Install failure at grub installation step
Tod Merley
todbot88 at gmail.com
Sat Aug 19 07:44:18 UTC 2006
Note: Reduced
On 8/18/06, Mike Sussman <mmsussman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/18/06, Tod Merley <todbot88 at gmail.com > wrote:
>
>
> > On 8/18/06, Mike Sussman <mmsussman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 8/18/06, Tod Merley < todbot88 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On 8/17/06, Mike Sussman < mmsussman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Folks, I am frustrated trying to install kubuntu 6.06.1. I cannot
>
Hi again Mike.
First, apologies!
I neglected to do a "run through" as I often do for these and so my
direction on using grub was incomplete. Please forgive me. I really
do know how frustrating it is to deal with this stuff and I regret
causing you further pain through my negligence.
As it turns out, I just bought a PNY 1G Flash drive which frees my old
Corsair 256M drive to become (as well as a little mover) a Puppy Linux
Multisession Live Drive (ya gotta love the Puppy). In doing a bit of
snooping around to see how my machine looks at the drive in it's
current state I did the grub exercise as I mentioned for you below.
Frankly, I forgot that you must enter the root command to the first
parentheses for the tab key to yield grub's "assumptions".
Here is what it looked like as I "snooped":
First I run grub with no flash drive attached (note the comments about
"TAB" in the grub splash text):
------------------------
GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For
the first word, TAB lists possible command
completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> root (hd0,
Possible partitions are:
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
grub> root (hd0,
------------------------
Note that at the first prompt I typed "root (" and THEN hit tab once.
The command turned into "grub> root (hd0". I THEN hit the tab key
again and it popped up the rest that we see.
I then exited grub with "quit" (yes, you MUST do this to see
changes!!!). Plugged in my new 1G drive and entered grub again:
-----------------------
GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For
the first word, TAB lists possible command
completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> root (hd
Possible disks are: hd0 hd1
grub> root (hd1,0)
-----------------------
Note that this time grub found a second "hd1" and that when I had
entered "hd1" the next tab yielded "," and the next tab "0)".
Grub apparently finds bootable devices and simply lables them
incrementally. If I want to make grub form a Master Boot Record for
my flash drive then as I use it "right now" (with the drive plugged in
this session" I will need to address the writing of that MBR to "hd1".
IT WOULD BE USEFUL TO SEE YOUR RESULTS OF DOING THE ABOVE (without the
flash drive of course).
Grub also sees the partitions "one less (-1) from everybody else.
Check it out!:
---------------------
root at tod-desktop:~# df -a -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 74G 50G 21G 72% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
/sys 0 0 0 - /sys
varrun 221M 80K 221M 1% /var/run
varlock 221M 4.0K 221M 1% /var/lock
procbususb 0 0 0 - /proc/bus/usb
udev 221M 136K 221M 1% /dev
devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
devshm 221M 0 221M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 221M 19M 202M 9% /lib/modules/2.6.15-26-386/volatile
/dev/hdc 650M 650M 0 100% /media/cdrom0
/dev/hdd 338M 338M 0 100% /media/cdrecorder
/dev/sda1 961M 0 961M 0% /media/usbdisk
root at tod-desktop:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 9800 78718468+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 9801 9964 1317330 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 9801 9964 1317298+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sda: 1007 MB, 1007681536 bytes
16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 3844 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3844 984048 e W95 FAT16 (LBA)
root at tod-desktop:~# parted
GNU Parted 1.6.25.1
Copyright (C) 1998 - 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Using /dev/hda
(parted) print
Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0kB - 82GB
Disk label type: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32kB 81GB 81GB primary ext3 boot
2 81GB 82GB 1349MB extended
5 81GB 82GB 1349MB logical linux-swap
(parted) select /dev/sda
Using /dev/sda
(parted) print
Disk geometry for /dev/sda: 0kB - 1008MB
Disk label type: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 16kB 1008MB 1008MB primary fat16 boot, lba
(parted)
-------------------------
Now I show you the current /boot/grub/menu.lst (note: reduced in the
hopes of getting this long e-mail through the "length filter"):
-------------------------
root at tod-desktop:/boot/grub# cat menu.lst
# menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
# grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
# grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
# and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/.
## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not change this entry to 'saved' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default 0
## timeout sec
# Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry
# (normally the first entry defined).
timeout 3
## ## End Default Options ##
title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-26-386
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-26-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-26-386
savedefault
boot
title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-26-386 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-26-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-26-386
boot
title Ubuntu, memtest86+
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
boot
### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
root at tod-desktop:/boot/grub#
-------------------------
I will be going through your post carefully perhaps by the end of
Saturday. I think what will fix the problem is to make a new MBR
(making copies of the old one first - I will send a separate e-mail
response with only that following sending this). The new MBR,
properly placed (so CMOS will be sure to see it first as a boot
option), and properly pointed (to the right partitions on the proper
disks containing the required files) will then boot you into a happier
and less frustrated life.
May it be!
Tod
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