Grub error 17

[Black_Orchid]

Hope you guys can help, I have a maxtor hard drive which had a linux OS on it
when starting comp up it came up with a Graphical error, so i decided to reformatt. now when switching on my comp it gets to

Grub loading stage 1.5

Grub loading please wait

error 17

and thats as far as it goes, any ideas how to sort this out?

Answers in noob terms please :D

Thanks in Advance

B_O

[stumbles]

17 : Cannot mount selected partition
This error is returned if the partition requested exists, but the filesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB.

[Raoul_Duke]

Hope you guys can help, I have a maxtor hard drive which had a linux OS on it
when starting comp up it came up with a Graphical error, so i decided to reformatt. now when switching on my comp it gets to

Grub loading stage 1.5

Grub loading please wait

error 17

and thats as far as it goes, any ideas how to sort this out?

Answers in noob terms please :D

Thanks in Advance

B_O

What did you reformat and how?

It sounds like GRUB (the boot loader) can't find your Linux partition. But if you've 'formatted' that partition it wouldn't be there.

Need more info I'm afraid.

[Black_Orchid]

I formatted both drives through disk managment, there are two partitions on the drive. im looking to put windows xp onto this drive. what info do you need? if i attach the drive as a slave drive it recognised & says to be working fine, but i want to install windows onto it.

[Raoul_Duke]

I formatted both drives through disk managment, there are two partitions on the drive. im looking to put windows xp onto this drive. what info do you need? if i attach the drive as a slave drive it recognised & says to be working fine, but i want to install windows onto it.

If you want to install Windows on it, just run the Windows installer as normal....it should overwrite whatever is on the drive. The GRUB error is a leftover from the linux install.....however you formatted the disc, it didn't wipe the MBR. A clean windows install, however, should work quite happily :)

[crow2icedearth]

grub tends to have this stupid mbr error when reinstalling... i usually get ride of it when installing by installing grub to the master boot record.....

[saikee]

The "format" instruction is to wipe the filing system clean because every formatting command is file-specific.

Grub has been booting the system so it has its stage1 sitting comfortably in the MBR hardcoded to the Linux partition.

Once the Linux partition has been formatted then there is nothing for Grub to mount so the error 17 is obvious.

There is no problem at all because if another operating system were installed then the MBR will be automatically overwritten.

Why complain about a Grub error if you have nuked it home?

Formatting a partition never touches its boot sector and MBR is the boot sector of the first partition.

[Black_Orchid]

If you want to install Windows on it, just run the Windows installer as normal....it should overwrite whatever is on the drive. The GRUB error is a leftover from the linux install.....however you formatted the disc, it didn't wipe the MBR. A clean windows install, however, should work quite happily :)

But how do i get rid of the grub error, when i start my comp it only gets as far as the grub error then stops? I've put the windows disk in but it wont install?

[saikee]

To restore Windows MBR, thereby overwriting Grub, Task B1 or B2 of the last link of my signature refers.

You don't install Windows. You just use the "fixmbr" program of the installation CD in recovery console (terminal mode) or the fdisk.exe from a bootable floppy.