grub error 18

[Derek Broughton]

Gene Heskett wrote:

> On Monday 21 September 2009, Christopher Chan wrote:
>>David Kuntadi wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Christopher Chan
>>>
>>> <christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk> wrote:
>>>> I do not know if I am being unclear or something but I will repeat it
>>>> in any case. I currently have to ALWAYS FIX grub to get the installed
>>>> Jaunty to boot. The problem is not how to fix grub, the problem is what
>>>> blasted script is messing up grub each time the machine is shut down.

The problem, I'm sure, is update-initramfs.  Beats me what it was, but it 
was one reason why I finally decided to move to Karmic.  Problem gone...

In any case, the problem really _is_ how to fix grub.

>>> It might be a wrong option chosen during first install e.g. install
>>> grub on hd0,0 instead of hd0.

It's _not_ a wrong option at install time, because it first happened to me 
on a kernel upgrade long after it had been working properly for ages.

>>You are not serious are you? Jaunty reinstalls grub each and every time
>>you shut it down?

Serious, surely.  Confused?  Perhaps.  Jaunty never _reinstalls_ grub.  It 
may well _update_ grub (using "update-grub").  It does that whenever there's 
a kernel update.  It also does it whenever anything _else_ gets installed 
that sets a trigger for update-grub (libc6 updates, certainly; I haven't 
really paid attention to what else does it).
> 
> I can also testify that it does something.  I finally got tired of the WTF
> syndrome on the next reboot and applied the +i attribute to menu.lst,
> unless _I_ want to edit it.

I gotta admit, I don't understand this.  No matter what you do, making 
menu.lst immutable shouldn't be having this effect unless either your boot 
drive's uuid or your initrd image's name changes.  I'd really like to see a 
diff between the working menu.lst and a non-working one.  
-- 
derek