Problems with UBUNTU 10.10

[Faan Kruger]

On recommendation of someone I acquired the UBUNTU 10.10 CD. Windows remained on the hard drive. For a few weeks I tried it out from the CD and all was working fine. I then installed UBUNTU on the hard drive and when booting up I was given a choice between UBUNTU and Windows. After a few more weeks I started experiencing that I could not shut down if I had UBUNTU running for a few hours. Windows was still working fine. Then about two weeks ago one evening I booted up in UB again and given the choice of updating, which I did. As I was still having the old problem I installed additional programs which I thought would resolve the problem.
The result was no booting up at all, only a dark screen. I tried to use the CD to repair the installation but no success. Not even booting up from Windows.
After a day I decided to install UBUNTU from scratch again. Now nothing is to be seen about Windows. My impression is that the old/original UB installation is still on the PC, but cannot see anything about Windows. I have certain programs which need a Windows environment and therefor still need it.
When I try to repair Windows from the Win CD I am asked on which partition to install it. I am reluctant to do it as I do not want to loose the documents in Win (on C drive) I have two hard drives in the PC.
An additional problem is that I do have enough PC knowledge to understand the jargon being used by fundis.
When UB was working fine I liked it as it was fast with everything.

 

[MyWorld]

Right, get yourself a LiveCD like knoppix or Damn Small Linux.

Boot it up and once you have entered the desktop, backup everything on your windows partition that is of value to the second hard drive.
Reformat and install XP again.

 

[Avenue]

I cant help you with this, but post it here also http://ubuntuforums.org/
that is one of the best ubuntu communities around- you should get an answer in 10 minutes literally.

 

[ocky]

Download and run the boot info script so that folks can see what's going down.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

sudo ./boot_info_script055.sh

 

[Faan Kruger]

Right, get yourself a LiveCD like knoppix or Damn Small Linux.

Where would I find it?

 

[Happy Camper]

When dual booting you always install windows first, then ubuntu. Keep that in mind for the future.

Don't format or reinstall anything, the only thing that is broken is the grub bootloader, I would try and fix that first before doing any reinstalls. Google grub broken after windows install, or something similar, you will find heaps of fixes.

G'luck

 

[AstroTurf]

I would personally just run xp as a virtual machine under ubuntu.

I have vista on my pc (also dualboot) but can't even remember the password for it.

 

[Faan Kruger]

Download and run the boot info script so that folks can see what's going down.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

sudo ./boot_info_script055.sh

I am afraid I do not understand what you are saying.

 

[Happy Camper]

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-restore-grub-boot-loader-after-installing-windows.html

 

[Avenue]

Right, get yourself a LiveCD like knoppix or Damn Small Linux.

Where would I find it?

the ubuntu cd will also work for live sessions

 

[ocky]

I am afraid I do not understand what you are saying.

Sorry, just download the file (boot_info_script055.sh) from sourceforge to say your desktop. Then open terminal and $ cd ~/Desktop. Then
enter sudo ./boot_info_script055.sh in terminal.

You will get a REULTS.txt file which shows all your boot info.

 

[<?php?>]

Faan, really sorry to hear about your bad experience with Ubuntu.

Insert the Ubuntu 10.10 CD into the CD-ROM and proceed to boot into the live session where the operating system basically run from the computer's memory.

After Ubuntu is running, click on the "Places" option on the menu at the top of the screen and open "Computer". Under the "Computer - File Browser" you should see your local HDD mounted. Browse the HDD and BACKUP all valuable data to a memory stick, removable HDD or secondary HDD in your computer. Verify that the backup was successful before installing Ubuntu by selecting the use entire HDD, i.e. overwriting the Windows partition.

Post installation, UPDATE Ubuntu and install Oracle's Virtualbox. Virtualbox will enable you to setup a Windows machine to run "virtually" under Ubuntu.

I've been using and running Linux for almost 8 years now and Ubuntu 10.10 is a very good distro for desktop and or notebook usage. Don't let the naysayers put you off.

PM me if you need further assistance.

 

[Bismuth]

I would personally just run xp as a virtual machine under ubuntu.

I have vista on my pc (also dualboot) but can't even remember the password for it.

I second this, removed the XP partition over a year ago already, as I could not remember the password. Now run it in VirtualBox, but don't boot it that often.

Someone recommended Ubuntu Forums here, I second that one as well, it contains a wealth of data on Ubuntu, 99% of the issues I had, were solved by visiting them. The other 1% was solved by Google.

B