[Discuss] Kubuntu reinstall GRUB boot problems

[John Blomfield]

Murray Strome wrote:
> I messed up my wife's computer (I accidentally deleted some "hidden" 
> files in her home directory).  I decided to reinstall Kubuntu, but on 
> different partitions so that I would not disturb her data. I planned 
> to copy all the data files over to her new directory after the 
> installation (I was able to find enough space on some partitions to do 
> this). Everything went well until I tried to reboot. I did the 
> installation from the Kubuntu Live CD for AMD-64.
> At first, I got GRUB stage 1.5
>      Error 17
>
> I searched around for this error and tried everything I could find on 
> the net but all of the remedies suggested failed to work.
> I tried reinstalling several times, trying different places to install 
> GRUB, (including the floppy) all without any luck.
>
> For these installs, I set sda3 as /usr sdb1 as /  and sdc10 as /home 
> and sdc8 as SWAP
>
> I tried Smart Boot Manager, SuperGRUB, Universal Boot CD,  and several 
> other utilities to try to boot into the system, all without success.
>
> I couldn't boot into anything.  I eventually used a Windows 98 rescue 
> floppy which did fix the MBR on sda1 to enable me to boot into Windows 
> 98. I then tried again to install. This time, I tried sda3 as / and 
> sdb1 as /usr.  Again, no luck with GRUB.
> I then tried using the Kubuntu Alternate AMD-64 CD and loaded Rescue 
> Mode. One of the options there was to reinstall GRUB.  I first tried 
> doing this on the floppy (it didn't actually do anything), then on 
> (hd0), which would be sda1.  Neither worked.  When I rebooted with the 
> floppy, it just said to remove disk and try again.  Then when I 
> rebooted again, it booted Windows 98, indicating that it did not 
> really change the MBR.
>
> The Smart Boot Manager only recognizes the Windows OS, not LINUX 
> (though it in the past it has always worked OK). I looked at the /boot 
> file in the newly installed root partition and it looks OK.
>
> I am at a complete loss as to what to try next.  I have spent a lot of 
> time trying to figure this out, with no luck so far.  It is extremely 
> frustrating to see that everything seems to be there, in the correct 
> place but being unable to get to it to run the new installation. There 
> must be some simple explanation as to what could be going wrong and 
> how to fix it.
>
> By the way, the disks are detected in the BIOS in the same order as by 
> LINUX.
>
> I have never had this difficulty with any other installation, though 
> sometimes I have had to resort to using Smart Boot Manager floppy for 
> booting.
>
> Any new ideas? Thanks for any help
>
> Murray
>
> Further information:
>
> sda  is Primary IDE Master
> sdb is Primary IDE Slave
> CD RW is Secondary IDE Master
> DVD RW is Secondary IDE Slave
> sdc is Master on PCI IDE Controller 1
> sdd is Slave on PCI IDE Controller 1
> All drives are set to Auto in BIOS (something someone suggested in one 
> of the forums concerning the GRUB error 17 -- but this is the way they 
> were so I didn't have to change anything).
>
> IDE Controller 2 is not used (I think the controller is Promise 
> Technology, if I remember correctly).
>
>
I can't tell from the above what you mean when you say you have 
installed or re-installed grub?  If you haven't tried this so far, try 
it now!

1. boot with a rescue CD to get a command line.
2. your rescue CD should tell you where and how to mount your / (root 
file system)
3. then #cd /boot/
4. run grub i.e. #grub
5.at the grub prompt i.e > find /boot/grub/stage1
    this should find all you installed versions of Linux and respond 
something like,
(hd1,0) which corresponds to sdb1 ( more if there are more installations)
6. type still at the grub prompt > root (hd1,0)
7.  and then > setup (hd0)
8. > quit
9. reboot

John Blomfield


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