HELP Please-GRUB Problem

[lomerson2]

I installed Kubuntu 7.10 64bit, on my HP m8200n, AMD Dual Core 6000+, 3 GB RAM and as soon as the installation was over and the computer rebooted I didn't have a functioning computer anymore. It stops dead while trying to load GRUB 1.5. with a message that says error 22. After several frantic trys to do anything I got the computer to reboot to the Kubuntu CD, but I don't see anything there to help me. Any and ALL suggestions will be appreciated very much.

[Snowhog]

Re: HELP Please

HOW TO: GRUB Methods - Toolkit

You will find what you need in this excellent and extensive HOWTO by Qqmike. Just search on error 22 and you will find:

----- 22: GRUB Error 22: No such partition
This error is returned if a partition is requested in the device part of a device- or full file name which isn't on the selected disk.
In your (hdx,y)'s, examine the y's to see if they are correct.
Again:
title Boot by kernel--Kubuntu 7.10 sdb5
root (hd1,4)

This HOWTO will tell you what to do to fix the error.

[lomerson2]

Re: HELP Please

I have never used Linux or unix before and it has been many years since I worked from a DOS prompt so much of this terminology is difficult for me. I went to the HOW TO and followed the instructions to boot from the CD and use the Konsole to get to try to reinstall the grub. I realized that I don't know where the grub installation is located so I found the instructions on finding it in the How To and followed them. When I entered find /boot/grub/stage1, I got the following response: Error 15: File not found. Now I am stuck again. Any suggestions? Thanks very much for your attention and assistance, Rick

[dibl]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

We'll need to know a couple of details:

- how many hard drives?
- how many partitions on the hard drive that you installed Kubuntu on?

If you can boot the Live CD, and open the Konsole on that (F2 "konsole" with no quote marks) , and enter the following two commands, and post the output, that will help a lot:

sudo fdisk -lu

blkid

[lomerson2]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

OK, thanks so much, here's what I got:


Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1549f232

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 958196924 479098431 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 958196925 976768064 9285570 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdg: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00001d6a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdg1 63 213873344 106936641 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdg2 213874688 317544609 51834961 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdg3 941617845 976768064 17575110 5 Extended
/dev/sdg4 * 317556855 941617844 312030495 83 Linux
/dev/sdg5 959000238 976768064 8883913+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdg6 941617971 959000174 8691102 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdh: 8213 MB, 8213305856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 998 cylinders, total 16041613 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdh1 58 16016804 8008373+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdi: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders, total 320173056 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7df0f0c4

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdi1 * 63 110157704 55078821 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdi2 110157705 320159384 105000840 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdi5 110157768 216170639 53006436 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdi6 216170703 320159384 51994341 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdk: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders, total 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x003d2526

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdk1 * 63 234436544 117218241 7 HPFS/NTFS
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[toad]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

First off, well done for asking again!

A little bit of background. You switch computer on, it goes through the motions, comes to the hard disk, looks at the beginning of said hard disk (master boot record) and finds grub (grand unified boot loader). grub has pointers to places on the hard disk where operating systems are.

So much for grub.

fdisk -l shows you contents of all hard disks. You have a fair number, I must say:

sda - windows os
sdg - some windows stuff, linux os
sdh - data?
sdi - windows os?
sdk - windows os?

So your kubuntu is on sdg4, which is partition 3 ('cos there is a marker for the extended) on the second hard disk.

The best way is to let grub find its own stuff first - you see, there is a reason for it being called grand unified boot loader - it is grand

Boot your computer and once the bios screen has gone through the motions and you get the grub screen, press ESC. Now press c to get to the grub command line. Once you successfully managed to do that, type in the following:

find /boot/grub/stage1

Your output should look something like (hdx,y). Now type

root (hdx,y)

It goes without saying that take the values of the output of the first command

Next type

kernel

followed by TAB followed by

/vml

followed by TAB. Continue pressing TAB until either the line is complete or it gives you a number of choices. In case of the latter, select the kernel with the highest number. You will by now have learned a major linux lesson, i.e. TAB is an autocomplete function in linux

You have now told grub where the kernel is located. Make a note of the whole line! and press enter.

Now do the same for the initrd (an important file for the kernel). To do, type

initrd

followed by TAB followed by

/ini

followed by TAB and the rest is pretty similar to the above procedure for the kernel... Make sure you select the same number version for kernel and initrd!

Once finished, make a note and press enter.

Now type

boot

followed by enter.

With any luck your system should boot.

