Grub 15 Error after a PCLinuxOS 2007 Install

Ongeboren · 06-16-2007, 11:15 PM

ok, so I made a choice and installed PCLinuxOS 2007.

the installation went pretty smoothly

the partitions I made were

/ (10 Gb)
/home (15 Gb)
/swap (700 Mb)

and then, when I restarted the computer after the installation ended, pulling out the cd, it won't load anything telling me about this "GRUB 15 Error".

so I cannot boot my Windoze either, i can only boot via the PClinuxOS Live CD.

Help please

Simon Bridge · 06-17-2007, 03:42 AM

Grub Error List

Quote:

15 : "Error while parsing number"

This error is returned if GRUB was expecting to read a number and encountered bad data.

... check /boot/grub/menu.lst (you'll need to use the live PC, mount the linux partitions and hunt. chroot can be handy here) If you get lost, post the file here.

Ongeboren · 06-17-2007, 11:12 AM

I just ran my Ubuntu live cd and tried to mount them without any success :s

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ fdisk

Usage: fdisk [-l] [-b SSZ] [-u] device
E.g.: fdisk /dev/hda  (for the first IDE disk)
  or: fdisk /dev/sdc  (for the third SCSI disk)
  or: fdisk /dev/eda  (for the first PS/2 ESDI drive)
  or: fdisk /dev/rd/c0d0  or: fdisk /dev/ida/c0d0  (for RAID devices)
  ...
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ mount /dev/hda1
mount: can't find /dev/hda1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ mount /dev/hda2
mount: can't find /dev/hda2 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ mount /dev/hda5
mount: can't find /dev/hda5 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

and for the second operation you mentioned.. i dont even now how to execute it .

Simon Bridge · 06-17-2007, 11:43 AM

You will find the documentation handy.
man fdisk
man mount

So, from the root terminal in ubuntu live...

fdisk -l

(lists your partitions)

if the / (root) partition is the second on the primary master drive, then the mount command is:

mkdir /mnt/sda2
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2

chroot /mnt/sda2
(this relabels /mnt/sda2 to /)

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

without the chroot (change root) command, you need to do:

cat /mnt/sda2/boot/grub/menu.lst

... which some people find harder to visualize.

Ongeboren · 06-17-2007, 12:38 PM

thanks sir, doing well up to now, did what you say and got this after the <cat /boot/grub/menu.lst> command.

Code:

# Start GRUB global section
timeout 10
#color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Linux on (/dev/hda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
title --- For help press 'c', type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title --- For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/grub.txt'
root (hd0)bash-3.1# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

what should I do now ?

edit : when I open the file with
<gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst>

the list is empty

Ongeboren · 06-17-2007, 02:19 PM

*Problem Resolved*

after having further problems with it, I re-installed the PCLinuxOS and chose for the Lilo Boot Loader this time, and it runs !! Finally.

I had never had problems , back when I was using slackware with my Lilo, and on the same time, I've had GRUB problems on my Ubuntu... so what my conclusion is, is that LILO is more stable than GRUB (simple observation )

Simon Bridge, thanks for your input