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**Qqmike** · Nov 01, 2009, 07:04 AM

Re: Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (G

Those Dell Utility partitions do seem to annoy us now and then.
Very nice explanation of your problem. Unfortunately, my solution would have been what you already tried: to chainload into sda1.

Now, as you know, you can chainload if there is a bootloader installed to the boot sector of sda1; so we assume Dell has installed some sort of bootloader there? I have no idea what Dell has put there or how it's supposed to work.
Second, you say it did not appear in the boot menu. Sometimes if the menu is long, it scrolls down off the screen, and you'll see a down-arrow on the right border and you press the down arrow key on your keyboard to see more boot menu.
Third, you could also try it directly:
When you see your boot menu (after POST), press the "c" key to get a GRUB 2 prompt, grub>.
Then:
grub>set root=(hd0,1)
grub>chainloader +1
grub>boot
and see if it will go into sda1.

Sorry, right now, that's all I can think of; I haven't searched for this problem, but I'll bet you have googled some on it.

**wim007** · Nov 01, 2009, 08:15 AM

Re: Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (G

Originally posted by Qqmike

Third, you could also try it directly:
When you see your boot menu (after POST), press the "c" key to get a GRUB 2 prompt, grub>.
Then:
grub>set root=(hd0,1)
grub>chainloader +1
grub>boot
and see if it will go into sda1.

Thanks for your reply.
Your second point isn't the case. My menu is very short (only 4 items).
Your third point works. With the GRUB 2 prompt I can successfully boot the Dell Utility partition.

So now I've got a workaround for my problem. But still I wonder why my menuentry doesn't appear in the GRUB2 menu. And how I can make my menuentry appear.

Any ideas?

**Qqmike** · Nov 01, 2009, 08:24 AM

Re: Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (G

So now I've got a workaround for my problem. But still I wonder why my menuentry doesn't appear in the GRUB2 menu. And how I can make my menuentry appear

After editing /etc/grub.d, did you run
sudo update-grub
or
sudo
grub-mkcfg -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
?

**Qqmike** · Nov 01, 2009, 08:26 AM

Re: Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (G

... if not, do so now

**Qqmike** · Nov 01, 2009, 09:12 AM

Re: Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (G

sudo grub-mkconfig --output= /boot/grub/grub.cfg
or, same thing
sudo grub-mkconfig --o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
(sorry)

**wim007** · Nov 09, 2009, 04:24 AM

Re: Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (Grub2

I found out the cause and the solution to the problem!

The cause is this that Grub2 only see lines that start with # as comments. If a # is written somewhere else, Grub2 doesn't see that as a comment. So if you have a # behind a Grub2 configuration line, you will get a syntax error.

If you edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom and then generate the grub.cfg with sudo update-grub, then update-grub will place this comment at the end of the contents of /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###.

In my case the generated /boot/grub/grub.cfg file looked like this:

Code:

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s /boot/grub/grubenv ]; then
 have_grubenv=true
 load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
 saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
 save_env saved_entry
 prev_saved_entry=
 save_env prev_saved_entry
fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,3)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set c98a8949-8bf2-4b86-8f37-554d06753cc9
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
 set gfxmode=640x480
 insmod gfxterm
 insmod vbe
 if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
  # For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
  # understand terminal_output
  terminal gfxterm
 fi
fi
if [ ${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
 set timeout=-1
else
 set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/white
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-generic" {
    recordfail=1
    if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
	set quiet=1
	insmod ext2
	set root=(hd0,3)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set c98a8949-8bf2-4b86-8f37-554d06753cc9
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=c98a8949-8bf2-4b86-8f37-554d06753cc9 ro  quiet splash
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-generic (recovery mode)" {
    recordfail=1
    if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
	insmod ext2
	set root=(hd0,3)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set c98a8949-8bf2-4b86-8f37-554d06753cc9
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=c98a8949-8bf2-4b86-8f37-554d06753cc9 ro single 
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
	linux16	/boot/memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" {
	linux16	/boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
if [ ${timeout} != -1 ]; then
 if keystatus; then
  if keystatus --shift; then
   set timeout=-1
  else
   set timeout=0
  fi
 else
  if sleep --interruptible 3 ; then
   set timeout=0
  fi
 fi
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry "Dell Utility partition" {
    set root=(hd0,1)
    chainloader +1
}### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

Do you see the problem?

update-grub placed the ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### behind my closing }. And because grub2 only sees lines that START with # as a comment, the ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### was interpreted as code. So I got a syntax error.

THE SOLUTION:
Make sure there is a empty line on the end of your /etc/grub.d/40_custom file.

Now my /etc/grub.d/40_custom looks like this

Code:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry "Dell Utility partition" {
    set root=(hd0,1)
    chainloader +1
}
# make sure there is an enter after the }

And now everything works fine!

Conclusion
This feature took me many hours to solve. I think it would be nice if the people of Grub2 and or Kubuntu would change the update-grub so it will always place the comments on a new line.

**Qqmike** · Nov 09, 2009, 07:25 AM

Re: Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (G

Interesting. Nice work wim007.
Yes, the
#
indicates a comment line.

This is troubling! ->
}### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

You should report that to the grub list.
Now, had there been a space after the }, it (probably) would have worked OK:
} ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

It makes me realize why I haven't had the problem: by habit (no other reason), I always introduce a blank line, hitting return, after finishing any boot entry.

Thanks for this good work. This could (and no doubt will) trip up a lot of unsuspecting folks. Quite a subtle thing.

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Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (Grub2

Can't boot to Dell Utility System Partition after installing Kubuntu 9.10 (Grub2

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