Member Avatar for francisgan9

I have installed the latest Ubuntu for notebook on my Acer Aspire 4715Z Pentium Dual-Core
for last several months- working very smoothly & enjoying the "new world."
I thought I never need to go back to Windows(rarely)

- but yesterday as I updated the Update Manager
and restarted it as requested
after the setup,then choosing the Ubuntu operating system--( I have kept dual booting with Windows Vista)
- then suddenly the GNU GRUB version 1.97beta 4 appear --
a prompt
sh:grub>

appreared.


I dont know what to type in the command line editing BASH

please teach me- how to get into - Ubuntu (kernel) again

Thank you very much.

Please let me know as soon as possible. Miss using Linux(Ubuntu)

Francis Gan
Melaka
Malaysia

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Generated

Brief diagnostic summary and safe recovery path (for a Wubi install)

This looks like a classic Wubi symptom: Ubuntu was installed inside a Windows file (the virtual disk called root.disk) and GRUB can no longer mount that file, so you get a GRUB prompt instead of the desktop. Wubi uses a loop-mounted disk image stored under the Windows folder and is fragile if the NTFS host filesystem gets damaged. (en.wikipedia.org)

What to try first (from Windows)

  1. Do not type random GRUB commands. Boot into Windows and run an NTFS repair (chkdsk /f or chkdsk /r) on the drive where Wubi is installed. Windows often repairs the host NTFS and, if it recovers the virtual-disk file, may place it in a hidden found.000 folder as a file0000.chk (or dir0000.chk). If you find a large file there, copy it (do not delete anything) back to C:\ubuntu\disks\root.disk or copy it to an external drive first. These are standard recovery steps for Wubi file corruption. (askubuntu.com)

If Windows repair does not work (safe extraction)
Boot a Live USB/DVD ("Try Ubuntu") and copy your data out before reinstalling. Mount the Windows partition, then loop-mount the root.disk and copy your /home (or other important folders) to an external disk. Example workflow (adjust device names for your system and use the GUI if that’s easier):

sudo fdisk -l
sudo mkdir -p /media/win
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/win               # replace /dev/sda1 with the Windows partition
sudo mkdir /mnt/wubi
sudo mount -o loop /media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /mnt/wubi
# then copy /mnt/wubi/home/* to an external drive

If you prefer a step-by-step guide or need to run fsck on the image, the Ubuntu Wubi documentation covers the exact commands and cautions. (wiki.ubuntu.com)

Notes and prevention

  • was right to identify Wubi as the likely cause; reinstalling without a backup will reset the virtual disk. Back up root.disk before reinstalling.
  • ’s suggestion to use a VM is a reasonable long-term alternative (safer for experiments). Wubi has been deprecated as an official installer; for a reliable system, use a normal partition install or a VM. (en.wikipedia.org)

If recovery is needed and any step is unclear, follow the Live-USB extraction before attempting writes that could overwrite root.disk.

Recommended Answers

All 12 Replies

Member Avatar for Simon Tite

I assume that if you can still boot windows, then you will see a list of systems available for booting, probably you will see your original windows system there, and also the list of ubuntu systems. At this point, Grub is asking you to select a system, and you would choose windows or ubuntu. If this is how your system is set up, you can probably select a previous version of ubuntu, ie the one that you ran prior to the upgrade. If this works, and you get a working version of ubuntu, then the next thing to do is to get the updated version to boot correctly, but no need to worry about that yet, just get a running version of ubuntu going, and the next stage might be easy...

Member Avatar for fenerista

Use linux with virtual box or vmware on windows, that is the best :=

Member Avatar for francisgan9

Simon Tite,
Thank you for your reply.
it seems you dont understand what I am saying .Sorry, I will rephrase it.

***********************************************

- but 2 days ago as I updated the Update Manager
and restarted it as requested
after the setup, there is 2 choices- then choosing the Ubuntu operating system--( dual booting with Windows)

a black screen appeared
-----------------------------------

try FAT32: no WUBILDR
(hd0,1): NTFS5
-----------------------------------------------
for a few seconds

----------------------------------------------

- then suddenly the GNU GRUB version 1.97beta 4 appear --
a prompt

sh:grub>

appreared.

I dont know what to do (line editing command)
**************************************************************


fenerista,
Thank you for your reply. Does your suggestion means using extra layer = extra memory ?-> slow down the system?

Member Avatar for fenerista

fenerista,
Thank you for your reply. Does your suggestion means using extra layer = extra memory ?-> slow down the system?

Yes : but it's very safe, and it's easy to back up. If a system powerful and there is no best performence goal,windows vmware and linux that's better and it will be no problem. But this is your choice

Member Avatar for Simon Tite

Francis, yes you are right, I didn't realize you were using Wubi, which is something I don't know a great deal about.

