[ltp] Booting problem after install of Ubuntu Alternative 6.10 on X41 Tablet

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:15:59 +0100

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If you'd like to see the solution check at the bottom, but reading the
whole thing could be beneficial.

Tony K. wrote:
| I used Ubuntu 6.10 Alternative CD to install Ubuntu on the unallocated
| space.  During the Grub boot loading process I told it not to use MBR
| but to install in /dev/sda3 instead.

What you need the Alternative CD for anyway? Do you happen to have
less than 256MB RAM on your X41? ;-) I run Ubuntu myself and the lack
of "normal" installer annoys me, but not to the point to dabble with
the alternative. I can't think of any reason _not_ to put grub in MBR.
Why would you do that?

*NOTICE*
(I'm not very sure of the accuracy of this information. Refer to "man
fdisk" for details).
DOS/Windows can handle only 4 partitions. This means you can have only
4 primary partitions (1 to 4) or (preferably) 3 primary partitions and
1 extended partition (with as many logical disks on it as you please).
Windows 2k/XP supposedly handles it in some other way, but is
backwards compatible with DOS and behaves in a strange way when
presented with a drive with more then 4 partitions. At least my Win2k
does.

That's peculiar. You should remove all partitions and disks apart from
sda1 and sda2 (to preserve the endangered Win-species) and make one
big extended partition. That way it's far easier to set up the logical
drives and you could put "/" and "/home" on different logical disks
which is *essential*. I'm the advocate of 3 partition system
(root+home+swap) for a desktop system. More then 3 is definitely
possible, but 2 (root+swap) is highly unusable e.g. when it comes to
reinstalling (sometimes "apt-get upgrade" just won't do the trick) or
switching distros, that I personally do 2..3 times a year (you'd loose
your home partition with all user files and settings).
Second you don't need 1GB swap on a modern distro, unless you have
1GB+ RAM. Freaking waste of disk space you'd be better off wasting
some other way. ;-P

I'd divide it like that:
"/"        4G - up to a maximum of 6G, which is a plenty of space for
your programs (and the system logs that Ubuntu happens to bloat to
G-sizes if your careless)
"swap"     - 2 times RAM if you have <512MB; if >=512MB than more than
RAM, but not more than 1.5 times RAM
"/home"    - whatever is left

Murphy said: If you value your R&R partition do *not* create a mount
point for it.

| Shouldn't I still be able to boot into Windows?  Can I rescue my
| Windows install?

That's the idea of dual-boot isn't it?
The Windows partition should be active. My own Win2k takes a far dark
corner of the HD, but it's on the active partition anyway (grub in
MBR). It boots via grub, when it's needed. I never had any problem
with booting Windows after installing bootloader (be it LILO or grub)
in MBR, and I used 3 different Linux distros since kernel 2.6.8 (which
was some time ago). I do not recall any problems even in days of my
very first Linux - Red Hat 9.1, which was a long time ago (late 2002
AFAIR).

*Solution*
Find some boot disk (Debian rescue disks spring in mind, if you have a
floppy) or reinstall Ubuntu (better) keeping suggestions above in
mind. Then run "sudo fdisk /dev/sda" (easier to use in command line
for simple tasks then e.g. parted). In the fdisk prompt type "a" (to
set active partition), pick "1" (NTFS partition number), then write &
exit with "w". Now Windows should be bootable.

Regards,

Marcin Trybus (Llewelyn_MT)
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