Grub Error 18 Ubuntu 8.10
2009 by Ron 10 Comments Over the Christmas break I've installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my main machine. The installation was not upgradeable without some serious wizardry (the /boot partition was too small, and increasing that on a full disk is not easy), so I decided to do a fresh install. After going through all the installation steps, and booting up Ubuntu 8.10 for the first time, I was greeted with a GRUB error 18. Some Googling revealed that this was caused by the hard disk being too large for the BIOS to handle. And there was even a helpful post that described a three step process: Set your hard disk for LBA mode Install Ubuntu Set your hard disk back to normal Unfortunately, this didn't work for me. The installation resulted in the same GRUB error. However, there is an easier fix. GRUB error 18 means actually that the kernel cannot be found in the first 1023 cylinders. You can change that by creating a /boot partition that is completely within those first 1023 cylinders. So, after the first try at installing, and failing with the GRUB error, try this: Restart your machine, with the Ubuntu CD as startup. Install Ubuntu as normal, until you get to the partition information. Select Manual from the partition options. The only thing you need to change is the main partition (/). Delete the one that is on the disk now. The partitioner may tell you it needs to write changes to the disk - by all means, let it write them. Next, create a partition at the very beginning of the hard disk, of sufficient size, but not too big (I decided on 1GB, but it may be better to go with 512KB or even smaller - not too small, since I couldn't do an upgrade on my 128KB boot partition). Choose ext2 as file system - you won't need journaling or anything fancy on that partition. Your mount point is /boot. Finally, create the main partition, covering the remainder of the hard disk. Make the file system ext3 - you want the journaling etc. on this one. You should now have a /boot partition at the beginning of your disk, a / partition for most of the rest, and a small swap partition (about twice the size of your memory). If not, you need to manually adjust the partitions until you have all three. Continue with the rest of the installation. Your mileage may vary, but this wor
Member From: Helsinki, Finland Registered: 2008-08-20 Posts: 202 [SOLVED] Grub error 18 - cannot boot to Windows Earlier today I tried to install Arch 64bit (I had 32bit earlier) with kdemod to test new KDE4.2. However, after installation I could not boot neither Arch nor Windows. Grub appeared, but every single option gave me an error. I can't remember anymore which error it was, but It doesn't matter anymore. I thought I had made a really stupid and basic mistake while installing, I just didn't know what.I wanted to test http://www.automationadventures.com/2009/01/ubuntu-8-10-installation-grub-error-18.html KDE4.2 so much so I installed Kubuntu (yeah, this topic is not related to Arch Linux, I hope that somebody can help me though, move this topic to somewhere else if it doesn't belong here ). Installation was fine, booting to Kubuntu was fine (and upgrading to KDE4.2 was fine), but booting to Windows was not. It gave me a following error:Error https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=64107 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOSI googled a bit and found this: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/GRUB#Error_18 I reinstalled Kubuntu using /dev/sdb1 as /boot and /dev/sdb2 as / (/dev/sdb3 is windows and /dev/sdb4 is my game partition, ntfs). Before this I had /dev/sdb1 as / and /dev/sdb2 as swap (now I have no swap at all, my 4GB RAM should be enough). The only difference was that at first grub gave me error 15 (I fixed it with Kubuntu LiveCD). After that - no difference.I need Windows for playing. That's why it's very important that I can use it. [SOLVED] In addition, I should say that /dev/sda is a separated hard drive which is encrypted with Truecrypt. (I said this because I think that Kubuntu tried to install grub on (hd0)...) When I tried to mount this hard drive with Kubuntu, it couldn't do it. I wanted to test mounting on Windows to check if it is just Kubuntu's problem. If not, I'm fucked because this hard drive contains VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT files. [/SOLVED]I really need help, please. If somebody can help me, (s)he is my
