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Ubuntu 9.04 but where is GRUB??

  Date: Dec 03    Category: Unix / Linux / Ubuntu    Views: 427
  

I am a newbie and been at Linux Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) for 18 hours!!!

Let me explain what I did.

I have NO experience with any type of OS except WindowsXP Pro which is what I
have been running for ten years. Yesterday I went to the local Barnes and Nobles
and purchased the book "Beginning Ubuntu Linux" by Keir Thomas. I installed the
program with the cd that came with the book. Towards the end of the installation
I received an error message saying the installation was going to be aborted due
to either a dirty cd or the speed of the cd/dvd player. I cleaned the cd and ran
it again only to see that it had previously installed so I aborted it.
My files from WindowsXP Pro did import to Ubuntu.

The problem I am having is on the reboot. I do not have the choice of selecting
either Windows or Ubuntu. In other words there is no GRUB menu. On the reboot it
immmediately goes into WindowsXP.

I selected the "Resize the existing partition on the hard disk and install
Ubuntu alongside it in the newly created free space".

Here is what my partitions look like as shown in the control panel of Windows:

C: NTFS 189.89 GB
Basic Partition 38.80 GB
Basic Partition 1.70 GB
Basic Partition 2.33 GB
Basic Partition 173 MB

I have no idea why the other Basic Partitions are there. I did increase the size
of one of the Basic Partitions from 2GB to 38.80 for the Ubuntu Program.

I did not do a Manual Partition and felt it is too advanced for me.

Any help would be appreciated so I can choose which system I want to load upon
startup.

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15 Answers Found

 
Answer #1    Answered On: Dec 03    

which version of ubuntu?

I tyhink you should download the latest version 10.04
and install that from a usb stick or CD

 
Answer #2    Answered On: Dec 03    

Grub is usually written to the mbr of the first drive, however it can be
written elsewhere. You can re-write grub using the Live CD following these
instructions:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

You want the section called For Grub Legacy

Once that you get familiar with Jaunty which was not a good release IMO,
then consider installing the latest release 10.04. You need to either start
fresh with the 10.04 CD (a free download) or upgrade to 9.10 first then
upgrade from 9.10 to 10.04. The first is easier because fewer things can go
wrong.

 
Answer #3    Answered On: Dec 03    

I'm not real sure from what you said if the installation was actually a
success or not, someone else may be able to answer that. But if it was
sucessfully installed on your 39 GB partition, then try holding down the
escape key while booting... that should/may bring up the grub menu.

 
Answer #4    Answered On: Dec 03    

I am not sure if it was successfully installed! Something is installed but what
I don't know if that makes any sense.

How can I determine that? From the WindowsXP Pro system?

What is the best way to proceed? Uninstall and reinstall and how.

By the way using the escape key does not bring up Ubuntu or GRUB Loader.

 
Answer #5    Answered On: Dec 03    

My guess is that it didn't finish by writing the grub to the boot section I
think I
would use the windows there and download the 10.04 after the final release
on
the 29th of May, burn a live CD image and load fresh from that CD. One other
suggestion would be to download Gparted image and burn that to a CD and keep
it around. With that CD you can see your partitions and even see what any
labels
are, you can even resize any partitions you have currently before doing the
load.
It is nice to have tools like that available for personal use during
testing.

 
Answer #6    Answered On: Dec 03    

Certainly will do that but in the meantime that is a little over two weeks away
and like to be able to do something with Linux in the meantime.
How difficult is it to uninstall Linux and take the partitions back to pre
install?

 
Answer #7    Answered On: Dec 03    

I thought the final release of K/Ubuntu was April 29, not May 29. That's
certainly the impression I get from the website. I downloaded and installed
on April 29th and it doesn't look like there has been any new version
released since.

 
Answer #8    Answered On: Dec 03    

Yes, ubuntu 10.04 has been available since April 29th -

But don't take my word for it, just check ubuntu.com.

