[SOLVED] Problems clearing ERROR 15 from grub

jsym12 · 03-04-2011, 10:46 AM

Hi-
I've tried to solve this on my own but am running into issues. I am using Ubuntu 10.10 dual booted with windows vista. My boot is in a separate partition (sda5). My computer told me that there was limited space on that partition so I tried to clean things up using apt-get by removing old kernels. Turns out I didn't do it correctly because I consistently get an 'ERROR 15' when I shut down and rebooted my computer. I have a live-CD USB-stick so I tried reinstalling grub, (grub-install) updating the menu.lst (update-grub), and manually going through menu.lst and changing to root=(hd0,4) and groot=/dev/sda6

but I still get this ERROR 15 when I reboot.

when I do
sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1
find /boot/stage1

both give me an ERROR 15 message and I'm not sure how to proceed with a diagnosis.
When I ran update-grub, occasionally it used to tell me that /etc/fstab may be incorrect but (1) it doesnt tell me that anymore and (2) I dont know how to fix fstab

Here is fstab

Code:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/sda6
UUID=a7a3dd56-b14a-493d-adcc-8379aa3aed9c /               ext3    relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=56b6628c-4a18-43d6-95f4-8b50dd1e1d2e /boot           ext3    relatime        0       2
# /dev/sda7
UUID=5d9497bb-2d3f-4ec3-b3a1-8f7b72645477 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0

Here is menu.lst

Code:

title           Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-27-generic
uuid            56b6628c-4a18-43d6-95f4-8b50dd1e1d2e
kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.35-27-generic root=UUID=a7a3dd56-b14a-493d-adcc-8379aa3aed9
c ro quiet splash 
initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.35-27-generic
quiet

title           Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-27-generic (recovery mode)
uuid            56b6628c-4a18-43d6-95f4-8b50dd1e1d2e
kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.35-27-generic root=UUID=a7a3dd56-b14a-493d-adcc-8379aa3aed9
c ro  single
initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.35-27-generic

Here is /boot/grub (note that stage 1 does exist!) ( this is /dev/sda5)

Code:

root@ubuntu:/# ls /boot/grub/
default        fat_stage1_5       jfs_stage1_5  minix_stage1_5     stage2
device.map     grubenv            menu.lst      reiserfs_stage1_5  xfs_stage1_5
e2fs_stage1_5  installed-version  menu.lst~     stage1

Here is my problem

Code:

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

Error 15: File not found

grub> find /boot/stage1    

Error 15: File not found

I guess my main question is, if stage1 can't be found, what does that mean? what should I do next? Thanks

EDDY1 · 03-04-2011, 10:52 AM

Ubuntu10.10 uses grub2. Do you have cd?
http://karuppuswamy.com/wordpress/20...rescue-prompt/

Soadyheid · 03-04-2011, 11:00 AM

I think that Error 15 means "Can't find bootable Image"
Does

Code:

update-grub

show any found images at all? If not... Error 15

And, as Eddy1 above, Ubuntu 10.10 uses Grub2. Try googling "Grub2 Ubuntu", there's a very good "howto" sort of page among the Ubuntu Info.

Play Bonny!

jsym12 · 03-05-2011, 09:53 AM

Hi
Thanks for all your replies. After I wrote that, ( I was on ubuntu through the live-CD) I rebooted and everything magically worked. :/ My (uneducated) guess is that the reboot before that I had tried to do grub-install, but I did not do update-grub. That had the effect that I couldn't even get the error-15 error and I had to restore a menu.lst that I had saved. I'm not sure, but I think it was looking for "hda" when all my partitions are "sda".
When I rebooted, wrote this message on this forum, I did update-grub and grub-install and allowed them to rewrite anything they wanted (namely menu.lst). I also used this command

Code:

sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/root/dev

before I tried to do 'grub-install'.
(basically from here : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351)
Something about this worked. Again, thanks all.

EDDY1 · 03-05-2011, 10:41 AM

If solved mark as solved so others who are experiencing same problem can find answer to their problem.

Soadyheid · 03-07-2011, 02:04 PM

@ EDDY1

Quote:

http://karuppuswamy.com/wordpress/20...rescue-prompt/

Very useful! Now in my "Linux Log Book," It's allowed me to recover my Ubuntu 10.10 desktop and hopefully gain access to my other installed Distros; Fedora 15 and Centos 5. Installing the latter overwrote the MBR in the first place.

Cheers ED!

Play Bonny!