Hello,

I've got myself the curious situation where, when I boot the system, I can get grub to start, but it always drops to the prompt.

I can run:
configfile /grub/menu.lst

and this brings up the menu with no problems, and from there I can boot the system to either linux or windows. What I don't understand is why it wont go to the menu in the first place?

Some extra notes:
As far as I can tell, grub/Kubuntu got confused when installing, as each of the hd#,# settings in the menu.lst have needed tweaking to let the system boot. (e.g. windows is actually hd0, but the original install had it at hd2. Likewise linux is on hd1, but the menu.lst had it at hd0). I've happily tweaked these to make the system boot, but would appreciate any help in convincing grub to actually load the menu without me having to use the prompt.

post /boot/grub/menu.lst

minus the extensive commented lines:

default 0
timeout 10

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
uuid a5382351-f00d-4090-a3ba-8ca91f92a734
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=3d1024c1-041c-496b-880f-c98a3ad479ae ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
uuid a5382351-f00d-4090-a3ba-8ca91f92a734
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=3d1024c1-041c-496b-880f-c98a3ad479ae ro single
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic

title Ubuntu 9.04, memtest86+
uuid a5382351-f00d-4090-a3ba-8ca91f92a734
kernel /memtest86+.bin
quiet

title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdc1
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

take a look at this post from pixellany

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...cation-459430/

from what he is saying, it seems like reinstalling grub might be the answer

Seeing you have windows at /dev/sdc1, I assume grub should go to /dev/sda, so try
"sudo grub-install /dev/sda"
(Change /dev/sda with disk you want to install bootloader to, if it's not correct. Best way to check is when you are in linux, check where / is mounted from - type "cat /proc/mounts" + "ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid", or "fdisk -l /dev/sda" (or sdb,sdc...) - you should see linux partitions).

greenmuzz

your menu shows kernel lines with structure.... kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.28...and NOT kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28...
that means for your menu to work you must have a separate boot partition.

pls use a live cd to show your partitions...but if you are happy to mount and edit your menu because you know its wrong based on what I just said...read my signature on how to get uuids...and stuff

2) mention in the windows bit shows sdc...chainloading to hd0,0....so I am guessing you have windows drive is hd0

what are the other drives?

you need to tell us so we can help

3) boot a live cd and post the output of

fdisk -l

you may need to issue command su && fdisk -l....or sudo fdisk -l depending on which live cd you have

Allowing some license with your first post, this should work from the boot menuThe "fdisk -l" will help confirm this.

Thank you all,

a reinstall has been successful. The issue is certainly over the confusion as to which disk was the first disk the machine used to boot from, versus what linux was reporting as the first disk. / was on sda, but this was not, the primary booting disk. Rather, the bios wanted to boot from hdc - which perhaps should have become obvious to me when I realised I had to set the menu.lst for the windows disk to be hd0. Installing to the mbr of hdc proved to be sufficient. Slightly odd that previous versions of Kubuntu had no confusion with any of this, but at least things are up and running as expected now.