Error 18

[mumidadi]

hey i just Installed Mint over Windows Xp after Mint installation i got error like this
GRUB loading stage 1.5

GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 18

now i cant see my partitions ! and moreover i loaded live mint Cd and cant see my Hard Drive(USING other PC at the moment)
My PC is P4 1.8 with 256Mb ram

[Nibes]

Hello,

I searched about it and I bumped on this :

Grub Error 18

Situation

Code Listing 6.1: Grub Output

kernel (hd1,4)/bzImage root=/dev/hdb7

Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds max supported by BIOS

Solution

This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general).

Try an update for your BIOS and/or move your boot partition to the front (or at least into the appropriate range).

Well I found another thing too.. Try to get into Bios and disable "IDE translation" or manually detect your HD instead of auto detect on boot.

Well I hope this helps.

[mumidadi]

Thanks alot i Dlted the Mint partition now using XP back again......i retried to install mint as dual boot with XP but no luck in installing as its Disk manager is now not showing any Drives

[muskratmx]

Sometimes, older drives (by older I mean used, not antics) get corrupted and have to be repaired with some disk utility. Ether windows works or linux works, but both won't work. I've had this happen before. My only remidy was to work the disk over with some disk tool, often times using several before the problem was fixed, but in the prosess all data was lost from the drive.

That error 18 is usually gotten when you try and load a system beyond the limits of your Bios. I have a box that won't boot partition past about 80gb and and using 160gb drive. The work around for this is partition a /boot partiton on the front of the drive (hda1 or hda2 if you have windoz), within your bios limits.

[mumidadi]

Thanks a lot Problem sloved