Clevo M570U, Linux XP dualboot and the missing DVD Drive

This post will hopefully save some hair for those who are having difficulties with XP and Ubuntu 7.04/7.10 (or maybe even Grub in general) on their M570U machine. This tutorial may not apply to other Linux distribs or versions of Windows newer than Windows XP. This tutorial may require a basic knowledge of Ubuntu. If you are a complete novice with Linux then you may want to check a Linux based forum. If you are afraid of wiping the contents of your hard drive you may not want to dabble with Linux

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So, you've taken the plunge into Linux, and set up a dual boot installation. Great! Except you may have noticed that in doing so your DVD drive has vanished from your machine in both Linux and XP.

Grub is known not to play nice with certain laptops. Missing DVD drives is one thing. Sound cards not working anymore is another.

However there is a solution, called Lilo! Lilo is an alternative method for booting your machine. It is a little more troublesome to set up than Grub but with a little patience you can have your machine set up correctly.

For the purposes of this example I will explain the hard drive partitioning of my machine, and the installation order I user. I will also try to put extra comments to highlight when your configuration may need tweaking. Furthermore you will want to be connected to the internet for this installation. I am not 100% sure that Lilo is provided on the Ubuntu 7.10 CD.

First of all I installed XP. During the installation process I removed all the partitions from my 100Gb hard drive and created a 60Gb NTFS partition. You may want to proceed differently depending on your hard drive.

Proceed with installing XP. Once XP is nice and happy take your Ubuntu 7.10 CD and boot from that. When the CD has finished booting and you get your (blurry) desktop click the Install button. When you reach the subsection that asks how you want to partition your hard drive click "Manual Partitioning" followed by next.

Note : The installation process may hang here. If it does then cancel it, unplug any external hard drives you may have connected on the USB ports and start again.

Once you have clicked next a box will appear with a list of partitions and free space available. Note the Device of your Windows partition. This should be /dev/sda1. You will need this later.

Set up your drives however you wish, keeping in mind the device name of the root partition (the one that mounts at / ). You will need this later as well. For my machine I created a swap partition (4Gb, /dev/sda2), followed by a /home partition (8Gb, /dev/sda3) and finally the root partition (the rest, /dev/sda4).

Finish up the installation. When you reach the last step do not uncheck the box where Ubuntu says it will install the boot loader. When Ubuntu has finished installing reboot into Linux.

When you have reached your Linux desktop you may want to check to see if your DVD drive is available. If it is you don't need to proceed with the rest because you're a lucky person and didn't have the problem I did with my machine! Otherwise you will need to open the Synaptic Package Manager. From there search for lilo and install it (it will also ask you to install mbr).

Note: To do this from a terminal type the following command - sudo apt-get install lilo

When lilo has finished installing open a terminal session and type - sudo gedit /etc/lilo.conf . We will need to give LILO the location of certains files and partitions, and it is where you will need the device names we wrote down earlier. First I will put a paste of my lilo configuration file. You may want to copy paste this into your text editor and only tweak as necessary:

Code:

boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
prompt
timeout=50
default=Linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic
        label=Linux
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
        read-only
        root=/dev/sda4

other=/dev/sda1
        label=Windows

The first line boot= defines which partition LILO will boot from. I placed it inside the MBR hence /dev/sda (instead of /dev/sda1). Unless you know what you're doing do not touch this value.

The second line map= defines what file LILO will use to store the geometry of your hard drive. /boot/map is a safe enough place to put it. LILO will generate this file for you during the final installation process.

The third line vga= defines the framebuffer LILO will use to display text. The setting "normal" isn't as pretty as when Ubuntu installs during GRUB but I'll take a working DVD player over pretty boot screens any day.

The fourth line prompt will tell LILO to display a page where you may select between Linux and Windows to boot from. Without this line you will get a blank screen while the timeout runs down, before it will boot to a default device.

Note: If during the boot process after installing LILO all you see is something along the lines of "LILO 22.8" on the screen and nothing else that may mean the prompt line is missing. Press up or down on your cursor keys and the menu should pop up. If it doesn't and the computer hands there despite any keyboard mashing you may need to reinstall the boot record from either Ubuntu (to recover your Linux boot) or your Windows installation CD (to say screw it to Linux).

The fifth line timeout= defines how many tenths of a second LILO will wait before booting to the default OS.

The sixth line default= defines the default OS.

Now we get to the harder part.

The next subsection defines your Linux installation.

The line image= defines where the linuz vmlinuz file is. You can typically go to /boot and look for any file beginning with vmlinuz. Depending on your version of Linux this may be different. If you are unsure what yours is open a terminal and type - cd /boot/ - Followed by - ls

The line label= defines the text label used by Lilo in the boot menu. This will also be the identifier for the default line. This text field may not contain any spaces. (at least, in my experience it can't).

