Hello all, I've got an Asus Eee which came with Windows XP. I created a partition (in Windows), then installed Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop Edition using their Windows Installer. When I restarted, I was able to choose which system to boot, and booted Ubuntu. After some time, I needed to restart to update Firefox.

When I did so, I got a screen reading
and was given a command line
Some commands I thought would work didn't, e.g. 'help', but I did manage to find out through 'set' that
and that the only available drive was 'hd0'. I tried to start as normal with
but I get the message
I have an external CD/DVD writer that I can connect via USB, as well as a USB hard drive. I actually made an installation CD for the same Ubuntu distribution before all this happened, if that could potentially help.

With ubuntu desktop cd
Try Ubuntu
from the desktop you can mount your drives and check them out.
you'll also be able to open a terminal to deal with grub issues.

Checkout post #22 here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...0-10-a-859621/

If you mean the Ubuntu live CD, I would love to load it, but how can I do that? When I turn on the computer, all I get is the 'grub rescue>' command line. My netbook has no internal CD-ROM drive, and apparently it won't load from the USB CD-ROM drive. I also made an Ubuntu installation USB thumbdrive with linuxpendrive.com, but it also didn't make a difference -- I still only see 'grub rescue>' and hd0.

Ubuntu 10.10 install disk.
Change bios to boot cd
"TRY UBUNTU"
double click on examples and you see your mountable drives.

1 members found this post helpful.

Make usb priority under boot options hard drives in bios.

Is it your usb that you installed ubuntu to?

Oh, excellent! I hadn't realized I could still access BIOS. I've loaded Ubuntu from my USB thumbdrive. How can I fix my problem from here? I think the main problem is grub not understanding the partition?

My mounted drives are File System, 52 GB Filesystem (which contains several Windows folders), 'PE', and 'Ubuntu'.

Wubi just seems such a kludge (I've never used it).
From the USB, go to sf.net and get bootinfoscript. Run that and post the RESULTS.txt - hopefully it can deal with wubi since it was written by Ubuntu folks.

1 members found this post helpful.

Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks on the same drive in
partition #256 for /boot/grub.
=> Syslinux is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb

sda1: _________________________________________________________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows XP
Boot files/dirs: /boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM /wubildr.mbr /wubildr

sda2: _________________________________________________________________________

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: Windows XP: Fat32
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs: /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM

sda3: _________________________________________________________________________

File system:
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda4: _________________________________________________________________________

File system: Extended Partition
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:

sda5: _________________________________________________________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: According to the info in the boot sector, sda5 starts
at sector 63.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs: /ubuntu/winboot/wubildr.mbr /ubuntu/winboot/wubildr
/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /ubuntu/disks/swap.disk

sda5/Wubi: _________________________________________________________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop1,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so


sdb1: _________________________________________________________________________

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ _____________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 63 102,414,374 102,414,312 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 298,134,270 312,480,314 14,346,045 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda3 312,480,315 312,576,704 96,390 ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sda4 102,430,440 298,134,269 195,703,830 f W95 Ext d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 102,430,503 298,134,269 195,703,767 7 HPFS/NTFS


Drive: sdb ___________________ _____________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sdb: 4007 MB, 4007657472 bytes
86 heads, 22 sectors/track, 4137 cylinders, total 7827456 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sdb1 * 8,064 7,827,455 7,819,392 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


blkid -c /dev/null: ____________________________________________________________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/loop0 squashfs
/dev/loop1 7a285807-cc13-4b9d-9952-04d611caf3ae ext4
/dev/sda1 1C484F21484EF8D2 ntfs
/dev/sda2 CCED-990E vfat PE
/dev/sda4: PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sda5 01CB99593B9E4BC0 ntfs Ubuntu
/dev/sda: PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sdb1 1970-E590 vfat PENDRIVE
/dev/sdb: PTTYPE="dos"

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

aufs / aufs (rw)
/dev/sdb1 /cdrom vfat (ro,noatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/loop0 /rofs squashfs (ro,noatime)


================================ sda1/boot.ini: ================================

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

C:\wubildr.mbr = "Ubuntu"

=========================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc =======================

