Had a version of mandrake on my system before.... it used lilo and controlled the dual boot into my linux, and more importantly (because where my vital data is) my Windowsxp installation. Randomly I got the error... LILO timestamp mismatch.... which causes a panic stop... I read up on that tried several things to fix that before deciding to just install a newer better linux... Ubuntu. In hopes that it would overwrite the MBR with grub, and i'd be allright. I setup the partitions right, the NTFS drive is still fine, and Ubuntu says it installed completely... but when I boot from the drive, it still says LILO timestamp mismatch as if the MBR was never touched.

I'm now trying to use the alternate install CD to because it says you can choose where to put grub and I'm going to see how that works for me but i'd like the advice of anyone who knows what might be wrong here.

My most important thing, is not losing the data on the NTFS partition....


Thanks

If you used the LiveCD (the dafault one) then it should install grub on the MBR, in fact it gives no option but to install to the MBR. Did you try doing
from in the LiveCD?

Yep, livecd is the first one i tried,... it says it installs grub but nothing...
SO i just tried the other install cd which actually lets me type manually where to install it...
It even recognizes my other OS's before giving me the option... then i try to install it to /dev/sda where my drive is.... i hear it write to the HD...
reboot.... same error .... as if it didnt touch it....

I tried installing LILO as well...
Same thing.


I tried installing them to other drives, and forcing my other drives to handle booting...
It just doesnt seem to be installing the bootloaders at all even when it says it does because when i try to install it to /dev/hda and then booting from that drive
i get invalid system disk


Im so lost this is really absurd