in use." It gives me 2 choices:

"If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by clicking on the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly."

"If you don't have Windows then you can use the 'force' optopn for your own responsibility. For example type on the command line: mount -t ntfs-3g/dev/sdal/media/TI100277POG -o force. Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file: dev/sdal/media/TI100277POG ntfs-3g force 0 0."

...I have a theory that that's because I changed the menu.lst in post #13 to a setting that makes windows not start properly (wants to run in safe modes, but that fails too), so therefore, maybe it thinks it wasn't shut down properly. Before I changed the menu.lst, in the File Browser in Ubuntu, I could see all of my Windows files and file structure, including all system files, etc.



..Thank you all again for your time and thought about my problem! Please don't give up on me! I look forward to having both OS's working! :-)

There is no such thing as too much information - include everything; we'll ignore what we don't need/understand.

The liveCD is a good option - on the (year old) one I just tested, you highlight the partition of interest, and use the drop-down menus. Partition -> manage flags; uncheck the boot flag on sda2 and check it on sda1. Then apply the changes - simple.

The only way you can run chkdsk is to get a XP install CD and boot that - as it comes up it tells you to hit "r" key to bring up recovery console. Then run chkdsk from there as the M$oft link says.
Hopefully after that, everything should work as expected.

As for the wireless, that can be a real problem on Linux; stay current - 8.04 is 2 releases old now. I only buy gear I know is supported by the Linux kernel. Sorry, I can't help with that.

Have had this problem and was unable to fix it without the install disk.

A piece of advice, call your support and get them to send you the cd's for you laptop NOW lol. They won't send them to you after your warranty is expired. If they ask for them back, be careful to misplace them . There should be a law against selling computers without the install disks.

Your ntfs partition (Problem when using -force) is corrupted or locked mounted. Am actually not sure how to fix this (or if windows documents it as a breach), I re-installed, If someone knows how to resolve I would be interested as well though.

If you could get your hands on a windows disk could try doing a repair as syg00 suggests.

You could try a super grub disk to boot your system. I had a similar problem and this did work for me.

Super grub examines your boot sector and attempts to correct problems and may possibly offer you a boot into windows option before it alters anything.

http://linuxtracker.org/ is a good place to look, but you will need a torrent client to download.
I don't know whether direct links are permitted but there is a copy here: http://linuxtracker.org/index.php?pa...ve=1&tracker=0

Thank you all again for your suggestions. I have tried them to the best of my ability, but I have bad news in every direction. I will address each of your suggestions below as in my last post, but it might be beneficial for anyone who wants to, to read the whole post.

syg00:

I did create a live gparted CD, and I was able to borrow a windows xp installation disk from a friend. I ran it, and it went through its setup process and asked me to press R for the recovery. I thought I was finally onto something! My computer screen actually matched what I was told about!...But then it did some more thinking and then showed a screen saying, "Windows couldn't find any hard drives installed on your computer." And that screen had a progress bar counting the seconds before the computer would reboot.

OK, I know I left out another piece of information. :-) I did run gparted first, like I understood that you said to do. After all of its setup process, it opened fine and showed the hard drives on my computer like you said. However, only one hard drive was already flagged to boot, and that was the Windows partition! (the Linux partition was not flagged to boot) I thought that was strange, but that was the way you had told me to change it to, so I left it. (Actually, so that maybe it would recognize a change, I flagged a different drive to boot, and then changed it back to the Windows partition to be the only one to boot.) An item of note: gparted would only allow one drive to be flagged to boot at a time.

Also interesting to me was the layout of the drives according to gparted. I will attempt to type the chart it gave me below (I hope it posts in a good enough order for you to read it correctly):

Partition FileSystem Label Size Used Unused Flags

/dev/sda1 ntfs *TI100277P0G 79.43GB 37.26GB 42.17GB boot
/dev/sda3 extended (blank) 62.12GB (blank) (blank) (blank)
**/dev/sda5 ext3 (blank) 59.54GB 5.07GB 54.48GB (blank)
**/dev/sda6 linux-swap (blank) 2.57GB (blank) (blank) (blank)
/dev/sda2 fat32 HDDRECOVERY 7.50GB 3.04GB 4.46GB hidden, 1ba

*I can't tell from the font if this label reads T, capital i or small L, AND whether it ends in P, OG or P, zero G.

