I run a triple boot system: Mint 17, 18.3 and Windows 10 on a self-assembled desktop PC.

I have a constant problem on startup. I get a screen that says Grub cannot find my master drive and offers up rescue mode. Has anyone got any ideas what is causing this?

I have not changed any settings and the only thing I have done recently is to update my Mint 17 software.

i'm gonna guess that grub reinstalled and had a different device name. a grub howto will show you how to boot by hand from the grub prompt.

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Define "constant" - 100% of the time, or intermittently. How do you proceed to a usable system ?.
How many disks are involved - are any external (USB) disks ?. Go here, and do as it says, then post the RESULTS.txt

try plugging in or removing an external drive before booting and see if the grub rescue goes away.

Hello, Gemmstone4291

I had a similar problem but not caused the same way. For you, you said "after upgrade"; for me, it was "after new install".

In fact, I can still MAKE the problem happen because I managed a "work-around" - and haven't bothered to sort it out yet.

I believe it happens (for me, at least) because I installed distros with grub boot on the partitions on a UEFI booting system.

For me, the work-around is to immediately press ESC at boot. This drops me into the BIOS boot screen. I can choose one of the installed distros (for me, Antix, MX, ROSA (not Mint Rosa - ROSA10), Windows).

One of the distros will take me to it's GRUB boot list. From that list I can choose any distro to boot.

That Grub will auto-boot without problem from then on.

(If I pick a badly configured grub boot it will give me the Grub rescue error, just as you describe.)

No arguments from Members about this as a solution. This is only a work-around that works consistently - until some other measure can be applied.

Hope this helps.
boombaby

Thanks for the advice everyone.

My workaround is to select F12 (Gigabyte board) enter BIOS and re-select the PM drive. In effect I do not change anything, save and reboot.....this seems to work.

This morning I have switched on my PC and it has gone to the Grub menu as normal.

Colorpurple21859 & Boombaby - Your point re: USB is a good one. I did have a USB card and reader attached last week, so this might have had something to do with it. I'll monitor it and let you know how it goes - thanks.

When you install a second Linux distro to bare metal, do not install grub. Rather, after the install, boot into the first Linux and run 'update-grub'. That will put the new Linux in the boot menu of grub.

Otherwise, each distro will be messing around with grub on upgrades.