Grub, device string replaced with 32 digit hexadecimal number. Caused Grub "error 11"
 

Switched on laptop.
1) BIOS screen
2) Grub (Mint 7 with 2.6.28-15 kernel)
3) Error 11 "Unrecognised device string"

N.B. All kernel versions and Memtest86+ caused Error 11

I used a Live CD to mount the laptops master hard drive
Where Mint 7 is installed
when I used nano to look at the menu.lst file I could see a 32 digit hexadecimal number after the "root" entry.
The number was laid out like this:
root *******-****-****-****-************

I commented out the entire root entry and added the following line underneath
root (hd0,0)
saved the changes and rebooted.
This time everything worked like normal.
Now I'm using Mint 7 again, as usual I can go into the menu.lst file on the OS drive and see my changes. The 32 digit number is still there and still commented out for the default kernel choice.
For all the other kernel versions the 32 digit number is still there and not commented out. If I did a reboot now and choose any other kernel version I would no-doubt get the Error 11 again.

My questions is, where did that 32 digit number come from?

Yesterday I did uncomment the hiddenmenu grub entry in menu.lst so as that grub would be displayed at boot up. Also,I did get some updates. Maybe this is obvious thing that I don't know about.

The hexadecimal number is probably the drive UUID.

More and more distros are going to the UUID to prevent problems with the way devices are mounted at boot since most devices are all marked as scsi devices (i.e. /dev/sdXX). There is no longer a distiction between IDE and SATA drives in newer kernels, so the UUID helps keep that order so that /dev/sda always boots up as /dev/sda, even if you plug in an external drive before boot.

So is that 32 digit number suppose to be there as the root entry in menu.lst to identify the drive as the location of that boot point. I am using a SSD Sata II drive and therefore would be a new drive design if you like.

So the reason I got the error 11 might be a by-product of something else!

I have a recent Clonezilla .iso image of my Mint 7 install. Might be best to use it..


Thanks pljvaldez

You might first try getting into a grub prompt and probing to find out what grub is looking for (check out the "Grub Booting Tips" link in my signature). Also check the device.map file. It might be that the UUID is conflicting with something there.