Ubuntu
grub package

grub error 25

Asked by Ryan

I installed Ubuntu on a external usb hard drive, my laptop has Vista on the internal. When i unplug the hard drive, the GRUB 1.5 ERROR 25 comes up.
I'd like to get rid of this completely, as in return the pc to its original state with starting Vista. Is there a way to un-install the GRUB on the internal hard drive? Can i manually delete it? Is there a way for it to allow Vista to start up when the external drive is not connected, but allow me to choose Ubuntu when it is connected?
Either way this pc needs to return to it's original state: it's my girlfriends pc, and i want to enjoy my man-hood for a few more years. ;-)

Ryan.

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actionparsnip
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Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

To uninstall grub from the internal you need a vista cd and then you can reinstall the vista bootloader using the recovery console on the cd and running:

fixmbr
fixboot

if you then use your ubuntu cd, you can then install grub to the usb disk (assuming your laptop supports usb boots)

With this in place, your system will boot using the NTLDR on the internal drive, if use press F11 and bootup with the usb attached then you can select that instead. You could even simply just change the boot order to:

1. CDROM
2. USB
3. HDD

and you'd never have to touch it. If your sysem cannot boot USB then grub must stay but you will need to use UIDs to identify the partitions rather than partition numbers which appear to be altered if the USB is connected and disconnected.

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Ryan (ryanrulz3000) said : 		#2

Thanks for the suggestion. No luck I'm afraid.

This is a Acer laptop, and thus doesn't come with a recovery cd, believe it or not. However I was able to acquire a Vista cd from a friend, which had what it said was a recovery console, however it too declared that it saw a problem but couldn't fix it.

Long and short, nowhere to do the fixboot and fixmbr. Is there anywhere else I can enter these two in?

Also a theory, if one were to copy the boot folder from another pc and paste it into the one (destroyed by GRUB)m any opinions if that would work?!

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

You could create a very small position to use as /boot and add the lines needed to boot the Windows OS

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mikemunsil (mike-munsil) said : 		#4

I have a similar problem, but installed to a USB pendrive instead of a USB-connnected hard drive. It resulted after having successfully setting up a Vista system to dual-boot with Ubuntu 9.04.

Upon looking into it further, it seems that the system is looking to boot from the grub file from the pen drive instead of from the hard drive.

The simple solution would be to just get it to boot from the correct grub file, no? But how?

I'm now going to look at it using SuperGrub and see what I can learn.

Mike

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mikemunsil (mike-munsil) said : 		#5

Clarification:

I set up a dual-boot system as above, THEN decided to make a bootable USB drive that booted into Ubuntu. Only after doing so did the problem arise.

Now in order to boot Vista or Ubuntu from the hard drive, I HAVE to have the pen drive in the USB port. While this is not a bad security device, it is a pain and makes me nervous as I could easily lose the pen drive.

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Ryan (ryanrulz3000) said : 		#6

To all.
I eventually sorted the problem, but took a different direction than I read in previous forums.

Firstly, i contacted the Linux help forum, somebody on there gave me a link to the Vista help which did the usual thing, bootfix and all that. I found that different computers reacted differentlz to bootrec or bootfix or whatever.
I then contacted the Grub people directly. I described the problem, but what I really wanted to do was tell them what a stupid program they made that a user can't remove again. What they told me is do the cd route.

What i found was the bootfix / bootrec did work, sometimes. It didn't break the pc, so that was fine. What DEFINATELY worked, was I used Lenux to get into the Windows boot folder, and modified the boot.ini file, deleting any Ubuntu rubbish. I also used Ubuntu to delete the Grub crudd it put on the pc. Once all done, the pc should only have the normal Windows file to boot up with.

Some good advice, back up your stuff, and then get bold. One idea i was going to try (but didn't get to) was re-install Windows. Theoretically it shouldn't upset your data, but don't trust it, and I don't know.

Long story short:
Option A: using the Windows cd, go into the msdos and do the bootfix and bootrec foreplay.
Option B: Delete the Linux crudd, restore the Windows boot.ini (either copy it from another pc if you are computer illiterate, or make sure the boot.ini is good yourself.)
Option C: Reinstall Windows.

Backup your data, and complain like hell to the Grub people. What a stupid system.

Need help, mail me.

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Ryan (ryanrulz3000) said : 		#7

Thanks actionparsnip, that solved my question.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#8

Could of used LILO instead ;)

Glad you got the gold.