[ducksredux]

Howdy!
Was given a computers with a suspect windows install, so I formatted it and installed Ubuntu. Worked fine until I rebooted, at which point I got a message saying NTLDR couldn't be found. So I fdisked the mbr and reinstalled, and I got "Missing Operating System" after rebooting. So then I fdisked and formatted them and installed Ubuntu. After the install I was able to use Ubuntu until I rebooted, at which point I get "Invalid system disk. Replace the disk, and then press any key."

So is this hard drive junk or am I missing some key piece of knowledge here?
thanks

[bigbear]

Try a low format on the drive first using Killdisk then try reinstalling
http://www.killdisk.com/

[saikee]

The OP error message appears to be consistent with installing Ubuntu but did not install Ubuntu's boot loader into the MBR, resulting Windows MBR booted back a few times.

Ubuntu;s boot loader is Grub. Thus if there was any error it should have been a Grub error!

[ducksredux]

I tried with a 2nd hard drive with the same results. Also tried a SuperGrub disk with no success. I have a theory. The install cd gives me the option "Start or Install"
so maybe the cd is starting Ubuntu each time instead of actually installing it?

[saikee]

Now it is even worse.

You now start to distant yourself saying having installed it correctly but the damn thing need a CD in the drive to boot it up. Wow that's heavy!

May be another explanation is you didn't install it at all (but mistaken that you did) or you only had it partially installed and now Ubuntu doesn't boot at all.

The test of the pudding is in the eating. Why don't you post here the output of the terminal command

sudo fdisk -l

Click terminal, copy and paste the above command, press return, use the mouse to highlight the output, right click to copy and paste here for us to see.

You can also ask Grub to tell us if it has been installed by you with the following command, again in terminal of Ubuntu

sudo grub
find menu.lst

If Grub has been installed it should list the partition, like (hd0,0), that it finds the file menu.lst.

When you boot up the PC with a Ubuntu CD in its drive you boot up the CD version of Ubuntu. That is not an installation.

[ducksredux]

heh, I actually figured it out myself. I'm used to Windows and made a really basic oversight. In Windows you stick a disk in and it guides you thru the install. With Ubuntu it looked like the cd had installed the OS already, whereas actually it had only given me access thru the cd. It was only when I clicked on the hard drive icon labelled "Install" that it strated installing. Basic error but after installing hundreds of Windows programs I wasn't expecting this.

[attempt1]

Yeah, that's called a LiveCd. Several distributions have them, and this allows you to see if the OS will run on your equipment and can be configured for your needs, before you invest the time of an install.

It comes in handy when swapping out many distro's to find the one that's most suited to you.

[williamrobinsonb]

congrats to your first install of linux from a live cd,
I believe that he first major distro that had a live cd installer was knoppix.
I still sometimes dig out the old games knoppix three kings addition cd and boot it for a bit of fun.