Edubuntu Installation / Dual Boot Problem

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Sun, 27 May 2007, Theresa wrote:

> sda1 (being the windows xp parition) ..... I didn't touch this. it's NTFS format
> sda2 (will be the linux partition) ......I think this was around 5gb as EXT3 is my / partition
> sda3 ...700mb as my SWAP partition
> sda4 ..the rest of it probably around 15GB...EXT3 again as my /home partition

> The installation aborted at 94% prompted by the following error message
> 
> "The execution of <<grub install (hd0) >> has failed. This is a serious 
> problem" ... something along these lines.

That's an unusual error alright.  Just so we're clear, in this case grub is
almost certainly (unless you told it otherwise) installing it's boot loader
into the Master Boot Record of the disk, ie not into sda2 but into sda0, a
small chunk at the start of the disk.  Grub (the package) should already be
installed into /dev/sda2 by this point.

> sudo grub
> find /media/disk-1/boot/grub/stage1
> ---> this caused: Error15: File not found

So this is telling you that /boot/grub/stage1 isn't present.  On my local
computer you can see that it is:

gavinmc at boing:~$ ls -l /boot/grub/stage*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    512 2007-05-08 11:26 /boot/grub/stage1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 106228 2007-05-08 11:26 /boot/grub/stage2

> I've also tried sudo grub-install /dev/sda2
> prompted by "The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly."

Installing the boot-loader into sda2 is probably not what you want -- you
probably just want to tell it /dev/sda or hd0.  However that's not the
reason it's failing.

Your problem is that for some reason stage1 is not present as grub (the
package, as opposed to the boot-loader) didn't install onto /dev/sda2
correctly.  Because stage1 isn't there, the boot-loader then can't be
installed.  You should check there is disk space available (though 5GB
should be more than enough).  You can reinstall grub by hand by going to a
command line and doing:

1. Pop in the _server_ install CD.
2. Select rescue mode.
3. Follow the prompts, choosing /dev/sda2 as your root.
4. When you reach a command line type:
	apt-get install --reinstall grub
   and see what happens.  If you get an error, let us know what it is.

I see someone else has posted a solution to a similar problem in the forums
here:

	http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=297261

It's not clear why the original grub install failed but I guess that's the
source of the original problem.  If you have time to starte the install
again, it would be interesting to know if it repeats.  

> I really don't know what to do right now. Is it impossible to install Edubuntu 
> Feisty on that machine? What caused these errors or why won't Grub install?!

It should be possible on any machine.  You shouldn't need a /boot partition
to achieve this.

Gavin