[SOLVED] grub problems

Well I made a real dumb mistake. I had an install of 7.1 that worked just great. I ordered a Zorin Ultimate disk thinking it would be better. The Zorin people said that a clean install was needed for the ultimate. I did exactly what I did when I first installed 7.1. I left 500gb of free space on the hard drive with xp installed. I booted in the live mode and then when I had an internet connection, I installed Ultimate. A message said the install was good and to reboot. I did so and when trying to boot to zorin I was given the following message "Error: attempt to read or write outside of disk HD0 unable to mount root FS on unknown block (0,0)" I have searched this forum and Ubuntu. Most people said it was a grub issue and recommended using "Boot-Repair" I did so from the live cd and though it worked as it said the problem had been fixed. Still the same thing. I have done a clean install several times, even using the downloaded 7.1 iso that had work fine. Now it gives me the same message.

I can get to xp by using the xp disk and using fixboot and fixmbr. This gives me xp back and seems to erase grub. I have tried to use the "something else" feature of install, but I don't understand linux well enough to specify what is needed to use this method. Can something besides grub be used to load both systems? I noticed "bootconfig" on the xp disk. Could this be used? I truly have no idea how to solve this problem. Should I reformat the entire hard drive then install xp and then ultimate. I'm sure both disks are good, because the original iso worked before I installed ultimate. Thanks for any help you can give.

do you still that 7.1 disk, - that you used originally?.
or, can you D/L another?

& use it to replace the disaster ..
- else you may have to go sideways, - to another version.

you shouldn't need to touch the XP side, just replace the 'nix with another 'nix install.
- use the 'nix installer to format that 'nix partition & continue with the installing. ..

Thank you Pierre for your reply. Yes I still have the 7.1 iso and I have tried to reinstall it. The 7.1 iso does exactly what the ultimate version does. Same error. Someway I must have fouled up the boot sector of the hard drive. That is the only thing I can think of. I have gone through the clean install of both 7.1 iso and ultimate many times with the same result. I am very new to linux, but what is a 'nix installer. As for formatting. The original install which worked perfectly was done on free space of the hard drive. I didn't format it.

Hi,

you can try using "Boot repair" to fix your Grub problem too:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

As Pierre suggested, start your live CD and then open a terminal and type the following command:

Code:

sudo update-grub

then restart your PC and see if it is fixed, the Grub manager should be placed on /dev/sda when you do a normal install!.

Regards Wolfman

the boot_repair ( or grub update ) will place the grub loader into the mbr of the boot disk.
- what you did to get xp working, - was to put the xp loader into that place.

when you install linux by clicking on "install" ( the 'nix installer ), then the linux boot loader is placed there, instead.
- try using that 7.1 iso, but allow it to format the <old> linux partition, as well as placing its loader into the mbr.
this should be the default option, - that the installer does.

Thanks Guys, I'll sure try it.

I tried updating grub and that didn't work. I tried the boot-repair program (as I had several times) and that didn't work. But I solved the problem in a bazaar way. I had a 100 gb hard drive with xp installed on 50 gb and 50 gb of free space. I decided to put it in the computer and did so. I didn't disconnect the existing hard drive. I decided to try the install of ultimate again.
To my surprise grub got it right. I not only got ultimate on the 100 gb hard drive it also made possible the earlier install on the 500 gb original hard drive. At least that what I think happened. I have two distinct zorin installs on the grub menu and I know they are different because I changed the wallpaper on one. The GParted program shows the following:
/dev/sda1 Windows xp 465.75 gb
/dev/sda2 Extended
/dev/sda5 Ext. 4 461.89 gb
/dev/sda6 linux swap 3.87

/dev/sdb1 Windows xp 48.83 gb
/dev/sdb2 Extended
/dev/sdb5 Ext.4 40.67 gb
/dev/sdb6 linux swap 3.87
Don't ask me why this works, but now I can boot to both xp systems and both zorin systems.
I sincerely appreciate your time in responding to my needs. Thanks. Consider this issue closed

Hi,

glad to hear it, have marked as solved.

Regards Wolfman