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I am a complete novice so please don't give a highly technical answer.

I tried to install 14.04.1 LTS on my laptop. I used Windows 7 as OS. I tried to install the option Ubuntu alongside Windows. I did not install Ubuntu on my laptop's hard drive but on an external 1TB hard drive.

The installation completed successfully and message came that I must restart the machine to be able to use Ubuntu.

At first the machine did not turn off. It said something like

"Could not acquire the 'org.freedesktop.ModemManager' service name'.

It just froze on that black screen and I physically had to reboot again.

Then when it started up, it got to a screen which said:

error:no such device: b788941c-14b1-41c8- . . Other numbers. . . . Entering rescue mode . . . Grub rescue . . .

It seems that is waiting for an instruction

What should I do? I was hoping to be able to use any of the two systems Windows or Ubuntu depending on choice, but now I can't even log on to my old Windows system!!

Please help.

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  • First of all is your external hard-drive connected to the system? and where was old windows os installed on external hard-drive or internal?
    – Chinmaya B
    Jul 18, 2016 at 4:28
  • Thanks! Yes it is connected. The old OS was on the internal hd
    – Ett
    Jul 18, 2016 at 6:46

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Try out this method

  1. Boot up using a live CD.
  2. Open a terminal using Ctrl + Alt + T

  3. Type the following commands in order.

     sudo -s

 apt-add-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair

 apt-get update

 apt-get install boot-repair

 exit

 boot-repair

  4. When it asks to choose in which device you want to install grub, choose the internal hard drive(i.e. sda)

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  • Thanks for trying. I got as far as your second line and it said that the PPA name is not correct. When I changed "yannububtu" to "yannubuntu" it gave an error saying "need a single repository as argument"?
    – Ett
    Jul 18, 2016 at 8:16
  • Hi Ceda, can you please try to help me further? Tx
    – Ett
    Jul 18, 2016 at 13:58
  • I am sorry for the wrong ppa. I have edited the command .... Please retry
    – Ceda EI
    Jul 18, 2016 at 18:32
  • Hi Ceda, I am still trying but can't get past the 2nd instruction.I type it in exactly as you say, but it then says "cannot add PPA:'ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair'. Please check that the PPA name or format is correct. What am I doing wrong?
    – Ett
    Jul 20, 2016 at 13:22
  • Is the computer/laptop connected to Internet while you are doing so? It is necessary to connect to internet since the repository lies on an external server.
    – Ceda EI
    Jul 20, 2016 at 17:48
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[insert face palm here] When you installed it to the external hard drive a bunch of other stuff (boot files) were on the external drive. So now your boot is messed up. In order to fix this you need some kind of windows recovery drive where you can boot to a console. Then refer to this helpful thread for help on fixing the MBR: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1335353 You can create a recovery drive from a windows PC on windows 10 (I'm not sure about other versions)

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  • Thank you very much. I will try this if nothing else works?
    – Ett
    Jul 18, 2016 at 6:53
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It is possible that if you power on your machine USB external hard drive has not spined right away, BIOS did not recognized it and it is skipped on starting your computer.

On installation of Ubuntu you have rebooted computer and was not powered off. Same happened to external disc - it was not powered off.

In that case you can on first power on computer and error error:no such device: b788941c-14b1-41c8- . . Other numbers. . . . Enetering rescue mode . . . Grub rescue . . ., wait for few seconds and try to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete. When BIOS starts hold Shift key to get to GRUB menu.

In the GRUB menu you will probably have option to select Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 7.

To repair windows 7 boot it is best option to repair Windows 7 boot with Windows 7 DVD

  1. Power off computer
  2. Unplug external hard disk
  3. Insert Windows 7 DVD
  4. Boot from Windows 7 DVD
  5. Follow this instructions to repair boot from Windows 7 DVD
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  • Thanks for trying to help. I did as you suggested and got to a menu after pressing esc. BIOS setup is F10 on that menu. Is that where I had to be? Pressing the shift key has no effect there
    – Ett
    Jul 18, 2016 at 6:50
  • No, I think this is BIOS menu. You need to get somehow to GRUB menu (screen has usually purple background) with booting options for installed operating system which is accessed with SHIFT key. If you have Windows 7 DVD at your disposal I would suggest you to repair Windows 7 boot with Windows 7 DVD.
    – iuuuuan
    Jul 18, 2016 at 7:21

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