**These two lines were indented on the gparted screen, as if they are subpartitions of sda3.

I thought this was interesting because it appears to me based on this chart that grub must be located in sda1, because that is the only drive that was flagged to boot. When the Windows live CD didn't "find any hard drives installed" I restarted with gparted to see what it said then. It was the same, so I was curious about the built-in recovery files in sda2--so I flagged that drive to boot (which automatically unflagged sda1) and rebooted it to see what would happen. It booted up to Grub as normal! ...Huh?

I thought that possibly (I hope!!!), this information might shed some light for you to be able to tell what is going on in my computer and you could think of something else to try to help me!



Hern 28:

As I said to syg00, I did borrow an XP install disk from a friend who has a Dell computer, and tried (his) suggestion. But when it didn't work, I thought that I might have to follow yours and reinstall XP onto the sda1 partition, and hopefully it might think it then was OK to run. But I didn't think it would work to install my friend's copy of XP, because in order to get updates (theirs is an old computer--the disk only had service pack1 on it!), it would see that that copy of windows was installed on two computers, and I think it would "hit a fit" about that. :-) So I followed your advice to call toshiba to get MY installation CDs. They informed me that "we don't have them anymore." (I've had this computer for about 2 weeks--purchased new!) I explained simply that my windows xp computer would no longer boot into windows, and I needed to have the installation CD to correct the problem. They took me through the whole process of trying to boot into the recovery partition (factory installed), but it just booted into Grub. They asked question after question and finally made me tell them that I had installed another operating system onto the computer that was supposed to dual-boot with windows. Then they said that by doing that I had (he was very sure about this) overwritten windows xp, including the recovery drive, and therefore I completely voided the company warrenty! (I KNOW installing Ubuntu didn't overwrite either xp or the recovery partition because in my Linux file browser I can see all of the windows system files and all of my files saved under windows!!--(I can play windows-saved sound files on Ubuntu, and open windows-saved OpenOffice documents--all of which are currently located in the windows partition. I told them that, but it didn't make any difference.) They said that if I wanted to reinstall Windows, that I would have to buy "the full version." I said, "I HAVE the full version--it came installed on my computer!--included in the price of the computer!" The guy said, "No, that was a trial version, and the only way to recover that is through the recovery drive." (which doesn't seem to do me any good at all, even though I can see all the individual files on it!!--including some that are named something about "boot") A TRIAL version?!! So, as a result of that conversation, I not only didn't get my CDs but the whole company warrenty that came with the computer was also stolen! I guess you just have to play their game on their terms...I would do a few things differently if I had it to do over again!

.....So, it didn't quite go as hoped!! ...one big reason I wanted Linux was because it's free (and all of it's programs and updates!!), but I still have things I need to work with for other people using Windows programs, so that is why I need my computer to dual boot! I really don't want to pay $150 for a brand-new "full" copy of windows when I have a completely fine copy already installed, IF I could only get past the boot screen!! (I wouldn't want to do that anyway--just for the principle of it!!)


sorbyl:

I downloaded the super grub file that you linked to (the link did take me directly to it, by the way), and I tried to make a bootable CD with it, but my CD-making program said that it was an unrecognizable file format and wouldn't make the CD. The file that downloaded was called: super_grub_disk_0.9774.torrent. I had never heard of a torrent client file before reading your post, so I guess I don't know what to do with it. Could you please give me more details? :-) Sorry--I'm learning a lot in this process, but compared to what I need to know, I still know basically nothing!!



