Infinite Grub Loop: GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB...

beeblequix · 02-24-2012, 10:36 PM

I just did a fresh install of Windows XP MCE on the master end on an 80GB IDE drive. Then I connected my 2TB RAID1 and another 1TB SATA drive and booted into Windows. I set the 2TB drive to be 'X' and did nothing with the 1TB drive. Thinking I'm so clever I powered down and added a second 80GB IDE drive to the slave end of the cable (CS on both IDEs). I booted from DVD and installed Mepis 11 to that second drive.

/sda1 = First disk of 2TB RAID1 volume
/sdc1 = Second disk of 2TB RAID1 volume
/sdd1 = Windows XPMCE
/sde1 = Mepis 11 64 bit
Somewhere in there is my SATA burner where the live DVD is currently running.

Anyway, I told the Mepis installer to install to /sde and install Grub to MBR on /sdd. It finished and rebooted.

And now I'm looking at an infinite grub loop.

Here's a copy of my /boot/grub/menu.lst:
timeout 10
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1

gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title MEPIS at sde1, newest kernel
root (hd4,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sde1 nomce quiet splash vga=788
initrd /boot/initrd.img
boot

title MEPIS at sde1, kernel 2.6.36-1-mepis64-smp
root (hd4,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.36-1-mepis64-smp root=/dev/sde1 nomce quiet splash vga=788
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.36-1-mepis64-smp
boot

title Windows XP Media Center Edition at sdd1
map (hd0) (hd3)
map (hd3) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd3,0)
chainloader +1

title MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin

Anyone know why it goes into an infinite grub loop? Is there anything in the menu.lst that stands out? What BIOS settings are known to cause this problem? I'll try running the 'repair system boot' from the live DVD. Any other ideas? Thanks.

Abit AB9 Pro
Core 2 Duo 6400
4x1GB Corsair DDR2-800
Nvidia Geforce 7900GS KO

syg00 · 02-24-2012, 10:44 PM

From the DVD, go here, do as it says and post the output.

ongdenny · 11-02-2013, 10:56 PM

Hello,

I just tried installing Arch Linux, doing the step-by-step in the Beginners Guide to the letter without error, after rebooting got the infinite GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB..

download the bootscriptinfo via wget, extract it, here are the result:

Code:

                  Boot Info Script 0.61      [1 April 2012]


============================= Boot Info Summary: ===============================

 => Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 2048 
    of the same hard drive for core.img, but core.img can not be found at this 
    location.
 => Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb.

sda1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       BIOS Boot partition
    Boot sector type:  SYSLINUX 6.02 ... :..(:,:0:4:8:....D:H:L:[.T:[.\:`:d:[.l:p:t:x:|:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.....................
    Boot sector info:  Syslinux looks at sector 38011624 of /dev/sda1 for 
                       its second stage. SYSLINUX is installed in the 
                       /boot/syslinux directory.

sda2: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ext4
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        

sda3: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       swap
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 

sdb1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       iso9660
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info: 
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        

sdb2: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       vfat
    Boot sector type:  FAT16
    Boot sector info:  According to the info in the boot sector, sdb2 starts 
                       at sector 0. But according to the info from fdisk, 
                       sdb2 starts at sector 84432. According to the info in 
                       the boot sector, sdb2 has 0 sectors.
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        /efi/archiso/vmlinuz.efi /efi/boot/bootx64.efi 
                       /efi/boot/HashTool.efi /efi/boot/loader.efi

============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/sda1                   1   488,397,167   488,397,167  ee GPT


GUID Partition Table detected.

Partition    Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors System
/dev/sda1           2,048    62,916,607    62,914,560 BIOS Boot partition
/dev/sda2      62,916,608   486,541,311   423,624,704 Data partition (Linux)
/dev/sda3     486,541,312   488,397,134     1,855,823 Data partition (Linux)

Drive: sdb _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sdb: 3.6 GiB, 3869544448 bytes, 7557704 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/sdb1    *              0     1,056,767     1,056,768   0 Empty
/dev/sdb2              84,432       147,919        63,488  ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

/dev/sdb1 overlaps with /dev/sdb2

GUID Partition Table detected, but does not seem to be used.

