I have already posted this on the Mageia forums but I am posting it here as well to see if someone can help sort out what is going on!

On Friday I deleted 2 partitions on my 240Gb SSD - via Partition Manager #14 Free on my Windows 7 64 bit system - well I thought I deleted 2, looks like I only deleted one! I was using these as Mageia Test partitions. I needed to expand my /home partition on my usual Mageia #4 system as I was running out of space. So I deleted - what turns out to be only 1 partition of about 7Gb - and expanded my /home to be 37Gb. I must admit I wasn't keeping an eye on whether the boundary was on a 4K or not, but I would have thought that PM #14 would look after that. Here is the current partition of my SSD:

Present Partition Map -


Anyway, I re-booted and GRUB failed to boot my normal Mageia system. I was horrified, I should have just left well enough alone! So I re-booted with the Mageia DVD and selected "re-install bootloader". This failed with:



So I tried a re-install of the system to /root hoping the install of the bootloader in that process might fix things - NO.

So I re-booted with the Mageia DVD and selected "reinstall Windows bootloader". Now GRUB doesn't even get a look in and my system just boots into Windows.

Going on the GRUB Error 17 messages it looks as though GRUB is trying to boot from (hd0,4). I thought partitions started at "0", so this looks GRUB is trying to boot the undeleted/unused/left-over-from-Mageia-Test /swap partition with an unrecognisable filesystem of "0x5"! Would that be correct????

This is what TestDisk finds on my SSD:

Mageia_Root doesn't have an " * " in front of it so this indicates it's not bootable?????? Why???

BUT, the interesting thing I discovered yesterday - accessing the newly re-installed Mageia in the /root partition from within Windows - is this located in /boot/grub/menu.lst:

Notice that Mageia is supposed to boot from (hd0,4) which is the partition listed in the " GRUB Error 17" msg! So what is going on????? I don't understand how this is failing with an unknown file type when this is from a re-install!

When I started all this I didn' t even touch the /root partition at all, so why would GRUB all of a sudden fail to boot Mageia - even after a re-install of system and bootloader?

Is there any way I can recover from this situation that doesn't involve wiping the whole Extended partition with /root and /home and the unused old /swap partitions and starting from scratch!

Any help most welcome!
Myles,
Canberra, Australia

Dear Milo4t,
I had the same problem and solved it.
Here are some answers to your questions:
yes
according to your post, you have reinstalled windows boot loader, that means that you do not have a dual system boot loader any more, only windows.
your /boot/grub/menu.lst is called only from GRUB. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are now booting your machine with your windows boot loader, so you do not have grub anymore as boot loader, right?
hd0,4 seems to me your home partition, in order to boot your machine, grub needs to find the partition that is bootable, that is the one that has the the *.
Is there any way I can recover from this situation that doesn't involve wiping the whole Extended partition with /root and /home and the unused old /swap partitions and starting from scratch!
Here is my suggestion:
try to reinstall grub to /dev/sd* (do you know how to find the name of your hard disk using fdisk?)
and run as root reboot and you should see your partitions in grub.
if not, please post any relevant information to help you further.

Translator1111,
Thanks for the quick reply and pointing some things out.

But - why didn't the re-install of the bootloader - from the Mageia DVD - work in the first place when nothing had happened to the /root partition (I didn't touch it) so why wouldn't it boot after the partition deletion? - I tried several times to re-install the bootloader (GRUB2) always getting the GRUB Error 17 error - before I installed the Windows bootloader in frustration!

I mean, before I installed Mageia for the very first time on my system (it came with Windows installed on the SSD already), the install went successfully and GRUB was installed to replace the Windows bootloader. Would that be correct? So why didn't it work when I re-install the bootloader or as part of the re-install of Mageia?? I just do not understand this. I did work in IT before retiring so I am more than familiar with OS's etc. but have not had this sort of problem with my other systems, because this system has newer technology which I am not up to date with.

Now for your suggestion

is that Does this mean that I re-boot using the Mageia DVD or other live CD and get into a terminal and do the Will that simple command fix the bootloader problem?

Those error messages are from grub legacy, not grub2. Something very screwy going on. Boot the install DVD (any liveCD is fine) and do the "fdisk -l" (root/sudo).
Even better, go here, run the script and post the RESULTS.txt.