Unknown BootLoader on sdb1

00000000 eb 58 90 53 59 53 4c 49 4e 55 58 00 02 20 70 01 |.X.SYSLINUX.. p.|
00000010 02 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00 3f 00 80 00 80 1f 00 00 |........?.......|
00000020 80 50 77 00 78 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 |.Pw.x...........|
00000030 01 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000040 00 01 29 90 e5 70 19 4b 49 4e 47 53 54 4f 4e 20 |..)..p.KINGSTON |
00000050 20 20 46 41 54 33 32 20 20 20 fa fc 31 c9 8e d1 | FAT32 ..1...|
00000060 bc 76 7b 52 06 57 8e c1 b1 26 bf 78 7b f3 a5 8e |.v{R.W...&.x{...|
00000070 d9 bb 78 00 0f b4 37 0f a0 56 20 d2 78 1b 31 c0 |..x...7..V .x.1.|
00000080 b1 06 89 3f 89 47 02 f3 64 a5 8a 0e 18 7c 88 4d |...?.G..d....|.M|
00000090 bc 50 50 50 50 cd 13 eb 4b f6 45 b4 7f 75 25 38 |.PPPP...K.E..u%8|
000000a0 4d b8 74 20 66 3d 21 47 50 54 75 10 80 7d b8 ed |M.t f=!GPTu..}..|
000000b0 75 0a 66 ff 75 ec 66 ff 75 e8 eb 0f 51 51 66 ff |u.f.u.f.u...QQf.|
000000c0 75 bc eb 07 51 51 66 ff 36 1c 7c b4 08 cd 13 72 |u...QQf.6.|....r|
000000d0 13 20 e4 75 0f c1 ea 08 42 89 16 1a 7c 83 e1 3f |. .u....B...|..?|
000000e0 89 0e 18 7c fb bb aa 55 b4 41 8a 16 74 7b cd 13 |...|...U.A..t{..|
000000f0 72 10 81 fb 55 aa 75 0a f6 c1 01 74 05 c6 06 32 |r...U.u....t...2|
00000100 7d 00 66 b8 80 10 00 00 66 ba 00 00 00 00 bb 00 |}.f.....f.......|
00000110 7e e8 10 00 66 81 3e 24 7e 34 be f5 72 75 76 ea |~...f.>$~4..ruv.|
00000120 38 7e 00 00 66 03 06 64 7b 66 13 16 68 7b b9 10 |8~..f..d{f..h{..|
00000130 00 eb 2b 66 52 66 50 06 53 6a 01 6a 10 89 e6 66 |..+fRfP.Sj.j...f|
00000140 60 b4 42 e8 7f 00 66 61 8d 64 10 72 01 c3 66 60 |`.B...fa.d.r..f`|
00000150 31 c0 e8 70 00 66 61 e2 da c6 06 32 7d 2b 66 60 |1..p.fa....2}+f`|
00000160 66 0f b7 36 18 7c 66 0f b7 3e 1a 7c 66 f7 f6 31 |f..6.|f..>.|f..1|
00000170 c9 87 ca 66 f7 f7 66 3d ff 03 00 00 77 17 c0 e4 |...f..f=....w...|
00000180 06 41 08 e1 88 c5 88 d6 b8 01 02 e8 37 00 66 61 |.A..........7.fa|
00000190 72 01 c3 e2 c9 31 f6 8e d6 bc 6c 7b 8e de 66 8f |r....1....l{..f.|
000001a0 06 78 00 be cc 7d e8 09 00 31 c0 cd 16 cd 19 f4 |.x...}...1......|
000001b0 eb fd 66 60 ac 20 c0 74 09 b4 0e bb 07 00 cd 10 |..f`. .t........|
000001c0 eb f2 66 61 c3 8a 16 74 7b cd 13 c3 42 6f 6f 74 |..fa...t{...Boot|
000001d0 20 65 72 72 6f 72 0d 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | error..........|
000001e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
000001f0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa |..............U.|
00000200

Thanks for the help, everyone, but I got my problem resolve elsewhere. The solution involved a Windows installation disk (which didn't come with my netbook) used to run cmd. The techs I took it to then did some magical thing at the command line that allowed me to access my Windows XP partition. From there it was just a matter of repartitioning and trying the installation again, which worked this time, for reasons I can't fathom, since I did the exact same installation process.