Install cannot get beyond first reboot.

MadnessRed

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May 16, 2009
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I have been using Linux and ubuntu dual boot for a while. I recently did a few major updates to computer and though that I may as well just start by wiping hard-drive as mine was getting very cluttered and Windows was becoming very slow and ubuntu 8.04 was about a year old, so I waited for 9.04 to be released then tried installing that, it didn't recognise my existing partitions odly but I installed a new parition table and set Ubuntu to have about 30gb, on ext4, I dedicated 150gb to a DATA partition which was fat32. This left me about 50gb (250gb hard drive but only 232gb of storage space on it).

Ubuntu was fairly happy. The standard video drivers didn't work, I think because of my crossfire setup but the ATi ones seem to work fine. So I tried to install Windows. I have an emachines restore DVD which is does not support partitions so I had to use another XP cd which was the upgrade edition. Went for the clean install, it asked for an existing Windows CD so I put in the eMachines recovery DVD, which it accepted, I then made a 25gb NTFS (quick format) parition and then swichted back to the Upgrade cd. The Install worked fine and installed the files, restarted the computer.

After the restart it said press any key to load from cd, this is the point where it stopped, there are 3 scenarios. I press a key and I can start the install again. I don't plress a key and it either does nothing, or it says Disk boot failure, insert system dik and press enter. So I insert system disk adn press enter and the message appareas again.

Any help would be great as, great as linux is, I do need Windows. I have done the fisrt part several times. And each time a try I need to restore grub to give me ubuntu back so I can at least use my computer.

Computer Specs if they help
 

MadnessRed

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May 16, 2009
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Computer Specs if they help
Intel Pentium 4 3066MHz
2 x ATi Radeon HD3850 512mb (1 by GeCube other by Force3D)
ECS P965T-A Motherboard
2gb DDR II RAM
700W Hi-Power PSU

I will attach a Screenshot of the Windows partition below.
Screenshot-5.png
 

vh1atomicpunk

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I think I know what's going on here, but let me ask you a few questions to make sure.

It sounds as if - You deleted all partitions on the 250GB drive. You then used Ubuntu to create a new partition, formatted that partition and install Ubuntu onto it. This worked.

Next step, you booted from a Windows XP Home upgrade disc, and used the E-Machine restore disc to move forward with a clean install from the XP Home upgrade disc. During the installation from the XP upgrade disc, you created another 25GB partition and formatted it as NTFS. At this point installation continued normally (format finished, Windows copied new files), until you were prompted to re-boot.

After the re-boot, you now receive the 'Please insert system disk' or a similar message. You can no longer boot into Ubuntu, and the Windows installation has not completed. You can boot from the XP upgrade disc, but it takes you in circles.


The answers -

I don't know anything about Ubuntu, so I won't be able to help you with it. With Windows XP however, here is what I would do. Boot from the XP upgrade disc, and access the Recovery Console. Once you are in the Recovery Console, run a CheckDisk on the Windows partition. The command would look something like this:

c:\chkdsk -x

Assuming checkdisk runs, and either the partition is in good shape or is repaired, attempt to boot normally. If you still cannot boot, you probably need to set the Windows partition as active (which should have been done automatically during the partition/format originally, but this is a Microsoft product, no?)

To do that, you will need to use third party software such as Paragon Server or Partition Commander.

Before you go through the expense of obtaining additional software tools, let me ask one other question - the 25GB partition that XP is going on was created and formatted using the XP disc, correct? The reason I ask this is that if you created the partition in Ubuntu, it may have 64k clusters (which XP will usually not boot from on an IDE or SATA drive), and/or it may be set to 'inactive' (non-bootable).

Hope this helps!
 

MadnessRed

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Well I decided to try the windows 7 RC coz I had previously trie dthe beta and I was bored trying to get xp to work, so I tried installing that and got an identical error message, went into ubuntu live cd and I couldn't mark the partition as active but I coul dmake it the boot parition, (is that the same), I restarted and it then said BOOTMGR error.

I have now found a makeactive command in the grub bootloader, (obviously i restore the mbr to grub) so I made a newline for Win7

title Windows 7 Ultimate
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Gonna restart now and see if that helped.