Dear Milo4t,
ok, so if you work in IT before, you probably know more than me.
What I presume is happening is something that has happened to me before and I solved it.
You may know that there are at least 2 kinds of GRUBs:
GRUB, also known as GRUB legacy, which is the v 0.97 that you showed in your print screen in your first post and it was organized using menu.lst in /boot/grub
and GRUB2 is the version 1. and superior with organizes using files in /etc/grub
I am assuming that your Mageia is trying to install GRUB2, however for some reason (it happened to me before) during reinstalation your machine cannot find GRUB2 but and old GRUB /this explains the menu.lst that you can see using Windows/
the GRUB error 17 is from v 0.97.
Until now what I know.
But you better listen to syq00 and send the result of the script, it will give us the facts and not the presumptions of the real state of your machine.

One hint more, GRUB legacy v 0.97 is older than GRUB2 and maybe does not understand how to treat GRUB2 chainloaders, probably this is the root-cause of error 17.
I have installed version 1.98 (adapted to Ubuntu 10.04)
Faithfully,
M.

*** ADMIN **** could you move this issue to the Mageia forum where I thought that I had posted it - only to find that I had posted it in the Mandriva forum (which I haven' t used since before it died).

translator1111, thanks for that and yes I know tat GRUB legacy stopped at 0.97. I thought that was a bit odd that I couldn' t find a /grub in /root/etc/ for GRUB2 where it should be I read. BUT, it should be as I thought that Mageia uses GRUB2. So why did it not re-install the GRUB2 bootloader when I very first tried to via the Mageia DVD, or when I completely re-installed Mageia into the /root partition?????

syg00, thanks for that link. I have the RESULTS.txt file: (I hope I have to use [CODE] tags?)

So that looks like it is using GRUB legacy for Mageia - but WHY?

Also, seeing I was using SystemRescueCD used sfdisk to list sda:

So is that /dev/sda4 the problem? Which doesn't show up using TestDisk.

Okay, now I know a LOT more about this and what is going on. I did some more digging and got a link to Mageia doco - it seems GRUB legacy is the default bootloader for Mageia #4 until Mageia #5!

But, as I said I never changed that when I very first installed Mageia #4 on my system, so why fail now!

I just did yet another re-install, but in the Summary screen at the end of the install I chose GRUB 2 for the bootloader and this is what I got:

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/...psqgusmwph.jpg!



Thanks for all the help so far, I really appreciate it.

Still bamboozled! (and without my Mageia system)

So, any advice on what I should do from here to get mysystem back?

If anyone is interested, I now have my system back.

I am writing this reply on my newly installed Mageia #4.1 system! (for the 2nd time! details in a minute!) (Although I have picked up some quirks in the re-install - details later)

It sure looks as though what the installers did was create a 100Mb EFI partition for Windows. But that doesn't explain why I was able to successfully install Mageia #4 when Windows was already installed.

Anyway, benmc on the Official Mageia forums came to my rescue, I did indeed have to change my BIOS settings on my mobo form "UEFI and Legacy" to "Legacy only". I also had another setting for CSM but that turned a re-install into a text-basd install (why).

Anyway, here is what happened on Saturday and Sunday. Changed UEFI setting, tried re-install with GRUB - fail. Changed CSM - tried re-install - fail. Tried re-install with Mageia #5 RC with GRUB2 and "Legacy only" set - success! BUT, then realised that I wouldn't be able to re-install all my normal pgms that I use. So, re-install Mageia #4.1 with GRUB2 and "Legacy only" set - success - sort of! When I re-booted my name wasn't in the login panel (and still isn't!???? Minor - don't know how to fix that) but just typed my login and PW and in okay. Whilst logged in eventually had updates flagged for the system (of course). This took about an hour or so. Re-booted and logged in (still no name in login panel). Found that I had problems following the update - Firefox was acting strangely when I was in Yahoo mail - Minor, but annoying! BUT Dolphin hadn't automatically started (odd). So I tried to start it - no go, cursor animation just bounced up and down for a while and then stopped! Very annoyed!! Left it overnight.

Monday, Decided to give it one more chance. So I performed a re-install with GRUB2, including downloading all updated packages. This took 2 hours or so. Still no name in login panel! BUT Dolphin is working, Firefox still has quirk in Yahoo mail. Now I will have to re-install all of my other pgms to bring my system back to where it was before I stuffed up the partitioning!!!!

Anyway, I hope nothing further goes wrong.

So now I know that I'll be able to install Mageia #5 when it is released as well.

Again, thanks for all the help and patience!