grub error 18

[Christopher Chan]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> 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.
>
>   
Yeah, I guess it is how to fix the grub package if there is something in 
an updated grub package in Jaunty messing these things up whenever it 
reinstalls grub. You know what... on my next attempt, I will mount the 
local / partition, chroot and run the grub installed locally and see if 
that will produce the error 18 message.

Because the LiveCD certain 'fixes grub' by installing a grub that works.
>>>> 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.
>
>   

Thank you. Somebody who knows that this is not some dumb mistake. You 
hear that Goh Lip?

>>> 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).
>   
Can you prove that it does not do that when there are NO updates. I get 
the problem well after the first and last update ever done to the 
machine so these reasons for triggering update-grub (new kernel, updated 
c library) no longer exist. BTW, that also implies that update-grub must 
be doing something wrong to install a grub that will not work but a 
manual setup(hd0) in the grub console in the LiveCD installs one that works.