Ubuntu install doesn't work

[Blue Dragon]

Hi Guys,

Yesterday I reinstalled Windows after it had gotten a little slow over the past few days. Installation went all right and a few minutes later I had the drivers and everything back up and running.

Then I wanted to try Ubuntu as I wanted to use it as my primary os and Windows only for video editing and gaming. The install on my second drive (40GB, jumpered as slave; windows is on the master, 200GB) went without any error or problems. I followed an article I had found online and expected Grub to overwrite the MBR, eat the windows bootloader and in the end give me a list with Ubuntu or Windows to choose at boot.

However this did not happen. When I restarted the machine, it automatically logged into windows. In the Bios, I had the 200GB drive on which I installed windows as the primary boot device. When I press F8 I can choose the boot device manually. When I did that and choose the drive Ubuntu was installed on, I get a quick black screen and then windows boots.

So I deleted the partition of the 40GB drive and reinstalled Ubuntu. This time by shrinking the 200GB and taking some space for Ubuntu to sit on. Again, the install went ok, but when I started there was no Grub screen. Windows still booted like nothing had happened.

Then I went online and searched for some help. I found a few sites that explained how to manually set up Grub (you have to do that when you install linux first and then windows). I tried some stuff, but I'm not really experienced. However, after some work in the console, I ended up getting a Grub screen at boot. But I couldn't get any of the entries to work. I kept getting Error 17, I think, which that that the partition could not be mounted. I think I may have gotten something wrong with the commands...

So finally I deleted the Ubuntu Partition and recreated the MBR using the Windows recovery console and fixmbr.

Now the windows system works perfectly again, but I still want to try Ubuntu!

Can anyone tell me what I did wrong? All over the web people say its just "pop in cd and press install, super easy". Why doesn't this work for me?

It's not that I don't know anything about computers, I've been sitting in front of one since I was 4 and can't believe that I can't get this thing to work! Does it have something to do with the boot device priority?

[Sparda]

You need to figure out which drive the computer is actually booting windows from. I'd suggest you only set a single boot device in the BIOS so as to remove any confusion.

[Blue Dragon]

Hi Sparda,

I already know which drive windows is booting from: The big one, the one with 200GB.

In the BIOS I have set this drive as the first boot device. After that come my DVD drive and then Floppy. The other harddrive, the one with 40GB, isn't listed in the boot device configuration, but I can choose it manually by pressing F8 and selecting the drive to boot from. In the BIOS I have to specify 3 boot devices and the oder in which to try booting from them.

However, as I said, it also doesn't work when I install Ubuntu along with Windows on the same drive (the big one with 200GB) in a second partition.

Any other suggestions?

Edit: Well, I just tried it again, but still the system keeps booting into windows after installing it on the same drive in a separate partition. See this pictures to see what I did:

Edit2:

Well, I finally got it working using the Ubuntu Alternate Installer CD.