hi as it looks you have multiple boot points, and this is your problem.
So the first thing is to boot from a live cd
and locate your mbr which should be the first part of sda no partition number
but if it has a number no problem.
Leave ubuntu 12.xx alone, launch gparted and reformat the partitions with ubuntu 14.xx and or 15.xx reboot the live cd and install that version and only set your /root and /swap if one is not on the disk then let the installer take care of boot option.
That should get you back up and running, and not all linux destro support hibernate

1 members found this post helpful.

Sorry I missed a step point the installer to where your mbr(master boot record) is stored and let the installer do its thing.

H.B.,
and
I hope this yields something useful, but it doesn't mean much to me. Thanks

visiondude, will try as you recommend, but a couple of questions as I cannot visualize the mbr from memory

I have rewritten your instructions to fit my memory. If it is unclear to me, I will enclose in [] and try to explain my confusion

More shortly

Edit: I have booted a live cd and chosen "Install"
as I look at the Something Else screen, it shows:
and below that is the dropdown selection under
How do I tell where the mbr is? Hope I am not being thick, but this is all semi-greek to me

Under "Device for bootloader installation", click the drop down arrow and the first option should be /dev/sda. If you select that it will install minimal Grub boot code in the master boot record pointing to the boot files on whichever partition you are installing to. You won't see anything specifically saying "install to mbr".

The other option is to install Grub to the partition on which you are installing the new Ubuntu explained in my post above, post 52. If you did that, you would then reboot to 12.04 and run sudo update-grub to get an entry for 14.04.


There is nothing unusual about that. There are almost always two and I've seen systems with 20 or more that boot fine. This usually only creates problems if there is a separate boot partition and it is too small. It does clutter the boot directory and there is a specific procedure to remove them

<< How do I tell where the mbr is? >>
<< How do I tell where the mbr is? Hope I am not being thick, but this is all semi-greek to me >>

<< /dev/sba
freespace 1MB
/dev/sda1 biosgrub 1GB
/dev/sda2 EXT4 40GB Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS
/dev/sda3 EXT4 79GB Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS >>

/dev/sda1 biosgrub 1GB This looks like your boot space!

Did you enter the text "biosgrub" as the partition label?
You should be able to work with /dev/sda1 because i make the same mistake on my last install and it works fine.

Hope this helps odyssey1942.

yancek, sudo update-grub shows 14.04 on sda3.

You had earlier asked, it was the ""Device for bootloader installation" which has a dropdown selection. Apology for not answering earlier.

visiondude,
I have no idea how sda1 got set up but am pretty sure that it was on the SSD when I first put it into my computer. In any case, I did not enter the text "biosgrub"

So, any suggestions now? I still cannot get 14.04 to boot. Any reason I should not run the sourceforge grub repair CD?

Edit: I ran the grub repair. Did not improve anything.

So you should have two installs of 14.04 on your SSD? Is that correct?

On your second install of 14.04, what location did you choose for 'Device for bootloader installation'? Did you select sda (the whole drive), sda1 or sda4 (which presumably is the location of the new 14.04 install)?

I have not installed to SSD and I don't have UEFI bios, so I'm not sure what sda1 is doing there. It's also a full 1GB in size.
New installs are usually not this difficult.

I'm wondering if your live CD is an issue? For the sake of variety, you could install 15.04 onto CD (the permanent version, not live), do a SHA256SUM check, and then use that to install to 'free space' on your SSD.
Don't select separate /boot or /swap partitions (to keep things simple).
Install grub specifically to the location where the new 15.04 will reside.

If the above doesn't work, then we will know the problem is not with the CD.

HB, here is my setup:

I am unable to find a link to a page that does not contain including the link in #55. I have googled extensively but cannot find anything that does not have this language and therefore presumably a live CD

I bios_grub partition is used with GPT partitioning and is usually 1MB in size and contains some Grub boot code. It is usually 1MB in size while your partition is 1GB, 1,000 times larger for some reason.

Run the boot repair and select the option to "Create BootInfo Summary" and post a link to the output here.

Just be aware that 15.04 hasn't been supported since January but testing it to see if it installs might prove interesting.

The language above is what a Live CD does? Your install on sda3 which as far as I can tell from reading your posts, has never booted so the install is likely bad which could happen for any number of reasons. Format it deleting everything on it and re-use it.

When installing, you need to make notes of what happens. Which partition was selected to install the system? Were separate partitions also created during the install? Where was the bootloader installed? Were there any error/warning message during the install? Did you get a message when the install finished indicating the install was successful. The boot repair software can make some changes and repairs to the bootloader but if that isn't successful, there is a lot of detailed information which could help you manually repair if you understand the output. Sicne new users rarely understand, that is why they give the option to post a ling to your output. So you can get help from others who understand it better.

Yes, I see that now.
It seems with 15.04 there is only one .iso file (1.1GB) and at the beginning of the installation users have the option to select the 'live' version or the 'permanent' version.

Clearly, you are selecting the 'permanent' version when you attempt an install. Is this correct?

When the Live CD boots up, there are two choices, basically:

Try without installing, (so only uses volatile memory), or

Install (this is the one I use and it installs to either the SSD or HDD, as you might want)

The install version brings up screen a little bit like gparted which shows all partitions. The list in my immediate previous post is a "typed" version of that.

Below the list of partitions is the "Device for bootloader installation" which has a dropdown selection showing the device/partition list and gives you a choice of where you want the bootloader.

Hope that is clear

Yancek, I am reinstalling now using 15.10 which is checksum verified. Here is the grub repair link

http://paste.ubuntu.com/15431722/

Hi Odyssey1942 when you boot into try before install it allows you to make changes to your ssd or hdd and you can also test your system.

Can you tell us what is the drive ID for both your ssd and your hdd.

Thanks for the heads up for in "Try". Had not thought to try it.

The SSD is sda, the HDD went toes up as set out in #47

So the only thing that shows up at all in anything is sda

Also, just before your post, I had decided to try to install Ubuntu (regular not Mate) 15.10. It has been installing ever since, i.e. over an hour so I think that something has gone wrong with the install. at the bottom of the screen it says:
Doesn't this normally take only take a very few minutes?

I am reluctant to stop the process since it is making significant changes in lots of basic systems.

So how long should I let it run before trying to stop it?

and

what is the safest way to abort the install?

Yes, it seems the install isn't working. Creating the ext4 filesystem should take seconds (just as it does with gparted).

Everything is being done on sda3. So sda1 and sd2 should be fine.
Also, it's simply trying to create a filesystem for root (/) - but it's not working.
It looks like the process is in a constant loop. But nothing has been created and nothing has been downloaded yet onto sda3.

There is a function key on the menu to abort after each process.
But the install is currently 'in' a process and so you can't access the menu.
Try ESC, ctrl+alt+delete etc. Either way, the install can't create an ext4 filesystem in sda3.
Your Ubuntu 12 should be untouched and it's on sda2.

The install menu on 'Try' also allows you to check your memory. If you try that, at least you can discount any memory card issues.
Also, on the 'Try' option can you actually boot into the 'live' version and use Ubuntu?

Your boot repair doesn't show any problems. You have Grub code in the MBR pointing to Ubuntu 12.04 on sda2. On sda2, your grub.cfg file shows entries for 14.04 and they look correct, have the correct UUID anyhow. You might try running a filesystem check on sda3 from Ubuntu 12.04 with:

More details on using fsck at the link below:

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2012/08/...mand-examples/

When you are doing the new installs on sda3, are you selecting to format that partition as part of the process? You should do that. If you select the "Try Ubuntu" method, you can use GParted to format partitions also.