However, have you considered un-installing Wubi (using the Windows un-install software program), then re-installing it from the official release site? (http://wubi-installer.org/) - The downside of this is, that it will probably mean you lose any data associated with your previous Ubuntu installation. If this is not a problem for you, then it is worth a try.

Of course, if there is no data to be preserved, why not just bite the bullet and install a genuine dual-partition dual-boot system, or follow fenerista's suggestion - in either case you may lose your original Ubuntu data.

On the other hand, if my understanding is correct, Wubi installs Ubuntu into one (ore maybe more) Windows files, if you could save these files away somewhere, when you next get Ubuntu working, you could then mount these files such that Ubuntu thinks they are subdirectories of your main file system, and recover the files within them.

Edited by Simon Tite because: n/a
Member Avatar for francisgan9

Simon,

a friend suggested
---------------
My instinct is to boot from a Live disk and reinstall a version of GRUB that isn't a beta version.
-------------------------

My answer
---------------------

Yes,
That is possible, but I would have lost all the data & programs which I have downloaded
-> lost a lot of time & effort

furthermore the Update Manager should have given me the current GRUB.
what I did was -- install & reboot
----------------------------------------------------------------


fenerista

Why is it better?
How to do it?

Francis, yes you are right, I didn't realize you were using Wubi, which is something I don't know a great deal about.

However, have you considered un-installing Wubi (using the Windows un-install software program), then re-installing it from the official release site? (http://wubi-installer.org/) - The downside of this is, that it will probably mean you lose any data associated with your previous Ubuntu installation. If this is not a problem for you, then it is worth a try.

Of course, if there is no data to be preserved, why not just bite the bullet and install a genuine dual-partition dual-boot system, or follow fenerista's suggestion - in either case you may lose your original Ubuntu data.

On the other hand, if my understanding is correct, Wubi installs Ubuntu into one (ore maybe more) Windows files, if you could save these files away somewhere, when you next get Ubuntu working, you could then mount these files such that Ubuntu thinks they are subdirectories of your main file system, and recover the files within them.

------------------------------------
my answer
It is possible for me in Linux to go to Windows(files) but not the other way

Member Avatar for fenerista

it's better because of it's reliable and the performance is not bad it's good. Back Up is very easy(just copy your virtual machine file to somewhere and play with linux :) )and it's very safe because it's a virtual system and it's operating system is linux double security. It's very hard to get in for a virus/trojan. I am using windows 7 and vmware Ubuntu 9.10 there is no problem now and there will be no problem future. I don't deal boot problems or system damage problems. Just back up and use, back up and use .

If you don't want best performance, my choice is the best choice for you.

Get a linux image(iso) and use a virtual machine like vmware or another free solutions. Make your new machine. and install vmware tools your linux. That's very useful copy from windows, your files to linux or use ctrl+c function(windows->linux, linux->windows), and you can't use full screen linux without that.

You will have two machine in the same time, sure this advantage is very useful.

Edited by fenerista because: n/a
Member Avatar for Firewolf

Use linux with virtual box or vmware on windows, that is the best :=

Or use Windows in Virtual Box on Linux... as I do... ;)

Member Avatar for fenerista

Or use Windows in Virtual Box on Linux... as I do... ;)

This is anomalous to nature :)

Member Avatar for Simon Tite

Francis, Read these notes, it may solve your problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1321107&highlight=wubi

Note that grub thinks you are using a US-ASCII QWERTY standard keyboard, so if you don't use that in your country, then you might want to print a keyboard map (it's tricky for me, using a Belgian AZERTY keyboard, particularly the parentheses and the comma, which are in different positions).

Also note that when the notes say (hdX,Y) , what they mean is you need to find out your disk drive number (X, starts at 0) and the partition number on that disk (Y, also starts at 0). Luckily, grub supports a kind of auto-complete feature: if you press <tab> after a partial command it will give you a list of possible alternatives. So, typing ls (hd<tab> will give you a list of available disks (you probably only have one, in which case you want hd0), and typing ls hd0,<tab> will give you a list of partitions on hd0. Reading the notes, it seems that you will probably want to use (hd0,1) - but if you are not sure, you can try all the possibilities, it won't hurt if you get it wrong.

Similarly, when selecting the kernel to boot, the notes say linux /boot/vmlinuzxxxxxxxxx ...... , don't enter xxxxxxx, use tab to find the list of files starting with vmlinuz, and pick the one with the highest version number.

Hope this helps, let me know if you still have a problem....

commented: trying his best +0
Member Avatar for francisgan9

Thanks for everybody who contributed.
I look up for GNU Grub 1.97 beta4
then found the answer .
Had to reinstall Linux.

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