The line initrd defines a temporary file system Linux uses during booting. You will typically find it under /boot. It will be the file starting with initrd.img, that does not end with .bak. If you are unsure what yours is open a terminal and type - cd /boot/ - Followed by - ls

The line read-only is a flag. I don't know the full details of this line. My advice is to leave it where it is.

The line root= defines the root device, the location of your root partition. This is where you put the /dev/sdaX value your system has. Mine was /dev/sda4. If you created your root partition first during the Ubuntu installation process after installing XP it could be /dev/sda2. If you are unsure of what yours is open a terminal and type - df - The df command will give you information on the partitions of your linux installation. Look for the Filesystem on the line that is defined as being Mounted on / .

Next we will define the subsection for Windows. This is much simpler than the Linux one.

The line other= defines the boot partition of your other OS. In my case this is /dev/sda1, the first partition.

The line label= defines what text will be display for it.

Once you are happy with your configuration file save it and close the text editor. Next in your terminal type - sudo liloconfig

If everything has gone well so far you will be asked if you want to "Install a boot block using your current LILO configuration?". If it doesn't ask this question you did not save your file at /etc/lilo.conf . Press enter to confirm that yes, you do. Press OK on the next window. You should get the following text (or something similar):

Code:

LILO version 22.8, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
Development beyond version 21 Copyright (C) 1999-2006 John Coffman
Released 19-Feb-2007, and compiled at 11:59:25 on Aug 10 2007
Ubuntu

Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Reading boot sector from /dev/sda
Using MENU secondary loader
Calling map_insert_data

Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic
Mapping RAM disk /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
Added Linux *

Boot other: /dev/sda1, on /dev/sda, loader CHAIN
Added Windows

Writing boot sector.
One warning was issued.

And there we go! Reboot into either Linux or Windows and your DVD drive should have returned!

If this doesn't work for you post whatever error message you have and I'll see if I can help you when I check back in

 

Thank you so much for posting this, even if it doesn't work for me. Sometime after installing a dual boot XP Ubuntu 7.10 i lost my DVD drive as you said and have been going crazy with the normal fixes in registry and whatnot when a cd/dvd drive goes missing from windows. (Sager NP5760)

Once i have some free time i will go through this fix and let you know if it also worked for me.

 

Great guide, thanks for posting!

 

DUDE! You don't know how happy this makes me feel. My DVD drive was a gonner, and I was complaining about it for ages and ages. I do have a few questions though:

What if I have Vista? Should be the same, right?

And is this going to be the same with like Fedora? [I'll be using Ubuntu, but like I want to have 2 different distros - Ubuntu on my [to-be] EEE and Fedora on my desktop.

Thanks a lot, sir!

[My apologies if you happen to be female, but I'm quite sure you aren't ]

 

Nice guide. Was planning on slappin Ubuntu when I get my 5791. Thanks for the info pal

 

Amol, let know if it works out for you, k?

 

Awesome, quick, easy, and painless fix. I think i love GuruMeditation.

 

I hear wedding bells already!

 

*looks at scooberdoober's avatar; reads it out loud; types it out*



GuruMeditation, I'll install Ubuntu, umm, tonight. And let you know

*gets to work on clearing space*

 

Amol, I hope this works out for you; looking forward to hearing back from you!

 

Deng, should've printed out his post.



Oh well. I'll start my journey before midnight. Oh I know what I'll do. I'll make a word document or a pdf and load it up on my PSP. This is so much work, lol.

Edit: Or I could be lazy and take screenshots, which I could load on to a PSP. Hah.

 

Status: Just started the journey

Enemies ran into: Wireless not working.

I'd like to start by saying sorry for the double post. Here's a summary of encounters =]

Note: Using Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon x64.
Installed going fine, wireless not working.

Details: It detects my Intel 3945abg without any glitch. Getting it to connect to a network is a problem since I don't think I have the wpa assistant package [forgot the name] installed.

Will update post with related info if I make headway.

 

Thanks for the update!

 

Alrighty, figured out that it has something to do with WPA, since it's seeing my neighbour's connection perfectly [and that's WEP, AFAIK]. wpasupplicant is something that I have no idea on how to install manually [no sudo apt-get goodness ; ; ]

I won't be posting about on how I managed to troubleshoot this problem, since I'm sharing flamenko's thread Folks in need of help can hit that link

Edit: Temporarily(?) fixed internet troubles. Will work on the rest later =]

 

Alright, I followed this guide. Hopefully everything went fine. I'm going to cross my fingers when I reboot =P

 

Fingers, meh, I'm crossing my toes!

 

It Works!

 

Your fingers or my toes?

That's awesome!

 

Now I don't wanna remove Linux Mint, because it's all configured and stuff; except it has no internet

[Well I did update the whole install using MintUpdate; maybe there's a difference. We'll see when I get home.]

 

Next try Frugalware, the server is up!

 

Lol. We'll see

 

Sorry for not getting back to this sooner Didn't subscribe to thread.

Glad to see this saved some peoples hair I just re-used it myself with Vista Home Premium so yes, it will work with Vista.