 
Answer #9    Answered On: Dec 03    

I don't know about an uninstall option, my guess is not one. However to
revert back
to the pre install condition you can do one of the things I suggested.
Download the Gparted, Google search and you will find it, then create a live
CD from
your download. The way to do that is you take a blank CD and burn it with
the Image
you downloaded. To burn the image you need a tool that you also download,
they are
free, again a google search will find a few, download that and execute the
file you get.
Once you have that done when you bring up Windows explorer you will have the
option
to burn images. Also some versions of Nero Burning has the ablility to burn
images.

Now here is the part you really wanted to get to, with the Gparted live CD,
put it in your
cd drive and reboot. By the way your BIOS will have to be set to have your
boot selection
to boot from CD first which is a good thing too have anyway. This is a good
time to tell you
to make sure you back up your Window application, usually means keep a copy
of your
"My Documents" folder, and any others that might have your data stored. Also
you do have
your XP recover or original load disks, right. We hope you won't need them
but this is tricky
and you need to be prepared to reload your windows if this goes south.
Remember your
Ubuntu install?
So if you have all this set you can boot from the Gparted CD which will come
up in a GUI
for the partition manager. It is very self evident of how to work it, once
it is up you will be
shown all the partitions on your disk, the one you are interested in is the
one on the extreme
left of the graft. You can click on it with the mouse and you should see the
options on the
top of the panel change or get highlighted. One of the options is to RESIZE.
This is what you
want to do resize back to the full disk or what ever you want to do.
The resize will take some time to finish so be patent. And a reboot is in
order after it is finished.

Now after going through all of that, you could just download the current
version of 10,04
of Ubuntu, I have it and have loaded it on my laptop in dual boot with
Windows Vista. This
is still a bata but is in real good shape. I have already had it update one
time. I expect it
will update again once 10.04 goes LTS on the 29th. That way you can leave
the partitions
you have already had created. The new Ubuntu will over write and recreate
what is there
now.

 
Answer #10    Answered On: Dec 03    

I took so long to respond to this thread. I may have missed the
answer that got you going as it is now the 20th but here goes.

Grub installs as one of the last things install does.

If the Grub is not there, it is likely the install did not complete.

The 2Gb partition is likely the swap file.

If you want 30 or so Gb shrink the size of windows using Gparted, then
when you start windows the next time, it will check disk for errors as
the hard disk it sees will not be the size it thinks it has. This will
not break anything, just take time the next time you use windows.

When you start install, select "install in available space" to use the
free space you have made available. I have had to do this on several
installs, and should work for you.

Your install will be complete when you are prompted to take the CD out
of the drive and not until.

One final note/list:

I have found using Gparted to delete copies I no longer need works for
me. Grub has no use for me after doing this, and needs fixed, but this
is done when you install a new copy of Ubuntu. I don't know how to
reinstall grub, never had to, so haven't learned, installing Ubuntu does
it for me, like others have said, download 10.04 it is great though will
likely be easer for you than the book shows to learn.

If The Grub is not installed, it is likely the partition that is
supposed to have Ubuntu on it, is not a completed install, I would just
delete it using Gparted and re-install, rather than try to keep it.

Once again, because the subject line was asking about Grub, I didn't
even look at the post till many posts were made on the thread. Please
mark this thread as solved if you got your answer so the answers stop.

 
Answer #11    Answered On: Dec 03    

Welcome to linux, though I must admit I cringe at the idea that ubuntu
9.04 was your introduction - that release was a low point for ubuntu,
and a performance disaster in a number of areas, so I hope your
experiences with it won't turn you off to linux.

My advice is to get ahold of ubuntu 10.04 as soon as possible and
install it before wasting any more time with 9.04, and you'll be in much
better position to get support, as 10.04 is the current release, and it
is also a "long term support" (LTS) release.

ubuntu 10.04 is a free download from ubuntu.com, and free CDs are
available from a number of LUGs.