You could have had it simpler by just downloading sgd (google super grub disk), boot off it and have it fix your grub automatically, but this is much more fun

[dibl]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

Interesting. What do you have, a USB hub with several USB hard drives connected? You appear to have a single internal hard drive, /dev/sda, and then it skips the subsequent drive ID's until /dev/sdg. I don't remember seeing that before.

OK, run the "blkid" command, and lets see what it tells us.


EDIT: @toad, good job! I about posted on top of you, I think. If the drives are USB, watch out for the "changing IDs all the time" problem. I was going to (eventually) see if he needs to boot by UUID to avoid that.

[toad]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

Thanks dibl, another typing fit of mine But tell me, how did you spot the usb stuff? You are ahead of me there...

[dibl]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

I don't know that it's USB hard drives, but why else would it skip numbering from /dev/sda to /dev/sdg?

[toad]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

Good point, I was thinking of an older motherboard, a pci card and sata drives...

lomerson2, please tell us about your hardware

[lomerson2]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

First of all, thanks for ALL of the responses so far, you guys are great. I am going to wait to do anything until I get another response because. yes, I have a bunch of USB stuff, I have four external drives connected, as well as my MP3 player, a printer, my PDA and a SDHC adapter. I have two USB hubs, one older USB 1.1 for things where speed doesn't matter, like my PDA sync cradle, and another newer USB 2.0 powered hub. Would it be a good idea to unhook all the USB stuff (except maybe the printer) until I get Kubuntu up running and all updated?

And "blkid" got this:

/dev/sdg1: UUID="6244226D442243DF" LABEL="FreeAgent Drive" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdg2: UUID="A20A3C4B0A3C1EAB" LABEL="FreeAgent Drive2" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdg4: UUID="76e3f109-7a14-4deb-a451-4102c3a4140d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdg5: TYPE="swap" UUID="95340b0a-d76e-4f32-95d4-c7da1d4db3a3"
/dev/sdg6: TYPE="swap" UUID="5aa39fd2-7d67-4cbc-a984-d8a5e7341c13"
/dev/sdh1: UUID="2007-0580" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdi1: UUID="1C4AAB729F3D800" LABEL="EXT2_VOL1" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdi5: UUID="1C4AAB72C3626E0" LABEL="EXT2_VOL2" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdi6: UUID="1C4AAB72E7875C0" LABEL="EXT2_VOL3" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdk1: UUID="446CDA2D6CDA198E" LABEL="EXT_VOL1" TYPE="ntfs"

[dibl]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

It is possible to install Linux to a USB drive and boot from there, but given your lack of experience with Linux, that would be a rather challenging setup to do, in my opinion, especially through the USB hubs. It would be far easier and more straightforward to install it on that internal hard drive. You only need 6GB for the basic system -- so it won't cost you a lot of space.

Otherwise, I'll suggest you and the "Search" button and Mr. Google start studying "boot from USB drive" because you'll need to gather some additional knowledge on that topic.

[Qqmike]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

How To Make GRUB Thumb Drive
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081748.0
Reply #1:
How to install K/Ubuntu 7.04 to an external USB hard disk drive (HDD), Reply #1

(Please continue to post questions and issues back here in the regular forum -- thx.)


From a live CD, the GRUB geometry command will show you how BIOS & GRUB see your drives in (hdx,y) terms:

sudo grub
grub> geometry (hd<Press the TAB key now>
(don't type the symbols <, >)

grub> geometry (hd0)
grub> geometry (hd1)
etc.

[lomerson2]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

OK, sorry, I will keep replying in forum, thanks.

I am a little confused. To backtrack, what I am trying to do is fix a problem with a Kubuntu install on my desktop computer. My goal is to have it as a dual booting maching with the already installed Vista Home Premium as the other boot. I installed Kubuntu, which seemed to go well until I rebooted. Since then the computer has never gone past: GRUB Loading stage1..5. GRUB loading, please wait...Error 22. I can boot into the CD, can get into the Konsole, but so far that's only helpful with information gathering. I know nothing about Linux, Kubuntu, etc. but I can follow directions fairly well.

Thanks again for your help so far.

[toad]

Re: HELP Please-GRUB Problem

Okay, let's have a closer look at your hardware. Dibl astutely pointed that there is some USB stuff. Are you trying to boot off a USB drive? If so, you will need to follow Qqmike's instructions on how to build a USB thumbdrive (don't matter whether it is 1GB thumbdrive or a 1TB external hard disk - it still has got to be made bootable and Qqmike tells you how).

If you are trying to boot from an internal drive, then things quickly become less complicated. Please unplug all USB drives (not other devices such as printer, scanner, what have you), run through the commands again which dibl posted earlier and share them with us