I just recently installed the latest version of Ubuntu on my computer. And it seems that there is absolutely no way for me to access it.
It's a frustrating matter, really. But there are a few red flags in this situation. First of all, when installing Ubuntu in the first place, it offered me no selection to choose which drive to install it on, going straight for my SSD that I wanted to leave reserved for Windows. But whatever, right? I just needed it so that I could play around with an old hard drive that I needed to do some work on. But then, after asking what language I wanted to install in, it went straight to the desktop, and the cursor went to the "waiting..." animation and stayed that way. After waiting for over fifteen minutes for anything to happen, or to be given any possible means of interfacing with the system (other than the three icons at the top - I'm new to Linux, but I feel like I should be given at least a little more control, or at least some direction), I got fed up and tried restarting. No use. Then 'Shut Down.' Nothing. Finally, reluctantly, I forced a hard reboot.
Now whenever I restart my system, GRUB does not appear with any boot options; instead, it just goes straight for Windows 8.1. I've tried using the Ubuntu installation disc I created to try and re-access the OS, but it does not offer any options beside installation. So now I have an inaccessible copy of Ubuntu floating on my SSD.
So I went ahead to try and uninstall. I've followed several guides, and all of them give the same instructions: 1) use the Command Prompt to repair MBD and drop GRUB (which appears to have worked) and 2) go through Computer Management and manually delete the partitions.
Except manually deleting the partitions does not seem to be an option. Two blank, non-NTSF partitions were listed in Disk Management, and only one had been given the option to be deleted. Upon attempting to delete it, it of course tells me it was not created by Windows and asks for my approval to continue. Upon my approval, it then says this:
"The partition Simple Volume is currently in use. To force the deletion of this partition, click Yes.
WARNING: Forcing a deletion might cause unexpected errors in the application that is using this partition. Do you want to continue?"
Clicking "Yes" leads to this:
"Delete is not allowed on the current boot, system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume."
I've pored through guide after guide, and none of them offer any support from this point. Every guide I read appears confident that I will be able to delete the partition with no troubles whatsoever. It seems to me that I have an unusual circumstance on my hands. And to make matters even worse, any options to delete the partitions have vanished, and the right-click menu is fully greyed-out.
Also, I should note, I have been having some...weirdness going on with my Gigabyte 970A-DS3P motherboard. It seems having too many USB devices plugged into my computer at the same time had caused my BIOS menu to load only partially or not at all, rendering it totally inaccessible, leading me to force a reboot. Research into this problem has led me to find a review here or there that says Linux does not so much agree with this motherboard. I'm not sure if that's relevant at all, and I have no idea how the motherboard would strongly affect the operation of Linux, but...there it is.
Any help I can get on this matter would be greatly appreciated. And if more hardware specs are needed, I will be happy to provide them. Thanks in advance!
It's a frustrating matter, really. But there are a few red flags in this situation. First of all, when installing Ubuntu in the first place, it offered me no selection to choose which drive to install it on, going straight for my SSD that I wanted to leave reserved for Windows. But whatever, right? I just needed it so that I could play around with an old hard drive that I needed to do some work on. But then, after asking what language I wanted to install in, it went straight to the desktop, and the cursor went to the "waiting..." animation and stayed that way. After waiting for over fifteen minutes for anything to happen, or to be given any possible means of interfacing with the system (other than the three icons at the top - I'm new to Linux, but I feel like I should be given at least a little more control, or at least some direction), I got fed up and tried restarting. No use. Then 'Shut Down.' Nothing. Finally, reluctantly, I forced a hard reboot.
Now whenever I restart my system, GRUB does not appear with any boot options; instead, it just goes straight for Windows 8.1. I've tried using the Ubuntu installation disc I created to try and re-access the OS, but it does not offer any options beside installation. So now I have an inaccessible copy of Ubuntu floating on my SSD.
So I went ahead to try and uninstall. I've followed several guides, and all of them give the same instructions: 1) use the Command Prompt to repair MBD and drop GRUB (which appears to have worked) and 2) go through Computer Management and manually delete the partitions.
Except manually deleting the partitions does not seem to be an option. Two blank, non-NTSF partitions were listed in Disk Management, and only one had been given the option to be deleted. Upon attempting to delete it, it of course tells me it was not created by Windows and asks for my approval to continue. Upon my approval, it then says this:
"The partition Simple Volume is currently in use. To force the deletion of this partition, click Yes.
WARNING: Forcing a deletion might cause unexpected errors in the application that is using this partition. Do you want to continue?"
Clicking "Yes" leads to this:
"Delete is not allowed on the current boot, system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume."
I've pored through guide after guide, and none of them offer any support from this point. Every guide I read appears confident that I will be able to delete the partition with no troubles whatsoever. It seems to me that I have an unusual circumstance on my hands. And to make matters even worse, any options to delete the partitions have vanished, and the right-click menu is fully greyed-out.
Also, I should note, I have been having some...weirdness going on with my Gigabyte 970A-DS3P motherboard. It seems having too many USB devices plugged into my computer at the same time had caused my BIOS menu to load only partially or not at all, rendering it totally inaccessible, leading me to force a reboot. Research into this problem has led me to find a review here or there that says Linux does not so much agree with this motherboard. I'm not sure if that's relevant at all, and I have no idea how the motherboard would strongly affect the operation of Linux, but...there it is.
Any help I can get on this matter would be greatly appreciated. And if more hardware specs are needed, I will be happy to provide them. Thanks in advance!
