I operate an IBM ThinkPad...
If I do not have a certain mostly full 90+GB USB drive plugged in I get the message:
"error: no such device ac9......-....-....-....-.......... ."
"grub rescue >"
I have no idea how to respond to this except to re-plug in the USB drive and manually reboot...
If the 90+GB USB drive is plugged in boots to GNU Grub V 198+20100804-5 ubuntu 3-1mint1
This GrUB gives me the following main boot options:
Linux Mint 10,2.6.35-2-generic (/dev/sdb1)
Linux Mint ... recovery ... [which I do not know how to use...]
2 Memory check options and...
Microsoft Windows XQ Professional (/dev/sda1?)
Linux Mint is installed on the
90+GB USB drive and boots fine to the login screen
Then upon login Linux Mint stalls, probably because of one or more bad or incompatible packages installed...
Under Windows I have installed Wubi XUbuntu...
So when I select the Windows option,
I get next get what appears to be a Windows boot menu:
"Please select the operating system to start
"Microsoft Windows XQ Professional
"Xubuntu
"use...keys...to your choice"
"Press ENTER to choose
"For ... options for Windows, press F8"
If I select the Windows option, it boots and runs just fine, except that hard drive is almost full and cannot read either Linux information except apparently the Linux Mint and XUbuntu grub files in main directories on c:\
If I select Xubuntu, a SECOND GrUB shows up with the following sub-boot options:
Ubuntu Linux 2.6.38-11-generic
Ubuntu Linux 2.6.38-8-generic
Mirosoft Windows XP Professional (on dev/sda1) [which I have not selected]
Linux Mint 10, 2.6.35-22-generic (.dev/sdb1) (on dev/sdb1)...
I generally just select Ubuntu...-11... and that is from where this email is being sent...
I have not yet run Windows or Linux Mint from this third boot menu...
XUbuntu boots up fine from that menu, though I have not yet tried Windows Linux Mint from the second GrUB menu...
The main issue is that I'm afraid to try to install any other
OS because I fear I will lose the ability to boot this computer...
I thought that if Linux was installed on a USB drive, that OS could be
booted from any computer, though that is not the current
functioning...
The Linux Mint directories are accessable from XUbuntu, though not my downloads in the login folder, which are probably using up most of the drive and I would like to recover if possible...
I need to:
1) if possible recover the files from the Linux Mint home sub-directory
2) reconcile the three boot menus so I can go directly to any OS directly from one boot menu
3) regain access to the storage available on the 90+GB USB drive for further development goals
4) set up the main ThinkPad drive so it can boot without a USB drive plugged in
5) set up the USB drive so it can boot to one or more versions of Linux and/or Ubuntu when plugged in
6) install Ubuntu 10 server, or another version of Linux with server capabilities,
yet I know nothing about setting up or running a server
7) set up a version of Linux that can easily install a version
of Pascal compiling to GNU...
(GNU Pascal is primarily only for Windows and Mac or Apple...)
(Free Pascal does not appear to compile to GNU...)
8) learn how much programming is possible just running GrUB
9) learn how much code it takes to make a GrUB and how to extend its functionality
The concept of boot stages intrigues me, even though it currently only functions on my computer in a redundant fashion because of how Linux Mint limits the functionality of Windows, the fact that Windows basically cannot read Linux partitions on its own and the reality that wubi installed Xubuntu under Windows and was therefore limited in its installation options to the drives visible from Windows, even though after installation, Xubuntu could at least see the folders in the Linux Mint drive...
It is probably true that most versions of Linux share a lot of code and different Linux OS's share dependencies...
I would like to install or program a version of Linux or Xen or other
hypervisor that can do something like run different OS's in different
workspaces, as if they all shared common GNU/CLR kernel code and just implemented
different GUI desktop appearances on different workspace pages... I once saw a program that could do that, though do not remember its name...
If I knew enough about the hypervisor varierties, the various Linux versions with their many relevant packages
available in the various package managers of the various Linux versions, also considering the possibility of
sync functionality,
something like that might already exist or possibly be built with existing software...
GNU and various GrUBs interface with every hardware, though I don't yet comprehend exactly how much is set up under GrUB and how much is left to the OS to setup...
I apologize if I have gone beyond the scope of this message board...
I have issues I need to resolve and ideas I wish to develop and the two are related in my mind...
Sincerely, Elijah...