grub not found message locks whole computer
Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 4:07 am
I am using an ACER Aspire M1610 (bought to help a friend) WINXP SP3. I made a 17Gb partition for WIN7 and found this computer couldn't accept it. Then I formatted it ext3 (using Acronis) and installed Ubuntu, which was puzzling for an old newbie, but worked until I lost my Internet, which still worked on XP. I then thought to try Linux Mint so I reformatted the partition again ext3 and put in the Mint DVD. I got "error 3200 reading sector 457042 invalid or corrupt kernel image". I realise this could be a bad download or a bad image file. I then set BIOS for both 1st and 2nd boots to HD to get to XP and got "error:file ' /boot/grub not found" followed by grub rescue. Now I get this message for whatever I do with BIOS and WINXP will not load. I re-formatted the partition again (still ext3) but the result is the same. The computer is unusable. I fear I might be out of my depth with UNIX, as working with strings is puzzling. I need to get dear old XP back again - yes, I need a new computer, but first things first. I would be very grateful for any help anyone can give me.