sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Computers & Programming Computers, Software, Accessories Need help with GRUB

Since the drive is 5 years old, it's probably caused by the warranty chip.

I'd do a backup from the live CD and replace the drive.

hello again all,

so as far as i can find, the bios version is the most recent for this computer. its a dell dimension 2400 and the bios is a05..couldnt find anything newer unless the numbering scheme for the versions started at a05 and made its way to a01...dont think so but please correct me if you know better.

junkman i definitely agree that i should go pick up another hard drive..and i will do that, but for now im just goofin around seein what i can do with what i have. 70% of the data is backed up already and i dont care that much about the other 30% so im goin at it.

after having made 2 attempts(hd failures), the third installation attempt was going fine. the partition table was a little barren with only 2 parts, one huge primary and a smaller swap partition. i left the large partition alone and split up the smaller drive into a /boot, a /root and a swap. good enough for the moment i figure.

i realize that /boot should have its own small partition, but one of the things that puzzles me is, why would the computer run smoothly for months like it was(unless the partition tables got changed unbeknownst to me) and then out of the blue start throwin out errors and not booting? just curious.

now the installer has failed at the 'select software' step, and grub isnt installing into /target/...or at least thats what the installer is saying..i personally dont know what its talking about hehehe.

although i did leave the old primary partition alone..thats probably the problem.

ok im gonna go wipe it clean and start over.

cya soon.

My apologies, I thought this was a new install of ubuntu rather than one which was installed a while back.

Then yes..sounds like either a bad hard drive or a bad controller.