Hi,

I installed a generic update for Ubuntu and left my laptop. When I came back, it was frozen on the desktop - I couldn't click anything on the GUI so I restarted.

Now it's restarting into 'GNU GRUB version 1.97~beta4'
with sh:grub>
as a terminal.

So I try to boot it, using these instructions/commands:

ls
set prefix=(hdX,Y)/boot/grub
set root=(hdX,Y)
set
ls /boot
insmod /boot/grub/linux.mod
linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sdxY ro
initrd /initrd.img
boot

but I can't figure out which partition Ubuntu is on, so I tried it with all of them (ie hd(0,6) , hd(0,5) , hd(0,1) ) but none of them will work.
I also don't know how to bring up the config file...

The error that comes up is:

error: invalid magic number

after I type 'linuz /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1'
(or any other number after sda...so if I'm setting root as hd(0,6) and I use sda0 or sda6 it still gives me this error).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 for the first time on my laptop a few weeks ago. I partitioned the drive, but I didn't get around to installing Windows on the other partition, so it's a single hard drive with only one OS - it's a laptop as well.

If you just installed a few weeks ago, I would consider reinstalling using Ubuntu 10.04 (just out yesterday). Also, if you're planning on dual-booting linux and windoze, it's generally easiest to install windoze first, then letting grub install to the mbr when you do your linux install. Grub does a good job of finding windoze and adding it to the boot menu automagically. Windoze just overwrites the mbr (doesn't even bother to look for another OS).

Thanks for that, yeah I just booted from a disk, transferred the files I had across to my portable hard drive and reinstalled.
Cheers!