PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

Hey gang. I got my MALIBAL Lotus P150HM yesterday. I haven't played with it til this morning (work lat night got in the way) Let me preface to say that this machine is beautiful. I made a wonderful decision. A full review will come later, perhaps after I fix this issue, hehe.

As the title states, I get this error when I boot from the main HDD.

Code:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

Before I continue, let me explain what I've done so far. I received the laptop without an OS and also opted out of the optical drive. I installed Ubuntu 11.04 via a live USB image, and was able to complete the install smoothly. I was able to see my HDD. I then rebooted but saw that screen. So I went into BIOS setup with F2. BIOS does recognize my drive. I rearranged to put it at #1 on the boot order.

And yes, I did do some searching. Here are some of the potential fixes:

check attachment of hdd (but Ubuntu was able to install to it, and BIOS sees it)
hit the hdd! (I don't want to use this. lol)
switch the hdd tothe optical bay

So....

Before I continue, any advice? I tried to call MALIBAL yesterday to say thanks, but your phone was disconnected/busy signal. And your chat was offline. So if you can chime in here that would be incredible. Thanks for any help I really want to use my laptop now!

ps. I am using a live Xubuntu USB right now, and it also recognizes my hdd and also the partitions I created when installing Ubuntu (boot, home, and root).

And here are some pictures:

 

That error message means it's attempting to boot from the network, but failing (obviously). PXE boot is a type of over the network Windows deployment service. If you don't have a server to run that, then it won't work.

As for your linux install, is your SSD in AHCI mode in bios? Is it definitely at the top of your boot order there? What happens if you try to boot from it with F7?

If none of that works, I'd guess that GRUB may not have installed correctly to your SSD and that's why it's not booting.

 

Thanks for responding.

The Network boot is 10th on the boot order. The main hd is listed 1st, as in the picture I posted. When I have a usb drive connected, it boots straight into that. So that means that the boot process is passing up on the hd.

Yes, it is in AHCI mode. I checked that first thing when this happened. Yes, it is on the top of the boot order (refer to first picture).

When I boot into it using F7, I get the same message. I get the options to boot from the Main HD (PO ST9750420AS), Sandisk (my USB drive), and Network. Selecting Sandisk works like a charm, but when I select the HDD (which is recognized) it gives me the error again.

I'm installing Windows 7 right now. So far so good. I have a feeling when I installed Ubuntu it didn't write to the mbr correctly during the grub-install.

 

okay. quick update. It was grub2's fault (or more correctly my fault). I installed grub2 to a partition, not the mbr, because that's how I did it before. But that was when I had a different bootloader (chameleon). I used dd to put the boot0 into the mbr boot sector and all is well. Thanks. Marked as Solved.