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#207562 17th Feb 2008 10:51pm
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vick1 Offline OP
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I can't get past the WGA on my "other" copy of XP so I installed Ubuntu as an alternative. What a pain, it refuses to work with my wireless cards, USB ports, video card, sound card and network cards! It works with the video card built in to the motherboard.

It looks OK but just doesn't work. It is meant to have an aero-type interface so it can do the same sort of things Vista can with the graphics. It's also free if you have a google.

Has anyone else managed to get it going? I am trying to use it on a 5 year old ASROCK motherboard and XP3000 chip with 512MB. 550w PSU, two DVD drives, 2 HDs. Before WGA the PC used to run XP with no problem. With XP everything worked.

(For this message I'm on a laptop with XP.)

If you have Ubuntu going let me know wat you're using. I noticed DELL are selling PCs with it now as an alternative to Vista and XP.

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vick1 #207565 17th Feb 2008 10:54pm
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Had it installed for a few weeks last year... and got rid. It is nigh on useless for the general home enviroment im afraid as with all flavour's of Linux.

smile

MattLFC #207572 17th Feb 2008 11:01pm
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Are you SoNutz?
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Get rid of it and reinstall XP and i'll help you get Past WGA.. smile Ubuntu is the Vista of Linux its full of crap you dont need..


Lee Mills

SoundLad #207581 17th Feb 2008 11:06pm
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vick1 Offline OP
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Great! I'll throw XP back on tomorrow and get it ready.

vick1 #207591 17th Feb 2008 11:15pm
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No worrys.


Lee Mills

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I have xp with WGA "removed" if needed, also have vista ultimate with the same but i wouldn't put anyone through that much pain.
PM me if needed.

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Ubuntu - grrrrrr - headaches

I have an older PC with low memory and speed and thought that Ubuntu may be more appropriate than XP. However, Mrs uses that machine so I thought I would "practice" first on a more modern laptop (Gericom, 3 gig Pentium 4) because that machine is hardly used and has nothing on it of any value

OK, obtained a disk copy of Ubuntu and ran first from the disk. It seemed OK ie fast and not too different from Windows (given that the end use on the Mrs machine would be only email and word processing).

So - I installed Ubuntu by dividing the hard disk. BIG MISTAKE

Stealing 16 Gig out of my normal 60 Gig drive C worked OK and Ubuntu worked even faster from that area. HOWEVER, after a week or so I decided - NO, Ubuntu is not for us, I want to remove it.

Removing Ubuntu is easy enough BUT there is then the BIG problem of how to "recover" the 16 Gig of hard drive space that was allocated to holding and using Ubuntu.

There seem to be several sets of instructions on the web but all boil down to having to use 3 steps

a. Restore the Master Boot Record (MBR)
b. Delete the partition on Drive C
c. Resize the Windows partition on Drive C back to the full 60Gig

Ha Ha. I have been struggling for 3 days

Yes, to restore the MBR I have a sort of Windows XP set up CD that came with the machine - but it will not give me access to a "Recovery Console" when you press R at Windows Setup after starting the computer from the disk.

OK, I am not actually going to reload Windows so I restarted the computer using another Windows XP disk (used to install Windows XP on another machine) and that does give me access to the Recovery Console

However, when I run that it asks for an Administrator Password.

Not a problem because I DO KNOW the Administrator Password for this computer - I set it up just before I started this job and I have double checked that it works when I access the Administrator account via Windows Safe mode

BUT IT WILL NOT work when I enter it into the Recovery Console
- and after 3 tries the Console shuts me down

Agggghhhhhh!!

There are a zillion more hurdles after this one - but has anyone (please) any clues how to sort out this first step?

Yes, I could fully reload Windows XP after a disk wipe - but there would probably be even more problems with that . . and if I get it wrong some could be terminal!

Help

Snod


5 Precepts of Buddhism seem appropriate. Refrain from taking life. Refrain from taking that which is not given. Refrain from misconduct. Refrain from lying. Refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness
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Paragon Partition Manager is your answer, free 30 day trial period will fix all your problems to recover your 16Gig. You will have to be careful to keep hold of the hidden recovery partition though.

I've put Ubuntu and Slax on bootable pen drives for when I want to play, never have got everthing working fully though despite being a qualified Unix System Administrator.

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DD

I am not sure what you mean by "You will have to be careful to keep hold of the hidden recovery partition though."

What I am told by the Internet pundits is that I cannot simply remove the partition ie several posts have indicated

Quote
"NEVER NEVER NEVER just remove the Ubuntu partitions - you won't be able to boot Windows because the information pointed to by your master boot record will be gone". This is apparently because the Ubuntu boot manager('Grub') actually resides in the Ubuntu partition... so if you remove
that then your computer won't boot anymore

The implication is that I must first fix the MBR (Master Boot Record and it is at that first stage where I come unstuck
The stages after that (resizing the partition) are something totally different and the link you gave will be useful.

