Rant Mistakes, when will I learn?

[Bj]

Well I did it again,

I have two computers, one is my primary that I use for college, the second is my computer that I am willing to do just about anything to, (short of throwing it off a cliff.) Yet for some reason, I really cannot seem to screw up this secondary computer for anything and in the process my laptop becomes unusable or in need of re-format.

So down to what I did; I wanted to have a duel boot on the secondary computer (XP and Ubuntu.) For some reason the first live CD had defects on one file, but the second turned out OK. However neither of them would run. Kubuntu which I downloaded a month or so ago, booted fine. Well I also had my laptop with Kubuntu already installed but silly me only making a 2.5 GB partition... so I boot in XP and delete the partition... which worked out OK however, rebooting left me with the error; Grub Error 22. Leaving the system unusable again...

:compbash2:

Well what do you know, Ubuntu happens to work on my laptop (which I wanted in the first place instead of Kubuntu but was just stupid enough to forget I could just re-write over it...

So now, install of Ubuntu works, install of XP is working but now my hard-drive has so many partitions on it I could have 4 OS installs


For anyone following along, I would highly suggest getting an external hard-drive as my E-HD has saved me more than once so far. Luckally I used clonezilla to clone my fresh install of XP on my laptop (ironically clonzilla finds harddisk errors on my secondary computer, but I never had a problem with it so far ) so after I backup all my new files, I can enjoy a fresh harddrive with only 1 partition.


___________

Anyone want to share any like or similar experiences, with or without computers -- any of thoes 'oh du' moments?

 

[garyw]

Ever considered the Live installs of Linux distros? just boot from a DVD and away you go... you could also have an external Hard drive for the various distros you want, that way you just set "boot from USB" and away you go.

I have an absolute hatred of dual boot because it always causes problems. I'd rather keep my systems separate thanks very much!

 

[insane_alien]

you can fix the grub22 error by sticking the XP CD in going to the recover console and running FIXMBR.

the problem is that grub changes the MBR to point to grub in the linux partition which you deleted so it now points to nowhere. by replacing the MBR again it will now point to windows again.

you might want to use the gparted live CD to grow the ntfs partition again to take up the whole drive.

or, you could just install ubuntu on it properly and it'll fix it up

 

[n122vu]

:hesaid:

Also, instead of deleting the partition in XP and then reloading, you also have the option of using GParted to resize the partition (Search for it, download the iso, burn it, and boot from it), but would have to take space away from your XP install. I've done this numerous times with no issues. I've had many dual-boot systems and never ran into any snags. Generally, as long as I've installed XP first, then the second OS, I've had virutally no problems. I've dual-booted XP with Vista, Win7 RC, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, OpenSUSE, and Fedora, all with little or no hassle.

Hope this helps.

 

[Bj]

Ever considered the Live installs of Linux distros? just boot from a DVD and away you go... you could also have an external Hard drive for the various distros you want, that way you just set "boot from USB" and away you go.

I have an absolute hatred of dual boot because it always causes problems. I'd rather keep my systems separate thanks very much!

I always thought running from the CD was too slow, actually now that I have Ubuntu up and working it is actually faster then XP, just because of all the junk thats not being loaded up. Also the idea of booting off a external hard drive is not bad, except that it would render the external hard drive useless for anything else, am I correct? I only have one and I use that for backing up data.

Why is dual boot so bad, or what kind of problems have you had with it? So far I had Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Xbuntu all installed on this laptop (duel boot with XP but not all at one time) with absolutly no problems whatsoever... except for my last little mistake.

 

[cjp]

Why is dual boot so bad, or what kind of problems have you had with it? So far I had Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Xbuntu all installed on this laptop (duel boot with XP but not all at one time) with absolutly no problems whatsoever... except for my last little mistake.

dual boot works perfectly: I use it on all my computers, except for one, where using windows wouldn't make much sense.

However, because all the partitioning stuff has its own rules, and many users don't know these rules, it is sensitive to user mistakes. As demonstrated by the thread starter, this can easily make a computer un-bootable. Worse: it can potentially make it hard for the average user to recover data.

So, it's a nice tool, but it should have a big warning sign: "if you change anything to a working system, make sure you really know what you're doing".

 

[Bj]

However, because all the partitioning stuff has its own rules, and many users don't know these rules, it is sensitive to user mistakes. As demonstrated by the thread starter, this can easily make a computer un-bootable. Worse: it can potentially make it hard for the average user to recover data.

Well if you are messing around with Linux and duel booting, then I think you might just be above average.

So, it's a nice tool, but it should have a big warning sign: "if you change anything to a working system, make sure you really know what you're doing".

Check, and I think it does

I wasn't thinking 're-write', I was thinking 'erase then re-write.' Oh well, install of Ubuntu is working well, I think I might just use it for the majority of what I need.