Operating System not Found after installing Ubuntu in a Sony Vaio

Question

I just bought a Sony Vaio SVS15115FLB that came with Windows 7, after enjoying the PC graphic power for a little, I decided it was time to install Ubuntu 12.04.

First, I inserted a USB stick, reboot, press F11 but a message saying that no OS was found on the USB, so then I used a live CD. It booted fine and I installed Ubuntu, then when it was time to restart the PC, it didn't boot to GRUB but it went straight to Windows and it began an startup error and was looking for a solution, after it was done, it restarted and then it booted again to Windows and to the same start up error solution thing.

I freaked out, so I booted again the Ubuntu live CD, and installed Ubuntu over everything, after it installed I rebooted and then a message appeared saying Operating system Not Found, and I have no idea why. So I Googled again and found this post on Boot Partition, I did everything exactly on that post, but it didn't work (by the way, this was the message):

The boot files of [Ubuntu 12.04 LTS] are far from the start of the disk. 
Your BIOS may not detect them. You may want to retry after creating a /boot partition (EXT4, >200MB, start of the disk). 
This can be performed via tools such as gParted. 
Then select this partition via the [Separate /boot partition:] option of [Boot Repair].

It appeared the first time, then I did it all again and then it was gone. I rebooted and nothing, the same Operating System not found message appeared. So I decided to create a partition for Windows, hoping for something, but the message still appears.

I really have no idea what to do, but there is something odd, if I insert the USB stick containing Ubuntu 11.10, the message that says that there is no OS in the PendDrive flashes for a fraction of a second and the boot straight to Ubuntu 12.04 without problems (and booted to Windows when I installed it, ignoring Ubuntu), right now I'm using it like that, but its pretty annoying.

Can anyone advise me how to fix this? I'm no expert on this kind of things (boot, GRUB, recovery and stuff like that).

Solution

You have confused an installation with the Pendrive (your usb stick). Rather than going through technical details, I'll simply suggest that you eliminate the USB drive for now (unplug it) and work with a live CD only. Your installation will then place grub on the correct drive (one of hour hard drives found during installation which is normally sda unless you've used a bio option to boot to a different from the first hard drive).

A fresh install will then boot without having the USB plugged in. If you've done work and have configurations or data you want to save on your current Ubuntu installation you can use a grub recovery procedure to boot to your preferred installation.

Fix grup boot:

1) boot to the Ubuntu installation disk
2) Run the "Try Ubuntu" option
3) Bring up a terminal (Launch search "terminal")
4) Run these commands (exactly):

    a) sudo mount /dev/sdaX /mnt  # Make "X" the partition that has Ubuntu installed (i.e. /dev/sda2).
    b) for i in /sys /proc /run /dev; do sudo mount --bind "$i" "/mnt/$i"; done
    c) sudo chroot /mnt
    d) update-grub
    e) if no errors skip this "e" section
        grub-install /dev/sdX (x is the hard drive that has linux installed (i.e. /dev/sda)
        update-grub
5) Reboot the system

Comments

[Admin]

Is this problem still affecting you?

[diego8arock]

sorry bro, no help, i got this message Could not find device for /boo: Not found or not a block device.

[guiverc]

installing win7 is a huge (as in long & painful) job to achieve it. there are faster & easier routes.