The MBR fix problem seems to be something quite unrelated to Ubuntu ie I cannot get my machine to recognise my Administrator password - something that is needed to be able to fix the Master Boot Record. It is infuriating.

The disk that came with the machine is a "recovery" disk and does not seem to be a full copy of Windows XP. I guess this because apart from that declaration on the label that disk will boot but gives a quite different menu from a full Win XP disk booted in the same way ie the recovery disk will not give me a menu offering a "Repair" facility. However if I use the full XP disk (intended for another machine) that does give access to Repair - but when repair is activated and delivers a command prompt it refuses to accept the Administrator account password.

I DO KNOW the Admin account password because I have set it and double checked that it gives access the the normal Windows route to the Admin account

Technically there surely cannot be any way that the machine "knows" the Win XP disk is not the one originally used to load windows on this laptop machine??? Maybe if I had tried to load full Windows it could have detected a serial number difference but I am not trying to reload Windows - just use one of the Windows add-on functions ie MBR repair.

Ah well, I see another day of Internet searching and trial and error.

Frankly if I did have a full copy of Windows XP for this machine I would do a full clean install because that does involve a disk reformat. However, I only have the "recovery" disk and I suspect (???) that if that recovery is activated it will simply reinstall Win XP on the reduced size hard disk - and will STILL have the 16 gig missing.

Snod



5 Precepts of Buddhism seem appropriate. Refrain from taking life. Refrain from taking that which is not given. Refrain from misconduct. Refrain from lying. Refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness
Snodvan #294106 23rd Feb 2009 12:59pm
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Sorry, I thought you mentioned a recovery partition in your original, some computers have a recovery partition that stores a copy of the original windows installation which is then copied across to do a recovery. This recovery partition is normally hidden, sometimes by being a non-standard partition. If never intend to do a recover it does not matter, if you haven't got one it also doesn't matter.

I am desperately trying to remember how I deleted my Ubuntu partition, it wasn't a problem, which is why I am assuming I used Paragon. I will install Ubuntu again on one of my other computers today and see how it works. A complete XP install with updates takes forever although a copy of XP SP3 (service pack 3) reduces many of the required updates.


We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn

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Done it !

With proper acknowledgement to someone called “Raymond” on an Ubuntu forum I managed to by-pass the need to use the Administrator password and then resized the hard disk C: back to the original 60 Meg

Just in case any other Wiki member meets the same problem I give the instructions below

First: to repeat WHY this procedure is needed

Ubuntu installs a boot loader called GRUB into the Master Boot Record (MBR), if you delete Ubuntu partitions all the data will be deleted but not GRUB! So when your restart your pc GRUB will look for Ubuntu , when it does not find Ubuntu it show some error and you cannot even boot into windows.

Steps:
1. Go to the web and download using Easeus Partition Manager. The (free) download will put an icon on your desktop. You will need to access Easeus later
http://www.download.com/Easeus-Partition-Manager/3000-2248_4-10863346.html
2. Download mbfix
http://www.download.com/MbrFix/3000-2094_4-10485990.html

3. Extract all files in mbrfix.zip to c:\ - or to whatever is your primary boot disk that holds Windows. Normally this will be C:
4. Open Command Prompt using start->run-> type cmd -> OK
5. Type cd \ and press enter
6. Then type mbrfix /drive 0 fixmbr /yes and press enter
7. Exit the Command Prompt by typing Exit and press enter
8. Open Easeus Partition Manager
This will show you graphically the set up of partitions on your machine
9. Click on the main partition ie the one holding Windows, and then on “resize/ move partition” from the left hand window
10. The sub-screen that opens also shows the partitions on your disk. However, you can now ‘click’ on the partition boundary and drag it so that the partitions are resized how you want

In my case I wanted to drag the boundary so that the partition was removed and all of C: drive was available to Windows/ data

11. Click Apply and then follow the rebooting instructions
Your machine will reboot into Windows but then shows a “safe” Easeus page asking to confirm that you want to progress. There will be a couple more reboots but finally you are back into Windows with a disk resized as you wanted.

Some of those reboots are slow – keep your hands off the keyboard

So, it all worked for me. I still have NO IDEA why the Windows “repair console” route would not accept my totally valid Administrator password.

Snod (in need of a rest/ cuppa and a celebration butty)


5 Precepts of Buddhism seem appropriate. Refrain from taking life. Refrain from taking that which is not given. Refrain from misconduct. Refrain from lying. Refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness
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Well done Snod, I didn't get that far, Ubuntu started install, created the partition then bombed out during installation of files. It didn't seem to have changed the MBR but did have a partition, I ran Paragon told it to recover the partition back to Windows, the phone went, by time I got back to computer it was all done.

I confess to have never used Windows Recovery Console fully successfully, usually knife and forked any problems - major problems have only happened when hard drive was on it's way out anyway.

Computers are a mixture of a challenge and a test of patience, the only thing stopping them being thrown out the window is the idea of replacing the window!


We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn

https://ddue.uk

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