 
Answer #12    Answered On: Dec 03    

Things are not going well for me!I took your advise and downloaded two programs.
InfraRecorder and Ubuntu 10.04. Downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 to my desktop and from
there burned it to a 700MB CD using InfraRecorder.

One the first installation to the CD it malfunctioned about 22% into the burn.
Started a second time and this worked.

I then put the CD into the player and rebooted. During the Ubuntu Installation I
received this Error Message:

INSTALLATION FAILED!
"The installer encountered an unrecoverable error. A desktop session will now be
run so that you may investigate the problem or try installing again."

This error message came on the second reboot also.

Allowing the desktop session to come up I then tried to install it using the
Install Ubuntu Icon on the desktop. Everything proceeded till I came to the
PREPARE DISK SPACE WINDOW and this is what I saw.

WindowsXP Pro /dev/sda1 203.9GB
Ubuntu 9.04 /dev/sda7 41.7GB
Ubuntu 9.04 /dev/sda5 2.5GB

and on the bottom graph ,,,,

WindowsXP Pro /dev/sda1 110.3GB
Ubuntu 10.04LTS 93.6GB
Ubuntu 9.04 /dev/sda7 41.7GB
SWAP /dev/sda8 1.8GB
Ubuntu 9.04 /dev/sda5 2.56GB

At this stage I quit the installation to send this email to see what i should do
with all these OS on my hard drive!

First of all the second installation of Ubuntu 9.04 came from the error message
last night telling me the installation failed so I rebooted and installed it
again.

Secondly, should the newer version of Ubuntu 10.04 overwrite 9.04? Obviously
not! So where do I go from here?
I have the installer not installing it from the cd but having to wait to install
it when the Ubuntu 10.04 boots from the cd, and what do I do about the two
versions of 9.04 on the drive and the installation of 10.04?

Problems already I Ubuntu is not even installed! HA.

Thanks again for EVERYONE'S help and feedback.

 
Answer #13    Answered On: Dec 03    

You can choose to have 10.04 overwrite 9.04 or not. It's entirely up to you
and depends on whether you choose to install on the partition you had 9.04
on or not. It's quite "safe" either way, although I think a lot less
confusing to overwrite any previous installation.

There are several reasons an installation may fail. Most commonly it could
be a hard disk fault or a bad installation medium. Much less often it's a
RAM chip error, drive controller fault or defective motherboard. I think
since you have a good XP installtion it's probably none of these.

Can you borrow an Unbuntu CD from a friend that is "known good" having been
used for a successful installation? Have you put your CD in another computer
to see if it will boot to the live CD version of Ubuntu? How old is your
CD/DVD reader/burner? For that matter, how old is your computer? Life
expectancy is unpredictable.

You can check the condition of a hard disk with gparted but unless it's
"old" it probably isn't the problem. How old? Hard Disks can last 7,8, 9
years or more, or fail after a couple of years but most are good for about 5
years. Try downloading and burning some edition of Puppy Linux. It's very
compact and has many useful tools for testing a drive. If it works when your
Ubuntu CD didn't it tells you something...

Never give up, but don't let it get you down if it doesn't work the first
time. Treat it as an unparalleled learning experience!

 
Answer #14    Answered On: Dec 03    

Interesting. I'm using the version of Linux Mint which corresponds to Ubuntu
9.04, and I'm happy with it. The first time I ran into something odd with audio
I removed pulseaudio, but otherwise it's a "normal" installation.

I use Cinelerra, GIMP, apache, audacity, VLC, Skype, Firefox and Chrome, lots of
others, and I try out all kinds of applications.

It's a relatively new system, Phenom II X2 with 4 GB of RAM.

 
Answer #15    Answered On: Dec 03    

It's possible that the mint guys fixed the worst bugs before releasing
their version, and maybe you have an nvidia video card, which allowed
you to dodge the bullet with the graphics issues.

 
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