Laptop sabotaged by Grandson

Linux Support
1

My wife lent her laptop out and it WAS a dual boot, her Grandson rather nicely did something to it so that it wouldn’t work and now has done something to Ubuntu so that he doesn’t have to do any homework as he is always skiving off school (but that’s another story).

This is the screen I get on switching the laptop on. What can I do to fix it, if that’s at all possible!

                                       GNU GRUB version 1.99-12ubuntu5
Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions.

grub>

2

Try this link I have used this to sort out the boot menu on a number of computers.
http://martinwebster.eu/2011/04/28/how-to-restore-grub-bootloader-on-linux-mint-10/

3

Thanks for that, I will have to buy a USB Stick before I can do this as the laptop doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive, I used my mobile’s 2GB mem stick with an adapter when I installed Ubuntu and boy was that a ball-ache to do, I dont want to keep re-formatting my mem stick every time.

4

Mint!
Will it sort out mine, Ubuntu?

5

What you need is the boot cd or in your case the boot usb stick as it allows you to rebuild your Grub file on the lap top.

Mint is based on Ubuntu. The process is the same I have both mint 10 and Ubuntu 11.4 and it has worked on both systems.

6

So… what I need to do is create the install/boot USB stick I used to install it like I did the first time?

7

No you need to download the Grub recovery disk from http://martinwebster.eu/2011/04/28/how-to-restore-grub-bootloader-on-linux-mint-10/

Boot from the USB with the Grub recovery on it and then try the instructions - http://martinwebster.eu/2011/04/28/how-to-restore-grub-bootloader-on-linux-mint-10/

The GRUB disk can tell you what operating systems are on the computer and rebuild the Grub boot record. then you should be able to boot as normal. Always provided he did nothing to the operating systems.

8

I have just updated my duel boot laptop and after a reboot it has come up with the same. I am hoping that the same grub bootloader will sort mine out. I will be buying some recordable cd’s or dvd’s in the morning.

9

It should do, it sorted out my problem, when I made the mistake of installing Windows after Linux. It should always be Windows then Linux on a Duel Boot.

10

On this one, it’s now not got any internet connection, it WAS wireless but now it will not connect on bootup.
What info is needed to check settings?
Any help much appreciated.

11

What’s the return from:

ifconfig wlan0
12

link encap@Ethernet HWaddr 90:00:4e:82:bb:60
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

that’s all.

13

What’s the output from:

sudo lshw -C network

?

14

Does your laptop find the network?

15

First line is network DISABLED
Then it tells me everything about it.
Will send rest in a min, just gotta sort out my phone mem card and put in a usb adapter for the laptop

16

Here’s the info

17

you’ll need to run:

service network-manager start

to enable it.

18

Got all this…
Did it start?

19

Sorry that’s my fault.

sudo serivce network-manager start
20

just done a reboot and typed the above in and it now says
start: job is already running: network-manager

What’s next?