Vostro 1500: boot XP form MediaDirect button & Ubuntu from Power button

Hi Mario666

I have managed to finally install XP Pro onto the Vista Dell Vostro Lappy. I had no problem creating the slipstream CD.

Will the above instructions from you, stop the self destruct when pressing the media direct button?

 

If you have followed the instructions, then the MD button will start windows, and the Power button will start Ubuntu.

 

I followed this and it's worked pretty well but I've set it up slightly differently. I used Vista and Ubuntu and had Ubuntu on the MD button.

I have a problem when booting with the MD button, grub loads but then when I choose Ubuntu I get "Error 17: cannot mount selected partition).

I'm not too familiar with Linux but I'm not sure if anything done in the earlier stages has anything to do with me having the buttons the other way round. My partitions are setup the same as yours.

 

Hi Dazzla,

To be honest, I'm not familiar with Ubuntu myself. This is my first foray into all things Linux.

The first thing I'd check is that Ubuntu is on a primary partition, as you can't boot from logical partitions.

The easiest way to check will be (in Vista) to click Start, and right-click on Computer, selecting "Manage". On the Computer Management window, click "Disk Management". Does it say that your Ubuntu partition is Primary?

You might like to check out Kossel's guide, as he shows how to set up Vista and Ubuntu in exactly the way you want (i.e. booting Ubuntu from the MD button). On the off-chance that you speak Spanish, he has what looks like a very comprehensive How-To on his blog.

 

I've also just Googled "Error 17: cannot mount selected partition", and on Ubuntu Forums there is this thread, which may be of use.

Just remember that with Grub, in the (x,y) code, the "x" is the physical drive, which will be "0" (unless you have a laptop with two hard-drives in it), and the "y" will be the physical partition that Ubuntu is installed on, remembering that Grub counts from zero.

Anyway, have a search through Ubuntu Forums, as it's likely that others have had the same problem as you. If you do find a fix, please post it here too.

 

For some reason when I pressed e inside grub it was pointing to (hd0,0) even though I'd set it to hd0,2. It booted but it booted to a command line (busybox v1.1.3) and (initramfs), I'm just looking around now to see what the problem may be.

 

Hmm, I found the problem by removing quiet and splash from grub, it's crapping out at this stage:

/dev/hda1 does not exist. Dropping to shell.

Changed grub to point to sda3 and (hd0,2) and it booted correctly.

Any idea why that happened?

 

I suspect it's something to do with the settings for your hard drive. "hda" represents a PATA drive, whereas "sda" is a SATA drive. Check your bios and see if they are set for SATA drives.

Glad you got it working though!

 

Hey mario love the guide. Quick question though. When you finish setting the partions in ubunto and after you enter your name and usuername and ubuntu is ready to install. There is an advance button right before the final forward. If you click it it pulls up window with all the partions and asks you where you want to install the boot loader or not to install it at all. Should you leave that set to what its at or should you change it. By default its set as hd0 and i'm pretty sure thats the mbr. Not sure if this is a new thing with the latest version or what. Did you change it?

 

I never noticed that!

If it just says hd0, then that seems to refer to the first physical hard-drive (for instance, "0,0" is specifically the first partition on the first hard-drive, "0,1" the second partition on the first hard-drive, "1,0" the first partition on the second hard-drive, etc) . If you only have one hard-drive, then I can't imagine that you can change it. I presumably left it as default and it worked fine.

Anyway, thanks for letting me know about that. I'm glad you found the guide useful.