says GRUB at boot no menu ??

PB0711 · 05-05-2008, 07:58 PM

hello all, I'm really stumped by this one. It's one of those GRUB problems. I have a box which had some motherboard and memory problems. After Dell fixed it I loaded Suse 10.0 back up and instead it just said 'GRUB'. So I looked at '/boot/grub/menu.lst' Everything looked ok, but I reinstalled grub to the MBR. Still not working. After some playing, I decided to update the whole machine to 11.0 beta 1.
Even after a full fresh install I still get 'GRUB'. I've posted menu.lst below.

Thanks in advance

PB

Code:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue May  6 01:38:57 PDT 2008
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_Maxtor_7Y250M0_Y66D22XE-part2 resume=/dev/sda3 splash=silent showopts vga=0x31a
    initrd /initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
    rootnoverify (hd0,0)
    chainloader (fd0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_Maxtor_7Y250M0_Y66D22XE-part2 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume edd=off x11failsafe vga=0x31a
    initrd /initrd

syg00 · 05-05-2008, 08:21 PM

Let's see the output from "fdisk -l" (that's a lower case ell - you might need sudo/root)

PB0711 · 05-07-2008, 02:00 PM

Ok here we go. I also did an 'fsck' on the drive to check that all was ok.

Code:

linux:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00005c1f

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          32      257008+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2              33        6560    52436160   83  Linux
/dev/sda3            6561        7213     5245222+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4            7214       30394   186201382+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x40de40dd

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       30393   244131741   83  Linux
linux:~ #

syg00 · 05-07-2008, 04:37 PM

I think I mis-understood - can you boot o.k. (to the default) system, but not see a menu ???.
I was thinking you couldn't boot at all.

Might be the splash - either comment it out, or hit the <Esc> key when the grub prompt is showing.

PB0711 · 05-07-2008, 05:27 PM

i can't boot at all no menu.lst no nothing.

all it says is GRUB

I've put the live linux disk in to mount the drives and look at the GRUB settings and all looked ok but still it doesn't work

Paul

Larry Webb · 05-07-2008, 06:18 PM

Change root to (hd0,1)

PB0711 · 05-13-2008, 01:56 PM

umm tried that still doesn't work.

Sorry it takes some time to be able to get access to the box.

Larry Webb · 05-13-2008, 03:33 PM

There is a couple of ways I can suggest, one download the 'Super Grub' and burn. It will automatically boot any system you have that is bootable. Or you can go to here and follow some of the booting tips

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144294

PB0711 · 05-14-2008, 08:16 PM

Booting into the system isn't my problem. Its that GRUB doens't load. Just says GRUB nothing else. Which of course means that I can't load the system but thats easy once GRUB loads. I don't see the menu from menu.lst so changing it won't help.

Ive try moving the boot place from MBR to root partition and all that jazz. Still no were

Any help would be great.

Paul

yancek · 05-14-2008, 08:43 PM

Is sda1 a separate boot partition? You have four Linux partitions, are they just data (/home...) partitions? Which one has the root partition?
Your last post is confusing..."Booting into the system isn't my problem" followed two lines later by "I can't load the system..."

Your menu.lst entry won't work unless sda1 is a boot partition and you have all the necessary files there. It's too small to have your OS.

syg00 · 05-14-2008, 11:40 PM

From the liveCD, try this

Code:

sudo grub
geometry (hd0) 
geometry (hd1)
find /boot/grub/stage2
find /grub/stage2
quit

PB0711 · 05-16-2008, 12:33 PM

Umm find didn't work

Code:

grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 30394/255/63, The number of sectors = 488281250, /dev/sda
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 1,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 2,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
   Partition num: 3,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 30394/255/63, The number of sectors = 488281250, /dev/sdb
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is reiserfs, partition type 0x83

grub> find /boot/grub/stage2

Error 15: File not found

grub> find /grub/stage2

Error 15: File not found

grub>