I made a mistake it seems...

My xubuntu (feisty) booted very slowly, so I decided to look at the logs while booting. I founf out that one could enable that function through changing "/boot/grub/menu.lst". So what i changed was that I deleted the end "quiet splash" from the row starting with "kernel". This was suposed to do a boot showing the whole process...

But instead I am now stuck at GRUB (Stage1.5?). Instead of seeing the GURB menu I am shown a grub-terminal saying "[Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word... ]"

If I type boot (ahead of the "grub>") I get "Error 8: Kernel must be loaded before booting.

I have tried "kernel /vmlinuz root=hda1", "boot" but although this starts alots of procesess it is infinite... in the beginning of these infinite messages it says somethign about hda1 being incorrect "VFS: Cannot open root device "hda1"...", "Please append a correct "root=" boot option"

Help please...

Removing the words 'quiet' and 'splash', or replacing 'splash' with 'nosplash', should not do harm for your boot stuff. To me it looks like there is something else wrong with your GRUB config, or then you've got some serious problems with your kernel (like it not existing at all..)

If you can (for example by using a live-cd, mounting your /boot from the harddisk to some directory and opening menu.lst), could you paste the contents of your current /boot/grub/menu.lst from your harddisk?

Another option is to run grub-update which should automatically try to find the bootable systems and configure the menu.lst file.

Think you have deleted the "root" statement which tells Grub where to find the kernel.

If you do not know how to resolve it post the following information here

(1) Output of "fdisk -l"

(2) List the content of /boot/grub/menu.lst

i dont have any live-cd.. installed through netboot...

how can i read /boot/grub/menu.lst from grub? cannot do "fdisk -l" anyways... but by doing "find /vmlinuz" i get "(hd0,0)" which should be hda1... isnt that the root?

Very troublesome this... might have to reinstall eveyrhting again..

OK, it sound you still have a Grub prompt.

In a Grub prompt you can boot any operating system that has ever been invented on a PC. This is a big statement but here is how it work just for the Linux.

You can ask Grub to display any text file like
if you use a /boot partition, otherwise add "/boot" after "(hd0,0)".

You can type in the every line manually as displayed by the menu.lst to boot the system manually!

Basically every Linux will boot in a Grub prompt by

(1) A "root" statement specified the root of the Linux. If you are not sure it is the first partition with Type 83 if you do "geometry (hd0)" in a Grub prompt. It sound "root (hd0,0)" will work for you.

(2) A "kernel" specifying which kernel to be used and what parameters to be passed. You can type the exact line as displayed by the menu.lst

(3) Optionally a "initrd" statement. Just type the same line if it is in menu.lst

(4) Lastly in manual booting you need one extra statement "boot" as the green light for Grub to fire up the Linux. There is no parameter for the "boot" statement.

thanks saikee, that was very good info, but im afraid it didnt work for me... i get "file not found" when trying to reach menu.lst and I have tried many differnet ways to access that file. Im suspecting that I somehow deleted the file when trying to change it. And haveing deleted that file Im quite sure it will be quite difficult to boot into my os ...

unless someone gives me a miracolous tip, I will netboot a new installation of xubuntu... i have not given up yet... every time i have been forced to reinstall i have learnt somehting new... and reinstalling is actually almost becoming an easy and smooth process now.. including stuff as installing sound cards manually which was terrifying earlier

again, thanks to everyone for the help

if there is no menu.lst then you could fire up a KNOPPIX livecd and make one

Have a look at the last link of my signature as it has information to boot the unbootable (nearly).

You don't need menu.lst to boot a Linux if you have a Grub prompt!

Task G2 of the above link refers. You adjust your case in the "green" bits by using the tap key.

For example if you type in a Grub prompt
and then hit the tap key Grub will go into /boot to find all files that match "vmlinuz-" and ask you to select one.

Use Grub. Make the bugger work for you!

THANKS saikee!!

Was just about to reinstall xubuntu when i checked by the forum. Your solution worked!! although I had some trouble to get the initrd thingy right...

So now I am in my system... I just checked the menu.lst file and it is there, but it is messed up... all chinese symbols i suspect that when i saved it (not using terminal) it might have edited the format somehow, dont know... any good way to recover the file...

unless i misremember there wasnt very much (uncommented) text... i assume half the text was just what i wrote in GRUB... any help would be most useful.

Thanks again!

Let's think positive.

You now know how to boot Xubuntu manually right?

The instructions in menu.lst are the very manual instructions you would have to use any way. Therefore you have already invented the menu.lst yourself!

Just remember

(1) The differences between automatic booting by menu.lst and manually are

(a) with menu.lst you are booting potentially more than one system so a "title" statement is needed to identify which one.

(b) In manual booting you always finish with the command "boot" which can be omitted in menu.lst

(2) The menu.lst created by the installer may be the optimum way to load the Linux. There is no harm to follow it but you don't need menu.lst to survive.

Let me give you one last bit of advice. With a Grub prompt there is no PC system that Grub cannot boot! So make a bootable Grub flopy or CD and kiss your booting problems good bye.