Grub Loading stage1.5 and Grub2 black screen during restart

[josefko]

I did net upgrade from Karmic to Lucid on my netbook Acer Aspire One D150-1 (no remix). It was net upgraded from Jaunty to Karmic, so there is still Grub Legacy there.
The first restart was ok, the second restart was scary. Immediately after Grub menu I saw text Grub in the left top corner and after a while I saw an indefinite loop of lines with the text:

Loading stage1.5

I switch off the netbook with start button and started again without any problem. It happened again during some restart so I decided not to restart at all, just shutdown and start.

I know a workaround, but if there is somebody, who knows a solution I would be glad to know it. It is weird, such a new problem with LTS, which was not in Karmic.

[Snowhog]

Re: Grub Loading stage1.5 during restart

Troubleshooting

Grub hangs at Stage1.5 or Stage2

After bios POST, you see:

Grub loading Stage1.5
Grub loading, please wait...

And then grub hangs up indefinetely. Also, you may see this message followed by a hang up.

Loading stage2 ....

This may happen due to corrupt files in /boot/grub directory. You can use a rescue CD to boot, and then chroot to the root partition with /boot mounted. Move all the files except menu.lst and grub.conf out of /boot/grub. Then run grub-install on the drive. This should repopulate the /boot/grub folder with the appropriate files.

The following example assumes you have your root partition on /dev/hda1, and /boot on /dev/hda2. And grub will be installed on the MBR of /dev/hda.

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/sysimage
mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/sysimage/boot
chroot /mnt/sysimage
mv /boot/grub /boot/grub.old
mkdir /boot/grub
cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub
cp /boot/grub/grub.conf /boot/grub
grub-install /dev/hda

[josefko]

Re: Grub Loading stage1.5 during restart

Thank you Snowhog I will try something you offered. The last I saw was the full screen of

Loading stage1.5
Loading stage1.5
Loading stage1.5
Loading stage1.5
etc. still comming more

I don't understand, how can files be corrupted, when I can use Grub for start. I must be the same process for start and restart.

[Snowhog]

Re: Grub Loading stage1.5 during restart

Files become corrupted. Happens. How? Who knows. But if it is a Grub file (or files) that is/are corrupt, then reinstalling Grub "should" fix it.

[josefko]

Re: Grub Loading stage1.5 and Grub2 black screen during restart

I decided to try out the theory about corrupted files by installing Grub2. My first command was

$ sudo apt-get install grub2

I let it "chainload from menu.lst" to try it and after a successful start I wrote

$ sudo upgrade-from-grub-legacy

Now I can start and shutdown with Grub2 without problem, but when I try to restart I end up with the black screen after bios.
So all files changed, Grub2 instead of Grub, problem the same, workaround the same.

[Snowhog]

Re: Grub Loading stage1.5 and Grub2 black screen during restart

Now I can start and shutdown with Grub2 without problem, but when I try to restart I end up with the black screen after bios.
So all files changed, Grub2 instead of Grub, problem the same, workaround the same.

That is odd.

So, with the old Grub Legacy and the new Grub 2, system shutdowns, followed by a restart (cold boot) work normally - you get to the KDM login screen and can login and get to your desktop - but from the Desktop, a Reboot fails? Hmm.