Can't boot into Ubuntu 10.10!

If you are not able to boot directly into your system, but are able to by booting with the usb drive and then choosing to boot hard disk this is defenatly a grub issue.

This should help you get it repaired.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

boot from usb stick again, and after selecting language, click on "repair a broken system" and re-install grub

If you are able to boot with USB stick pluged in, it means first part of Grub is on this USB stick.
As said Bhaveek, reinstall Grub2.
If you can boot Ubuntu (not installer), check hard disk is sda (not always the case) and run
   sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
   sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
Else boot from USB stick: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD
All advices about CD can be used with USB stick.
If you need help, please post partition table.

> If you are not able to boot directly into your system,
> but are able to by booting with the usb drive and then
> choosing to boot hard disk this is defenatly a grub issue.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I get Ubuntu running by simply booting from my USB stick. After that one single action, Ubuntu is up and running! My problem is that I can't get it to boot from the HARD DISK.

> This should help you get it repaired.
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

Are you saying that the hard disk installation button on Ubuntu (after I booted from the USB stick) doesn't work properly?? It installs most of it on the hard disk, but doesn't prepare it to actually _boot_ from the hard disk?? It doesn't automatically install "grub", and anything else I may actually need to get it to boot properly??

> boot from usb stick again, and after selecting
> language, click on "repair a broken system"
> and re-install grub

I'm not completely sure what you mean. If I remember correctly, the only time I was ever asked to "select a language" is after I clicked on the button that installs Ubuntu to the hard disk. I had to do a few more things during that process (like enter my name, password, and city), but I certainly don't recall ever seeing a "repair a broken system" button!! Where exactly is that button supposed to be, and why didn't I see it??

Bryan Shelton

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD
Each sentence about CD can be replaced by USB flash disk.
If you need help, please post partition table.

> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from 20LiveCD
> Each sentence about CD can be replaced by USB flash disk.
> If you need help, please post partition table.

If you can tell me how to find the "partition table", I will post it. By the way, shouldn't the "install Ubuntu to the hard disk" function have automatically installed grub or grub2 for me?

1-How to get partition table?

Please provide partition table.

If you can't boot from hard drive, boot en Ubuntu CD/USB stik and then choose "Try without install".

Open a terminal: you can either press Ctrl+Alt+T or Applications->Accessories->Terminal.

To copy/paste in a terminal, replace Ctrl+C by Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+V by Ctrl+Shift+V (for historical reason, Ctrl+C is assigned another function).

Paste to terminal the following commands:

    sudo fdisk -l

where "-l" is lower case "L".

Copy/paste result into a new thread post.
-------
"By the way, shouldn't the "install Ubuntu to the hard disk" function have automatically installed grub or grub2 for me?" Sometimes it fails. The same problem could occur on some PC (more seldom) when you install a new kernel.

I've tried some more experiments with this problem based on some of the comments I've gotten from the rest of you, and here are the results. Once again I booted-up Ubuntu from my USB memory stick, and as usual, it worked just fine. Once again I clicked on the "Install Ubuntu 10.10" icon on the desktop, and once again it did that without any obvious error or complaint. Then I entered the following command, to try to make sure that some version of "grub" had indeed been installed:

grub-install -v

Here's the reply I got back from the system:

"(GRUB) 1.98+20100804-5ubuntu3"

I don't know what the characters after the "1.98" mean, but clearly this is a newer version of grub which is installed! I decided to try FORCING it to install grub2, or an even newer version of grub with the following command:

sudo apt-get install grub-pc

Here is all the text I got in response from the system:

"Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
grub-pc is already the newest version
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded."

It sounds like it didn't do anything, because the "grub" in the machine was already the latest and greatest! :-) Afterwards, I re-booted the machine again, after first removing the USB stick and checking BIOS to make sure that the first boot device was the hard disk. As usual, it once again FAILED to boot!! I got the usual error message:

"Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"

I got that message over and over after pressing a key. Does anybody have any more ideas about what's causing this problem??

Please answer my question

Hey, I can copy/paste into the Terminal using Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V, but Ctrl+Shift+V doesn't work here in the Message window!! I got the results of the "sudo fdisk -l" command, but I have no way of pasting it to you! What gives??

Oops...here in the Message window, I have to use Ctrl V, not Ctrl+Shift+V! Here we go!

Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003c888

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 88525 711069696 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 88525 91202 21501953 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 88525 91202 21501952 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdg: 1010 MB, 1010826752 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 122 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x91f72d24

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdg1 * 1 123 987104 6 FAT16
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(121, 254, 63) logical=(122, 227, 40)

What does all that tell you?? :-)

Try to reinstall Grub2 with following commands:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD
   sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
   sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

N.B. Ctrl+Alt+C is for terminal and Ctrl+V for Firefox (and all software others than terminal).

I gave it the following commands:

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

After working for a few seconds, it came back and said:

"Installation finished. No error reported."

Interestingly, I then gave it the same command that I had tried earlier:

grub-install -v

It came back and gave me the same report that I had gotten earlier (I mistakenly left out the first two words when I reported this earlier):

"grub-install (GRUB) 1.98+20100804-5ubuntu3"

I pulled out the USB drive, and re-booted the computer. It FAILED once again to boot! It gave me the usual error message: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot media in selected Boot device..."

Any other ideas about what's causing this problem??

Please check again BIOS boot order. And after run following script:
-----------------
Provide data about boot configuration

There is a standard script provided to analyze boot configuration. Could you download script at:
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/
Then in a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) run command:
    sudo bash ./boot_info_script055.sh
This will produce a file named: RESULTS.txt Paste content of this file in http://paste.ubuntu.com/ and provide in this thread the link to Web page. Please don't post file directly in thread, else it will make thread difficult to read.

1) Earlier today, at the suggestion of a local friend of mine, I downloaded the 10.10 Ubuntu .iso file and burned it onto a CD disk. I then booted up with the CD, and did the usual Ubuntu "install" feature again, using the CD instead of the USB stick (my friend had suggested that it might work this time with the CD). Unfortunately, the same thing happened again afterwards: it failed to boot from the hard disk drive.

2) Right now, I have the 1st boot device set to the CD/DVD drive, the 2nd boot device is set to the hard disk drive, and the 3rd boot device is set to the USB stick.

3) I did like you suggested, and generated the "RESULTS.txt" file with those instructions you have in your last post. Here's the link to the page where it's stored: http://paste.ubuntu.com/584155/
I hope that works okay for you, so you can figure out what's causing this darn problem! :-)

Ubuntu MBR is on first sector of 750GB and points to right partition. So should have at least a message of Grub2. But "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key" is BIOS message. Currently, I have no idea. Could you provide a picture of BIOS settings via http://imageshack.us/

"Could you provide a picture of BIOS settings via http://imageshack.us/"

How do I make an image of a BIOS page??

Take a digital camera.

What specific page from BIOS are you interested in seeing? The list of boot devices?

The list of boot devices, yes.