GRUB rescue mode

[bill blakely]

I'm installing Kubuntu 13.10 Saucy. Upon booting I get a 'grub rescue mode' screen, and I don't know what to do.

I have an older computer. I have Windows 2000 on sda. On sdb I have a linux swap file, Xandros linux, and a large partition.
I had Kubuntu 12.10 (Quantal), which I upgraded to 13.04 (Raring). Somehow I broke my home direectory. I could log on as guest, but guest is limited. I used guest to download 13.10 (Saucy) which I burned to DVD.
The install from DVD placed the new 13.10 in a different partition, but upon boot, it loaded the older, broken version. I surmised a misplaced 'boot' flag.
I took a 'nucular' option and removed the old Kubuntu partition and created a new one.

GpartED returns - (excuse the formatting, I can't cut and paste)

partition file sys size used unused flags
/dev/sda fat32 28.62G 3.39G 25.32 boot lba
unallocated

/dev/sdb1 linux swap 502 mb
/dev/sdb2 reiserfs 17.58G 14.24G 3.34G
/dev/sdb3 ext4 47.81G 949.07Mb 46.89G boot
/dev/sdb4 extended 48.61G
/dev/sdb5 ext4 48.61G 4.24G 44.37

I have moved the boot flag to each sdb3,4,5. and rebooted after each
upon boot I get

Error:flie '/boot/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod' not found
entering grub rescue mode
grub rescue>

Not knowing what to do, I have tried several commands, 'grub-install" " update-grub" "boot-repair" "sudo update-grub" all to no avail. I get 'unknown command "whateverI typed" '
Wiser heads are no doubt chortling at my lack of knowledge.
I've been limping along with W2000 for a few weeks, but now I cannot even get to that.
What do I do?

<rant> It shouldn't be this hard. I installed Corel Linux in 4 clicks, Xandros in about as many, but installing Kubuntu from a DVD has always been a several day experience. I'm angry, depressed, and about to look for the nearest Apple store. Kubuntu worked great, when it worked, but geez...</rant>



[/QUOTE]

[bill blakely]

Problem Solved

First I went to
https://help/ubuntu.com/community/grub2/troubleshooting
where I found an overview of the situation that was actually understandable.
Then I went to a web page whose link I didn't save and found this post by a person named Pavel. I reproduce it here in its entirety.

Don't bother to run Ubuntu live CD. It's not difficult to repair GRUB from the rescue mode.
Command: ls
It will list all your drives and partitions, like:
(hd0) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)
If you don't know your Ubuntu boot partition, check them one by one:
ls (hd0,msdos2)/
ls (hd0,msdos1)/
When you hit the right one, you'll get a line mentioning "lost+found" and so on.
Assuming (hd0,msdos2) is the right partition:
set prefix=(hd0,2)/boot/grub
set root=(hd0,2)
insmod normal
normal
Now you'll be able to boot into Ubuntu. Once you do, execute the following commands:
sudo update-grub
sudo grub-install /dev/sda

As I have two hard drives, I had to play with the last command, but it worked!
Also, I don't pretend to understand much, if any, of this, but, hey...it worked!