Unable to boot Ubuntu
 

So I just installed Ubuntu and it isn't happy. I can boot into my system using Slax and it shows the kernel image mounted on the boot partition /mnt/hdb1/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-server. (Slax mounts /dev/* as /mnt/*)

And when I try to boot into Ubuntu, it gets to the grub menu, but when I select the boot option, it just says Error 15: File not Found Press any key to continue...


If I look at the grub boot commands, it says
root (hd2, 0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-server root=UUUID=<big long hex looking thing> ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.24-16-server
quiet

Now, I'm no grub expert, but that looks like the correct boot sequence to me (aside from any graphics options that Ubuntu might have missed).

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Look under the /boot/grub folder of the drive with Ubuntu to ascertain whether the kernel image is correctly named.

Alternatively, I have found that it is easiest to copy the grub menu details of one installation into the other installation's grub menu. For example, you can copy the menu details pertaining to the ubuntu drive from the grub installed during the ubuntu installation, and paste it in the grub menu of the slax installed grub. Hope this is comprehensible.

the 2 main grub lines need to have the full boot file/ image path. So as an example; kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-and so on
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-
or they may be located in /boot/grub/
Also be sure the root location in grub speak is correct, so for yours as;
root (hd2, 0) this is the third hard drive, and first partition.
Also most grub Linux are listed with a title too.

I'm not sure what you are saying ... let me go into more detail. I have a board with one IDE port and four SATA ports. I have a DVD burner as master on the IDE drive and an IDE hd as the slave. It looks like Linux detects the IDE hd as /dev/hdb (where hdb1 is the boot partition), thus I thought that grub's root (hd2, 0) referenced the right partition and that the next command kernerl /vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-server <opts> referenced the correct binary. Please tell me if I am mistaken or what's going on.

Hmmm. That wouldn't seem to help much as Ubuntu won't boot. Anyway, Slax is a livecd, so I wouldn't know how to copy a grubf conf file to it anyway...

You've apparently got more hard disks than that.
Let's see the (full) output of "fdisk -l" run (as root) from the liveCD.

Disk /dev/hdb: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 159560 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x86a0efa5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 193 96768+ 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hdb2 193 9881 4882813 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hdb3 9882 25389 7815622+ 82 Linux swap
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hdb4 25389 159560 67622405+ 5 Extended
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hdb5 38069 134951 48828125+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb6 134951 159560 12403374+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb7 25389 38059 6385774+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa89d206a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1573 12635091 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 1574 30400 231552877+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 1574 4006 19543041 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 4007 30400 212009773+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 300.0 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x45ca2ba0

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 12158 97656250+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 12158 36482 195379902 7 HPFS/NTFS

Grubs root would be (hd1,0) since hd0 is the DVD drive.

Hmmm ... when I change the drive to (hd1,0) and try to boot, it gives 'Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition'

So I tried the ubuntu rescue disk and it asked which hard drive was / mounted from, but the strange thing was that it didn't have any /dev/hdbX at all it had /dev/sda1 - /dev/sda7, /dev/sdb1-/dev/sdb6 and /dev/sdc1-/dev/sdc2. Right away, I realized that somehow, ubuntu (and the grub that ubuntu installed) was seeing my ide drive (connected as the slave) as /dev/sda whereas the livecd saw it as hdb (as you would expect). Can anyone explain this strange behavior?

Grub doesn't care about anything except [hard|floppy] disks. However you need to know which disk(s) are being presented by the BIOS. Sometimes IDE drives go first, sometimes SATA.
At the boot menu, get into command mode and enter these command - they will indicate which drive is which