PC confused

[Stingraynut]

Through a series of actions, while trying to restore my PC, I am now at the stage where I can't interupt the boot and it goes to an error message which is concerned with linux, which I tried to instal after failing with the IBM recovery disc that has Windows ME.

The full story is below, but to cut it short, I have another hard drive that I think will accept the Ultimate Boot CD on startup.

There's so many things on the CD, I don't know where to start.

The HD was partitioned by the ubuntu linux install then partially re partitioned by the Windows ME install - I'm hoping the other HD, which was the original one and has a faulty sector, will at least let me access Dos or whatever I need and then I somehow have to clean up the HD that's in there now, which is a newer one.

Here's the full story -
My PC refuses to boot and I get an error message "‘GRUB loading stage 1.5’

‘GRUB Loading, please wait’

- and no activity - nothing happens, I've waited up to 2 hours.

If there's a CD in on startup, I get the error message ‘Primary IDE change no 80 conductor cable’
If I put the boot disc in I get a floppy drive error message

If no discs are in at startup, it goes v quickly to the GRUB message, as in the short vid - http://www.robhealey.com.au/Vids/PC1.wmv

There is no key I can press to interrupt the boot and get to DOS or anywhere.

PC is a -
IBM Netvista 2194/18A 733mgh, 8 Years Old, Windows ME.

Sorry this is a long post but usually the more information, the easier it is to see the solution – I hope someone can give me some clues as to what to do next.

Needless to say I have checked and rechecked all connections. I am convinced the hardware is OK and that it's a software glitch. The HD was proved to be connected and grub error is well known by linux users.

Here’s the sequence of events -
The PC began to run badly with symptoms of low memory. It would lock up and need re-booting, a common thing after a period of use.

I suspected a virus and decided to use the recovery disc, which I've uses many times before and restores the PC to out of the box, with Windows ME. I don’t keep any data on the PC, it’s a 2nd PC that I use occasionally to check webpages I’ve built and to download software etc to check for virus’s and see if they’re worth using, which saves clogging up my main PC.

The recovery disc installed Windows ME in what looked like safe mode or reduced graphics mode, so I made a copy of the CD, to prove it was readable. The copy installed to the reduced graphics mode also. I then ran a surface scan of the HD and found a faulty sector. I removed the original HD and used a newer HD as the single HD.

At this stage I thought perhaps there was a problem with the recovery disc so decided to try a linux OS, which I’ve always wanted to do. I got a copy of ubuntu which would run from a CD. I ran ubuntu from the disc, noticed the graphics res was normal, proving no problem with my sis graphics. In fact the program appeared to work perfectly but was very slow because it was running from the CD and not from the hard drive.

I tried to install ubuntu to the HD and it locked up at 15%. I switched off, switched back on and started the installation again - it stalled at 100%. I switched off, then back on - ubuntu didn't run - I forget what sort of screen I got, probably just black.

I gave up for the day. The next day I decided to give up on ubuntu and go back to the recovery disk because it was a known working thing and I know nothing at all about Linux/ubuntu.

I inserted the recovery disk and got a message that 2 partitions were in error and were being changed – I remember that ubuntu re-partitioned the HD.

HERE'S WHERE THE CURRENT PROBLEM IS - from here on the system has got worse and worse.

~~~ The recovery disk install continued after fixing the 2 partitions and got to the 'remove all disc' message. Normally at this point it restarts and all is done.

When it restarted I got an error 22 message

I restarted with the boot disc, got Dos and formatted drive C to clear it, intending then to start with the recovery disk again.

On restart I got this message

‘GRUB loading stage 1.5’

‘GRUB Loading, please wait’ - and no activity - nothing happens, I've waited up to 2 hours.


SO............I think what I need to do is somehow restore the MBR which is where the GRUB thing resides - it's part of the Linux OS*format

How do I wipe it enough to be able to flash the bios or restore the basic start up stuff?

Is the MBR on the motherboard as part of the BIOS or is it on the hard drive? If it’s on the hard drive then I can just swap back hard drives and at least be able to have some control again.

Then maybe I can clean the newer hard drive somehow (reformat and re partition I’d guess?) and re-set it to become the master again?

[Icecube]

The GRUB stage1 loader is located in the mbr of your hard drive. It is needed load the 1.5 stage of GRUB, which contains code which let GRUB understand the different filesystems. Because you reinstalled Windows ME, GRUB can't find the stage 1.5.

Use MBRtool to wipe and clean the first track of your hard drive. Then reinstall Windows ME or Ubuntu.

[Stingraynut]

Thanks very much Icecube

I've been hanging off doing anything till I got some advice because everything I've done so far has made the situation worse.

I can't interupt the PC with the current hard drive, to get the Ultimate Boot Cd recognised and then run MBR Tool.

I'll have to change back to the original hard drive, which doesn't have Grub or any linux on it - how do I then run MBR Tool on the newer HD which I will hook up as slave?

[Icecube]

Remove all the IDE cables (hard disk and CDROM)
Reboot the PC
Shut it down
Reattach the IDE cables
Start up your PC and enter the BIOS
Choose to boot from CDROM in the BIOS

Hopefully UBCD will boot fine now.
I don't know for sure if it will work, but you can try.

Else, attach only the CDROM IDE cable and see if you can boot CDROM again.
You can also attach the bad hard drive in a good PC as slave and boot UBCD in the good PC and clear the bad hard drive from there.