Glad to be of assistance, but even more that you were able to resolve the problem and get the system back in service. I was not successful with the notebook, but there weren't as many tools and resources to tap into back in the dark ages ;-). <br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 11:23 AM, m-aaron-r <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:aaron@pd.org">aaron@pd.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Thanks Greg -- You hit the nail on the head, as I discovered<br>
after some further experimentation. Fortunately, though, the<br>
Compaq windisease BIOS issue wasn't quite as much of a<br>
show stopper as it was with the Compaq laptop you mention.<br>
<br>
When I ran the install using my spare hard drive it completed<br>
and booted without issue. OK... this is weird! So I can put<br>
a DIFFERENT drive in and it works.<br>
<br>
Using the suggested dd method, I blew away the MBR on the<br>
original hard drive and ran the install on that again. (I checked<br>
that the /boot sector was being written to and could see that<br>
GRUB was installing, but something was confusing it at boot).<br>
Even after blowing the MBR, it STILL wouldn't boot to the<br>
original disk after install -- with GRUB reporting the same<br>
"can't find device ######-#######-#######"<br>
<br>
So I went back and really dug through the funky, non-standard<br>
BIOS on the box. Under :SECURITY/SYSTEM ID's I had noticed<br>
a "Drive ID" entry with about 10 hexadecimal values, but you<br>
couldn't edit it or remove it. Digging further in the :ADVANCED<br>
menu I noticed this odd UUID item, and I promptly disabled<br>
it. Back under :SECURITY/SYSTEM ID's the Drive ID entry<br>
was now absent. I also made sure that the odd entry for<br>
:SECURITY/MBR SECURITY was Disabled.<br>
<br>
With the (hard coded?) UUID Disabled in the evil Compaq<br>
BIOS, I ran the install on the original disk again and<br>
PROBLEM SOLVED -- the system booted to the original<br>
disk just fine!<br>
<br>
Just for grins, I went in and re-Enabled the UUID now that<br>
the install was done and the system STILL BOOTS! My<br>
guess is that the UUID in the BIOS was reporting bogus or<br>
non-standard information to the GRUB config script when<br>
installing to the original disk was the one being installed.<br>
<br>
Compaq made it a PITA, but I got the install done. Ubuntu<br>
10.04 looks pretty slick, too!<br>
<br>
Thanks again to the list for the help and suggestions.<br>
<br>
peace<br>
aaron<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2010/05/23, at 06:30 , Greg Clifton wrote:<br>
<br>
> Dude, you may be screwed. Older (pre HP) Compaq's had some of<br>
> the system BIOS written on the hard drive or some such crap that<br>
> forced you to buy any replacement hard drive from Compaq<br>
> (at ridiculously HIGH price). I once ran into the problem on an old<br>
> Compaq notebook that I could not get to boot after I upgraded the<br>
> HDD (this was like 15yrs. ago, so I don't think it was a drive<br>
> geometry<br>
> issue that far back since the choice in 2.5" HDDs was pretty limited).<br>
> Maybe there is a Compaq format utility on the web somewhere<br>
> that would write the required info to the drive, otherwise I doubt<br>
> it will work.<br>
><br>
> GC<br>
><br>
> On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 9:50 PM, Michael Trausch <<a href="mailto:mike@trausch.us">mike@trausch.us</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
> I wrote it in the web browser, so I sent it at gmail time. So, whose<br>
> got the non-sync'd clock: you or gmail? ;)<br>
><br>
> --<br>
> Sent from my ADP1 running Android 2.1<br>
><br>
><br>
>> On May 22, 2010 8:27 PM, "Paul Cartwright" <<a href="mailto:ale@pcartwright.com">ale@pcartwright.com</a>><br>
>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> On Sat May 22 20:08:35 2010, Michael Trausch wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> hmm, you supposedly wrote that at 8:35pm, yet I'm responding and my<br>
>> clock says<br>
>> 8:24pm now..<br>
>> # date<br>
>> Sat May 22 20:26:23 EDT 2010<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> --<br>
>> Paul Cartwright<br>
>> Registered Linux user # 367800<br>
>> Registered Ubuntu User #12459<br>
>> <a href="http://usdebtclo." target="_blank">http://usdebtclo.</a>..<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> Ale mailing list<br>
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>> <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>
>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS...<br>
>><br>
><br>
><br>
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