Help! Linux install gone wrong...

[Dreaming]

Hey guys. I thought I'd try out Linux, and had a Kubuntu 7.04 live cd so checked it out. Ran quite nicely on my PC. So, I booted to Windows, cleared off one of the hard drives, booted back to Linux, told it to install in that hard drive, all went well... then it comes to try to reboot.

GRUB Error 17. And then nothing. I can't boot into Windows, or Linux, or anything. I think that I'll just put my Windows CD in, fix the boot record and it will be fine. Only, it says there's nothing wrong whatsoever!

I think part of the problem is that I am using the Abit IP35 Pro onboard Raid controller for a raid0 setup for Windows, and linux can't detect this (it just sees the two seperate hard drives).

At the moment I'm in the livecd, if anyone can help that would be great. At the minute, first step is just to get back to Windows!

Vista 32bit btw.

I'm assuming it wrote the grub loader to hd0 which I'm guessing is the first drive in my raid0 array, since that's the first drive detected by the bios. I have a sinking feeling I'm going to be stuck with this livecd for a few days... ...oh the joys of linux. Everytime I try I fall over at the first hurdle

[Phil_P]

So, I booted to Windows, cleared off one of the hard drives...

<snip>

I think part of the problem is that I am using the Abit IP35 Pro onboard Raid controller for a raid0 setup for Windows, and linux can't detect this (it just sees the two seperate hard drives).

That sounds like your problem (fakeraid and Linux don't mix well together), but I'm confused as to how you managed to clear off one of the drives in a RAID0 configuration??

Sorry - don't know what to suggest for a fix.

[directhex]

linux can actually detect this kind of RAID these days - but it's not supported by the old 7.04 distribution (and isn't available in clicky form in the installer)

if you really installed on one disk of a raid *0* pair, you've lost all your data (you don't have 2 disks with raid0, all your data is split, in stripes, across both drives. wipe a drive, wipe half your stripes)

[Dreaming]

linux can actually detect this kind of RAID these days - but it's not supported by the old 7.04 distribution (and isn't available in clicky form in the installer)

if you really installed on one disk of a raid *0* pair, you've lost all your data (you don't have 2 disks with raid0, all your data is split, in stripes, across both drives. wipe a drive, wipe half your stripes)

The thing is - the windows CD detects all the data perfectly fine so I'm inclined to believe it's still intact. I can go in and through the recovery console copy one file at a time to my backup drive. But with hundreds of files, that seems kind of inpractical.

Just to reiterate, it installed on a 3rd disk not in a raid0 array, it's just the boot loader that's messed up. I don't know what hard disk the bootloader is on, or what partition. All I need to do is clear of the linux one and restore the vista one. Or even better, just restore the vista one - the data is there fine, the hard drives are still seen by my bios as being in a raid configuration, so if the bootloader is striped too, maybe it's just writted on one half of the stripe - but not corrupted the rest of the data.

However, the vista CD doesn't believe there's a problem with it's own bootloader and so won't reinstall it. I need something that will force a vista bootloader install.

edit: I'm going to try this - Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration

Although someone has had success with using XP, overwriting the boot sector, then overwriting that with vista's variant. Kill GRUB!

One of the annoying things is half the threads I've found were in the Kubuntu / Ubuntu suggestions forum that says that GRUB should make a backup that can be restored easily by the user...

[Hasnath]

i had the same kinda thing happen when i tired install linux.

I had a triple boot scenario (XP, vista and linux)
I installed vista again on an empty hard drive and then used vistabootpro to fix your bootloader and then wiped the newly installed vista

[Dreaming]

Unfortunately it did not fix it, it's just the same. Somewhere, the Grub loader is trying to load itself first... and I don't know where it is, and don't know how to remove it.

[TheAnimus]

did you install it to the MBR?

(master boot record)

[Dreaming]

I'm not sure, I did it through the CD interface where it's pretty happy chugging along by itself, didn't prompt me where to install Grub, just kubuntu. I think from what I've read though it automatically installs it in the first sector of the first hard disk, which would have been the first disc of my raid array.

The really peculiar thing is if it had installed it there and I lost all my data, why does windows think there's nothing up, and letting me navigate my OS. Now, damage limitation, I have everything backed up except some recent documents (about 200!), which were backed up but aren't any more. What tool could I use to boot into something that could read/write NTFS drives and read my raid array, and copy over these files - other than going into the recovery console and typing 'copy' 200 times.

Edit: had a thought. Vista can see my partitions fine. So if worst comes to worst, I'll install Vista on another partition, and boot to that one (so long as grub doesn't say 'me first' again - will change the drive boot order) and then I'll copy the files through windows. Seems really daft though for something that should be trivial. Besides, this should be perfectly fixable, it's just the boot loader.

[directhex]

it's not trivial, because it's not standard - every emulated raid system uses its own driver, with its own methods for storing the data

as it happens, there IS a way to access your array under linux (i.e. your livecd), but it's a little involved.

[Dreaming]

I've tried using "dmraid - ay" but then it says that dmraid isn't installed. Try to apt-get it, says the package can not be found.

The reason I say trivial, is just because changing bootloader shouldn't be difficult but for some reason it is being difficult. I'm wary of installing the xp bootloader and then 'upgrading' because it wont see my array and could destroy it. At the minute getting access back to Windows is all I want, lol.

[Dreaming]

Fixed it:
On spare HDD set it as first boot then installed vista on it, it detected the other OS and added it to the boot menu. Now I have two vistas. I can't format the second unneeded one as it contains the boot loader I think.

So now, because everything is scattered all over everywhere, I'm going to backup and start building things up from scratch. I need to really, anyway - want to upgrade my 32bit to 64bit Vista, or at least have two copies. (Can you have two copies of the same OS on the same PC on different partitions with the same key?)

[Dreaming]

double post

[Phil_P]

Fixed it:
On spare HDD set it as first boot then installed vista on it, it detected the other OS and added it to the boot menu. Now I have two vistas. I can't format the second unneeded one as it contains the boot loader I think.

So now, because everything is scattered all over everywhere, I'm going to backup and start building things up from scratch. I need to really, anyway - want to upgrade my 32bit to 64bit Vista, or at least have two copies. (Can you have two copies of the same OS on the same PC on different partitions with the same key?)

Glad you got it fixed!

If you are going to mix OSes in a dual (or multi) boot environment then I would seriously recommend you stay away from software (fake) RAID. As you've found out it makes recovering from a (potential) disaster a lot more complicated. As you have 3 hard disks, one OS per disk is probably a good solution

[Dreaming]

*apparently* the latest linux works ok with it. 7.10. But I don't know what I'm going to do for the time being. I need to read into multibooting, because vista's boot manager does conflict with grub anyway, so I need to work out some way of triple booting.

And your 1 os per hard drive is a good idea... but then I see Zak's partiton theory and the urge to just lump everything together and take the first 10&#37; of each drive for uber fast performance overwhelms me.

Really, I just want to play with compiz fusion

[Phil_P]

There's some info here on multibooting Vista with Linux:

Vista boots Linux? - PC Perspective Forums

^^ What the guy doesn't know about GRUB isn't worth knowing...

Bloke runs 100 operating systems in a PC - The INQUIRER

[directhex]

There's some info here on multibooting Vista with Linux:

Vista boots Linux? - PC Perspective Forums

^^ What the guy doesn't know about GRUB isn't worth knowing...

erm, what DOES he know about grub? those are BCD instructions