Strange Grub Error Message on dual boot Dell laptop

[Goh Lip]

On 04/27/2010 05:41 AM, NoOp wrote:
> Tab Gilbert wrote:
> ...
>>
>> The problem I have is when it comes to partitions and their naming structure
>> is I tend to glaze over.  Started originally as a Mac person way back.  It
>> is only due to the improvements in the partition manager during the
>> installation phase I even feel comfortable doing dual boot installs.  Before
>> that it was a trip to "The Hack of All Trades" for a little assistance.  I
>> did nuke two of the three DataSafe applications while in safe mode and will
>> see what happens.  Installing grub2 in a separate partition will certain
>> require a trip to the Hack.  I would really rather do almost anything than
>> having to install vista again.
>>
>> I would like to thank everyone for all of their assistance.  You folks have
>> been a great help and I sincerely appreciate it.  It is just such a strange
>> error message that I was stumped on how to even google for some leads.
>
> Well, don't feel alone :-) I was hit by
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/496435
> [upgrades of the grub-pc package can overwrite wrong MBR]
> this morning. But it was my fault&  easily fixed on my system. My issue
> wasn't the same as yours however.
>
> I've a dual boot system (WinXP on sda) where sdb and sda are swapped in
> bios&  mapped so that grub uses sdb (Ubuntu) to boot. when I was
> upgrading the system to lucid last night I shut down before the upgrade
> completed (on purpose as the machine is in a bedroom&  didn't want to
> listen to it all night long). I knew that I'd have issues that needed to
> be fixed in the morning.
>
> When I booted this morning I got as far as:
>    symbol 'grub_puts' not found
>    grub-recover>
> Rather than trying to fix the issue in grub-recover (possible as I've
> done it on another system) I rebooted into a 10.04 liveCD and
> reinstalled grub to sdb. That worked fine.
>
> In the Dell cases; I still think that a good workaround (until the issue
> is properly fixed) might be to install grub2 to a separate partition.
> Maybe after Goh Lip get's his beauty rest he can have a look :-)
>
>
>

I am not sure if this may help, as I don't have this problem.
Create a bios boot partition, what else?  :)

"sudo parted /dev/sda set <partition_number> bios_grub on"

http://grub.enbug.org/BIOS_Boot_Partition

Regards - Goh Lip







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