problem with reinstalling boot loader

hero_19873 · 10-26-2006, 01:07 PM

hi friends

i have two Operating systems

1- ubuntu 6.06
2- winxp

i was installing boot loader on hd0 partition

i make a format for it and reinstall xp

then i try to reinstall boot loader it faild

it says error text 20 (as i remember

)

wht to do now

thnx for ur time

blackhole54 · 10-27-2006, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hero_19873

then i try to reinstall boot loader it faild

What do you mean?

I imagine when you reinstalled winXP you overwrote the Master Boot Record (MBR). What did you do then (what commands, etc.) and what is the exact error?

hero_19873 · 10-27-2006, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackhole54

What do you mean?

I imagine when you reinstalled winXP you overwrote the Master Boot Record (MBR)

thnx my friend

yes i overwrote the MBR

i want now to return to old boot menu by reinstalling the Grub boot Loader

form the alternate cd by making Rescue a borken system

but it fails

can u tell me how to fix this

blackhole54 · 10-28-2006, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hero_19873

i want now to return to old boot menu by reinstalling the Grub boot Loader

form the alternate cd by making Rescue a borken system

but it fails

can u tell me how to fix this

I would like to try to help you, but I need to know exactly what you have tried and exactly what happened.

I gather you tried running either an installation disk in rescue mode, or a live CD. You then probably typed some commands or something. Or perhaps you used the mouse and keyboard to interact with some dialog boxes. And then you got an error message. Can you give me the exact details please?

hero_19873 · 10-28-2006, 06:20 PM

ok sir i'll try to explain more

1- i inserted an alternate cd

2- i choose rescue a borken system

3- i did that to reinstall boot loader

when i reach the step of reinstalling it asks me to choose the old partition that i was install boot loader on it before

4- i choose it but when i click reinstall boot loader it gives me an error
only (error text 20 )

i thinks this because i make format to this partition

the question now is how to reinstall the boot loader ??

blackhole54 · 10-28-2006, 09:49 PM

Thanks for the clarification.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hero_19873

i thinks this because i make format to this partition

I hope you are not saying that you reformated the partition(s) that contained Ubuntu. If so, you will have to reinstall the whole thing, not just restore the MBR.

Quote:

the question now is how to reinstall the boot loader ??

I am assuming here that you did not reformat the partition(s) Ubuntu was on. Please don't be offended if you already know this, but here are instructions for doing what you are trying. You need to know where the root partition for Ubuntu is and you want to specify "(hd0)" or "/dev/hda" as the location to install the bootloader if you want to use the MBR (I think you do). The author recomends you use the live CD to verify which partitions contain what. If you have a live CD, I would recommend you do this, and would also suggest that you verify the installation is still there by (from the live CD) mounting that partition and looking at its contents.

Sadly, I can make no sense of the error message you report. I thought "20" might be an error reported by GRUB, but I can find no info on that. If you are still getting that error, perhaps you could be so good as to post the output of sudo fdisk -l from the live CD and to tell me what values you are supplying to the rescue software.

If you have a live CD, you can also try reinstalling the bootloader using the procedure described here on that same web page.

I hope this helps. Post back if you get more info or if I can clarify something for you.

Good luck.

hero_19873 · 10-29-2006, 07:44 AM

thnx very much my friend

it's done now !

boot loader reinstalled successfully

but when booting come to the step of mounting root filesystem

i get some lines like this

Code:

cannot read /etc/fstab : no such file or directory

mount : mounting /root/dev on /dev-static/dev failed : no such file or directory

mount : mounting /sys on /root/sys failed : no such file or directory

mount : mounting /proc on /root/proc failed : no such file or directory

target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init

and this line

Code:

/bin/sh : can't access tty :job control turned off

i'm sorry i still beginner on linux

can u help me on this ?!

blackhole54 · 10-29-2006, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hero_19873

can u help me on this ?!

That's a very good question. I am rather baffled myself. If you have a live CD, I would recommend first using it to run e2fsck (analogous to MS's scandisk program) on your Ubuntu partition(s). See the man pages for info on this program.

If that checks out OK this discussion suggests it might a problem with the way your system is recognizing the hard drives. If I understood that thread correctly, I would think it could also be an error in GRUB's menu.lst file. One thing I don't understand in that thread is where busybox comes into this discussion. I am familiar with it on some live CDs like DSL, but I don't know how it relates to a Ubuntu installation. You might pay particular attention to post #6 on the thread I just mentioned.

If none of this makes any sense to you and nobody else posts with any susggestions, you might consider just reinstalling. I know that is rather drastic, but I don't know how much guidance I can give you on this. You also might try posting your problem on ubuntuforums.org .

Sorry I can't be of more help.

hero_19873 · 10-29-2006, 07:12 PM

thnx sir ,

ur answers were very useful for me

i learned a lot from it

thnx very much