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I have been trying to install some form of Ubuntu/Debian/Arch on this old computer of mine (DELL Dimension XPSB773r) for a while and yesterday I tried Ubuntu Server 16 and the network installation went very smoothly. But when I rebooted, it went into GRUB and I got these messages: grub errors

When I usels I get this: ls

I used fdisk in MS-DOS and got this: Partition info FDISK drive 2 (1)|Partition info FDISK drive 1 (1)|FDISK drive info|Partition info FDISK drive 2 (2)

And here is fdisk on Ubuntu: fdisk ubuntu

And blkid: blkid

Some info that may be helpful:

  • The computer has:
    • 733mhz Pentium III
    • 384mb RAM
    • 2 hard drives
    • 2 CD drives (1 is a DVD)
    • "Legacy Boot" only BIOS (no UEFI)
  • The first harddrive has (master drive) :
    • a broken Windows XP, Windows ME and Windows 2000 install
    • a working Windows 2000 Server install
  • The second drive has Ubuntu and the rest is just documents and such (This drive is the slave drive)
  • Ubuntu doesn't seem to like mounting DVDs (kept getting mounting errors when using a DVD to install, that is why I used a network install on a CD)
  • All of the installations are distinctly separated with different partitions
not_applicable
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  • Have you tried searching for grub rescue help? It starts with type ls to see where you installed your OS... – Adriaan Oct 21 '20 at 11:56
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    I may be wrong, but I don't know if that computer even has enough ram to run any flavor of linux, much less Ubuntu 16.04. – Eagle_Mike Oct 21 '20 at 13:19
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    It probably has more to do with the broken Windows systems, and/or the file system that got created for Ubuntu Server. Boot to a Ubuntu Desktop Live CD-RW and get a screenshot of gparted and edit that into your question (or show me sudo fdisk -l). Start comments to me with @heynnema or I'll miss them. – heynnema Oct 21 '20 at 14:00
  • @heynnema Although right now I do not have access to the computer, I do know that the Live CD is larger than 700mb, so I cannot put it on a standard CD, I would have to use a DVD, and DVDs fail to mount for whatever reason. In addition, the computer does not have enough RAM to use the Live filesystem thing. – not_applicable Oct 21 '20 at 15:42
  • @heynnema I cannot access gparted or fdisk as they say unknown command in GRUB. I tried using it via execute she'll on the network install CD and it said not found. I am trying to use fdisk in MS-DOS as I have that readily available. I will edit the question to contain the details. – not_applicable Oct 21 '20 at 19:43
  • gparted won't run on a Ubuntu Server Live CD-RW. fdisk isn't a GRUB command, but a terminal or CLI command, and it will run on your Server CD-RW. Boot the Server CD-RW, and get to the # prompt, and then type the command. – heynnema Oct 21 '20 at 19:57
  • @not_applicable I don't see any Ubuntu ext4 partitions. – heynnema Oct 21 '20 at 23:23
  • @not_applicable Now we're making a little progress. Edit your question and show me sudo blkid. Also, make sure that your master/slave settings are correct for both HDD's and both DVD's. One master per cable. One slave per cable. – heynnema Oct 22 '20 at 03:45
  • @heynnema I ran blkid and edited the question with the results – not_applicable Oct 22 '20 at 15:52
  • @not_applicable For some reason Ubuntu didn't get built correctly, as /etc/fstab is looking for the UUID of a disk that doesn't exist on your system. The easy way to fix it is just to reinstall Ubuntu Server. If you'd like to manually try to fix it, see https://askubuntu.com/questions/132079/how-do-i-change-uuid-of-a-disk-to-whatever-i-want and set the UUID of /dev/sdb5 to the UUID that you see in your GRUB error image. – heynnema Oct 22 '20 at 16:18
  • @heynnema I have tried the manual solution and it did not work. Right now I am reinstalling Ubuntu and it seems to be taking much longer than it did before and is asking for more information. I am pretty sure that is a good thing. – not_applicable Oct 22 '20 at 22:32
  • @heynnema The reinstallation completed, but it still did not boot, giving the same errors as before. – not_applicable Oct 23 '20 at 01:05
  • @not_applicable Use parted to install a fresh MBR partition table (this will wipe the disk) on /dev/sdb and reinstall again. – heynnema Oct 23 '20 at 03:06

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