Booting to grub

r4v · 05-08-2010, 02:49 AM

Hi,

My daughters netbook was running ubuntu, she turned it off the other night and now all that happens is it boots into grub command prompt.

Grub version 0.97 if that helps.

Any ideas on what to try from here?

Thanks in advance.

Ben

syg00 · 05-08-2010, 04:32 AM

Try these, and post (all) the output - you'll need to write it down by hand (my comments in red)

Code:

geometry (hd0)  <<<=== that's a zero
find /grub/menu.lst    <<<=== that's "list" without the "i"
find /boot/grub/menu.lst    <<<=== this or the previous will fail - we need to know regardless

r4v · 05-11-2010, 08:31 AM

Many thanks for the relpy, here is the information.

geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 1023/255/63, The number of sectors = 312581808, LBA
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 5, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 6, Filesystem type is unknown, partition type 0x82

find /grub/menu.lst
(hd,0)

find /boot/grub/menu.lst
Error 15: File not found

Regards
Ben

syg00 · 05-11-2010, 04:54 PM

Try this and see if it brings up the menu - if so you should be right to go.

Code:

configfile (hd0,0)/grub/menu.lst

r4v · 05-12-2010, 02:10 AM

Thanks, tried the following:

configfile (hd0,0)/grub/menu.lst
cleared screen and back to grub prompt, just have the list of possible commands when I press tab.

Again thanks.

syg00 · 05-12-2010, 04:46 AM

That doesn't look too good - try this just to see if that menu.lst is ok. Don't worry about recording it, (it's too full of crap on Ubuntu), just check that it looks like a sensible text file.

Code:

cat (hd0,0)/grub/menu.lst

r4v · 05-12-2010, 11:41 AM

No output from that command at all.

Karl Godt · 05-15-2010, 06:50 AM

grub - menu - prompt :

Code:

>root (hd0,0)
>find /boot/pressTAB-KEY

the TAB would provide output to be pasted here.
evtl. it is root (sd0,0) serial-ata-hard-disk

Karl Godt · 05-15-2010, 07:53 AM

I just typed grub to rxvt (Macpup xterm (console))
and tried to find out about more posibilities:

Code:

grub> find /bootENTER

Error 15: File not found

grub> find (hd0,0)/bootENTER

Error 15: File not found

grub> find (hd0,0)/boot/ENTER

Error 15: File not found

grub> find (hd0,0)/boot/TAB
 Possible files are: grub vmlinuz

grub> find (hd0,0)/boot/grub/TAB
 Possible files are: e2fs_stage1_5 fat_stage1_5 jfs_stage1_5 minix_stage1_5 rei
serfs_stage1_5 stage1 stage2 stage2_eltorito xfs_stage1_5 usage.txt mbr.sda.310
82 device.map menu.lst

grub> find (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lstENTER
 (hd0,0)

grub> cat (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lstENTER

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'.  Sun May  9 00:00:55 2010
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.31082'.  You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.sda.31082 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
#timeout 30
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Linux (root (hd0,0)on /dev/sda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal

  title Linux (on /dev/hda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=normal

  title Linux (on /dev/sda1)
  root (sd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal

# Linux bootable partition config ends
title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
root (hd0,0)
setup (fd0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/sda1)
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title -     For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title -     For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)

grub>

Karl Godt · 05-17-2010, 05:05 AM

Quote:

the GNU GRUB manual
The GRand Unified Bootloader, version 0.97, 8 May 2005.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.pdf

ax25nut · 05-31-2010, 06:53 PM

It appears to me that you're using a Puppy variant to install grub on this disk. If that's the case, perhaps you should simply re-install it and edit whatever you need to afterwards. You can do this by booting your puppy live cd and using the grub installer. I've done this a few times here on several machines. Good luck.