Partition    Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors System
/dev/sdb1               0     1,056,703     1,056,704 Data partition (Windows/Linux)
/dev/sdb2          84,432       147,919        63,488 Data partition (Windows/Linux)

"blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________

Device           UUID                                   TYPE       LABEL

/dev/loop0                                              squashfs   
/dev/loop1       f844a479-9328-482b-a105-8a11d0274e4f   ext4       
/dev/loop2       f844a479-9328-482b-a105-8a11d0274e4f   ext4       
/dev/mapper/arch_root-image f844a479-9328-482b-a105-8a11d0274e4f   ext4       
/dev/sda1        c10c0a9a-2411-45b5-a3ee-1aa1124e13df   ext4       
/dev/sda2        f429d58a-ffdc-4fdd-80a0-28385a4bccf3   ext4       
/dev/sda3        32ddc491-5871-4999-abee-4d396e4cd4a7   swap       
/dev/sdb1        2013-11-01-08-10-26-00                 iso9660    ARCH_201311
/dev/sdb2        1B5C-32EF                              vfat       ARCHISO_EFI

========================= "ls -R /dev/mapper/" output: =========================

/dev/mapper:
arch_root-image
control

================================ Mount points: =================================

Device           Mount_Point              Type       Options

/dev/loop0       /run/archiso/sfs/root-image squashfs   (ro,relatime)
/dev/mapper/arch_root-image /                        ext4       (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdb1        /run/archiso/bootmnt     iso9660    (ro,relatime)


======================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc: ========================

Unknown BootLoader on sdb1

00000000  33 ed 90 90 90 90 90 90  90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90  |3...............|
00000010  90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90  90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90  |................|
00000020  33 ed fa 8e d5 bc 00 7c  fb fc 66 31 db 66 31 c9  |3......|..f1.f1.|
00000030  66 53 66 51 06 57 8e dd  8e c5 52 be 00 7c bf 00  |fSfQ.W....R..|..|
00000040  06 b9 00 01 f3 a5 ea 4b  06 00 00 52 b4 41 bb aa  |.......K...R.A..|
00000050  55 31 c9 30 f6 f9 cd 13  72 16 81 fb 55 aa 75 10  |U1.0....r...U.u.|
00000060  83 e1 01 74 0b 66 c7 06  f1 06 b4 42 eb 15 eb 00  |...t.f.....B....|
00000070  5a 51 b4 08 cd 13 83 e1  3f 5b 51 0f b6 c6 40 50  |ZQ......?[Q...@P|
00000080  f7 e1 53 52 50 bb 00 7c  b9 04 00 66 a1 b0 07 e8  |..SRP..|...f....|
00000090  44 00 0f 82 80 00 66 40  80 c7 02 e2 f2 66 81 3e  |D.....f@.....f.>|
000000a0  40 7c fb c0 78 70 75 09  fa bc ec 7b ea 44 7c 00  |@|..xpu....{.D|.|
000000b0  00 e8 83 00 69 73 6f 6c  69 6e 75 78 2e 62 69 6e  |....isolinux.bin|
000000c0  20 6d 69 73 73 69 6e 67  20 6f 72 20 63 6f 72 72  | missing or corr|
000000d0  75 70 74 2e 0d 0a 66 60  66 31 d2 66 03 06 f8 7b  |upt...f`f1.f...{|
000000e0  66 13 16 fc 7b 66 52 66  50 06 53 6a 01 6a 10 89  |f...{fRfP.Sj.j..|
000000f0  e6 66 f7 36 e8 7b c0 e4  06 88 e1 88 c5 92 f6 36  |.f.6.{.........6|
00000100  ee 7b 88 c6 08 e1 41 b8  01 02 8a 16 f2 7b cd 13  |.{....A......{..|
00000110  8d 64 10 66 61 c3 e8 1e  00 4f 70 65 72 61 74 69  |.d.fa....Operati|
00000120  6e 67 20 73 79 73 74 65  6d 20 6c 6f 61 64 20 65  |ng system load e|
00000130  72 72 6f 72 2e 0d 0a 5e  ac b4 0e 8a 3e 62 04 b3  |rror...^....>b..|
00000140  07 cd 10 3c 0a 75 f1 cd  18 f4 eb fd 00 00 00 00  |...<.u..........|
00000150  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
000001b0  b8 39 01 00 00 00 00 00  82 85 73 0d 00 00 80 00  |.9........s.....|
000001c0  01 00 00 3f a0 03 00 00  00 00 00 20 10 00 00 fe  |...?....... ....|
000001d0  ff ff ef fe ff ff d0 49  01 00 00 f8 00 00 00 00  |.......I........|
000001e0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa  |..............U.|
00000200


=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================

  No volume groups found
mdadm: No arrays found in config file or automatically

What should I do next?