Thank you all again very much! I am amazed at your willingness to continue with me through this whole process of trying to get it to work! I'm not the least bit upset with what any of you have suggested for me to try--(I welcome any suggestion, and I'm willing to try anything I can figure out how to do!)--I'm only upset at the money-hungry companies; and frustrated by the seeming depth of my computer's problem and my lost time while trying to deal with it.

Do not have time to search for it atm. google for ways to find your windows key, that should be all you need to re-install the correct version of windows onto you laptop (as long as you know which version of xp was on it) ie... home, media center, xp pro.

You should have a product key around somewhere.

ktscheschke,
I am in same boat. I still consider myself a n00b even though I have been using ubuntu and fedora for a few years. I bought the same machine, I used UNetbootin to generate a liveCD on a USB. I originally tried with 9.04, but I had the same issue with lack of wireless connection. I used my ethernet to get the update to 9.10 and at first it wasn't working either, but after I put device manager on it worked! As far as getting back into Windows, I am still stuck. I am going to try and find those programs errordialog.exe and bootpriority.exe and using ubuntu I am going to try and drop em in and see what happens. My last resort will be grabbing an XP home disk and a external CD/DVD and reinstalling from scratch and partitioning in advance. That always worked for me in the past. What did you end up doing?

oh and windows product key is on bottom of your nb205

hi to all
i just had a simple quary i was using redhat 9 ad problem to me is that is it possible to use sata hardisk with it
if it is possible lz tell me

syg00 are totally rigth.
if you can boot ubuntu, connect and issue at the command line : sudo fdisk /dev/sda
type m to have all command you can type.
type a or b, i think, from my memory (i don't have linux under my hand), to toggle boot flag to partition where windows reside
reinstall grub in the MBR of this partition
reboot

I got the hddrecovery to work by holding 0 at startup, previously I kept getting BSOD and then restart, but it did finally work. The hddrecovery has a partition tool! I just ran it with the partition the way I wanted it, and then recovered the windows, used unetbootin again to get 9.04 (because 9.10 wouldn't install for some reason) and then once I was in 9.04 (once again without wireless) I hooked the netbook up via ethernet and upgraded to 9.10. I now have wireless on ubuntu 9.10 and dual boot with XP working great. now on to tackling getting sound up. There is always something

I 'm a rookie in linux
I have a computer with XP. It contains two physical HD, C & D
I have tried to install ubuntu on the D because i had more place on this disk than on C.
I was also afraid to delete windows partition on the C disk.
Linux is installed on D, but I can't start it since i can't reach it: I have not the dual boot, that I imagine has to be located on the C disk

My questions are : How do I make it work in this configuration ?
If I can make it work like this, how can I remove linux to install it on C ?

Thank you beforehand

Etienne

Which version of Ubuntu are you using? If it is 9.10, it uses a different version of the Grub bootloader than previous versions.

Did you have the first drive with windows plugged in when you installed Ubuntu?

Did you install Grub bootloader to the master boot record? Which drive?

You could use your installation CD/DVD and load it,open a terminal and enter the command to get partition informatin: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) and post it here to get specific help.

Dear Yancek,

The version of ubuntu i am using is 9.10
I had the first drive with windows plugged in since ubuntu has self installed in windows.
I presume that grub is not installed to the master boot record (c but on D:
I'am trying to open a terminal and follow your lest sentence to be able to tell you more.

sincerely

etienne

dear yancek,

here is the result of the comand sudo -l

Disque /dev/dsb:122.9 Go
Périphérique amorce debut fin blocs Id Systeme
/dev/sdb1 * 1 2611 20972826 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 2612 14703 97128990 f W95 etendue(LBA
/dev/sdb5 2612 10891 66557263+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb6 10892 12113 9767488+ 83 linux
/dev/sdb7 12114 14545 19535008+ 83 linux
/dev/sdb8 14546 14703 1269103+ 82 linux swap/solaris

disque /dev/sdc:80,0 Go
Périphérique amorce debut fin blocs Id Systeme
/dev/sdc1 * 1 9728 781401287 7 HPFS/NTFS

if this can give some help...

best regards

etienne