Lambda 8.10 ThinkPad R090203 AMD64 and can be downloaded at "for ThinkPad" tab. Blog Stats 954,909 hits Top Posts HOWTO : Passive mode for Pure-FTPd on Ubuntu Server 9.04 HOWTO : Godaddy.com's Relay Mail Server with Postfix on Ubuntu Server https://samiux.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/grub-error-18/ HOWTO : Performance tuning for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu/Debian HOWTO : Home made wired and wireless router with ZeroShell RAID on VirtualBox HOWTO : Clean up all log archives after a period of time How to use 4 GB http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/reinstall-ubuntu-grub-bootloader-after-windows-wipes-it-out/ RAM on a 32-bit Ubuntu? HOWTO : VIA S3 Unichrome Pro problems fixed on Ubuntu 9.04 Bridging VirtualBox 1.6.2 on Ubuntu 8.04.1 HOWTO : Home made NAS server with Ubuntu 8.04.1 – Part I Archives September 2009 grub error August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 debian desktopBSD Eee PC fedora FreeBSD General Linux OpenBSD Python Security Ubuntu Blogroll Almost perfect and secure Ubuntu 9.04 LAMP server Almost Secure and Perfect Ubuntu Server FireGPG grub error 18 Full Circle Magazine Lambda Linux Lubi - Ubuntu installer for Linux My Dream Home Network 2009 My home network My Perfect Home Network 2009 (Version 4.0) Performance tuning Protect your data in Ubuntu 8.10 Screencasts of Ubuntu SSD performance tuning TrueCrypt Tutorial of the Week Unofficial Ubuntu Guide Use more than 3GB RAM W3 Schools WordPress.com WordPress.org Wubi - Ubuntu installer for Windows High Rated My Perfect Home Network 2009 (Version 4.0) Meta Register Log in Entries RSS Comments RSS WordPress.com GRUB : Error18 Posted on June 11, 2008 by samiux The /boot and / is set to 8GB CF card on RAIDON CF card enclosure which acts as a SATA hard drive. Meanwhile, /home, /tmp, /var and swap is set to a 320GB SATA hard drive. It boots fast and stable. Today, I encountered GRUB Error 18 when booting my desktop computer up. I searched the Google and they said it is caused by "Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS". What's going on? It is very stable and fast before. After thinking for a while and checking the BIOS setting, I decided to change the little battery on the motherboard with a brand new one. Believe it or not, the computer is flying again. Sometimes, we should not fully believe with the error message that given. This is the example. Updated on 2008-June-13 :
Speed Up Your PC or Mac Subscribe l l FOLLOW US TWITTER GOOGLE+ FACEBOOK GET UPDATES BY EMAIL Enter your email below to get exclusive access to our best articles and tips before everybody else. RSS ALL ARTICLES FEATURES ONLY TRIVIA Search How-To Geek Reinstall Ubuntu Grub Bootloader After Windows Wipes it Out If you run a dual-boot system with Linux and Windows, this has happened to you.You had to do your monthly reinstall of Windows, and now you don't see the linux bootloader anymore, so you can't boot into Ubuntu or whatever flavor of linux you prefer. Here's the quick and easy way to re-enable Grub. 1) Boot off the LiveCD 2) Open a Terminal and type in the following commands, noting that the first command will put you into the grub "prompt", and the next 3 commands will be executed there. Also note that hd0,0 implies the first hard drive and the first partition on that drive, which is where you probably installed grub to during installation. If not, then adjust accordingly. sudo grub > root (hd0,0) > setup (hd0) > exit Reboot (removing the livecd), and your boot menu should be back. Only read below if Windows is now missing from the boot menu If you installed Ubuntu before you installed Windows, then Ubuntu will not have anything in the grub configuration for Windows. This is where you'll have to do a bit of manual editing to the grub boot menu file. If you open the file /boot/grub/menu.lst with the following command: sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst You'll see a sample section for Windows, which you'll want to uncomment and add to the boot menu list in whatever position you want it in. (uncomment by removing the #'s) # title Windows 95/98/NT/2000# root(hd0,0)# makeactive# chainloader +1 Note that you should also verify that hd0,0 is the correct location for Windows. If you had installed Windows on the 4th partition on the drive, then you should change it to (hd0,3) JOIN THE DISCUSSION Tweet Lowell Heddings, better known online as the How-To Geek, spends all his free time bringing you fr