[Tfug] Grub rescue

[Kramer Lee]

I guess that is a good time saver for the live CD.  I was just using
my normal procedure just as soon as Ubuntu is installed.  I just go to
a shell and sudo passwd and make the install so I can just su - and
get into a root shell later  .  I like that sudo su for the live CD.
I will try to remember it next time I am doing that, but there is a
good chance I will just do the habitual thing.  OK, I will get out the
Knoppix CD and try it now.




On 11/1/10, John Hubbard <ender8282 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> You don't need to create a password for root to be able to run things as
> root. Just do a
>>sudo su
> And you will become root without ever having to set up a password for the
> root account. Way more convenient when running off of a live disk and your
> settings are lost after every boot.
>
> -john (from a mobile device)
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kramer Lee <krameremark1 at gmail.com>
> Sender: tfug-bounces at tfug.org
> Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 18:03:03
> To: Tucson Free Unix Group<tfug at tfug.org>
> Reply-To: Tucson Free Unix Group <tfug at tfug.org>
> Subject: Re: [Tfug] Grub rescue
>
> When I get something like this it seems that what has usually happened
> is that, for some reason, the first part of grub can't fine the next
> part.
>
> Anything I know to do about it requires a Linux CD or a SuperGrubDisk.
>
> Mostly I have used the Knoppix Hack #83 (in my version), called Repair Grub.
>
> I guess if you get the Knoppix Hack book, hopefully it will be a new
> version (mine has Knoppix 3.4 in it) and you can boot from that.
>
> Basically it has you boot from a Linux CD (Ubuntu works great too, for
> newer versions I use 8.04 or even 10.04) and boot with that.  Then I
> mount the partition that has the /boot/grub subdirectory (the main
> Linux partition) for writing.  Then I have had the best luck with this
> command ( and I usually just log in as root by using sudo passwd, and
> putting in a password for root then su etc):
>
> grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/sdax /dev/sda
>
> If it is hda then change s to h and the x is for the partition.  As
> soon as I sudo passwd and then log in a root, I run fdisk -l to see
> what the partitions are numbered.  So after I find the partition I
> think is the linux boot partition, I mount it for writing and g look
> in it to make sure it is the right partition.  For example, I mount
> sda5, and look in it and find the usual complement of /
> subdirectories, and then examine /boot/grub (or whatever is the
> subdirectory for the distro) and look at the grub.conf or menu.lst.
> If everything is OK, and say this is sda5, and so dev/sda5 is mounted
> on mnt/sda5 (mount it wherever you want), then the command would be:
>
> grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/sda5 /dev/sda
>
> If things go OK, it will make it so you can boot again.  Sometimes it
> takes more than that.
>
> Last problem I had like this was 2 days ago when I transferred from an
> 80 GB IDE to a 250 GB IDE, using PartedMagic4.8, and then before
> booting the first time, I installed CentOS5.5, over the Ubuntu,
> wanting to use this long term distro with the wireless if possible.
>
> Anyway, after doing that I just got
>
> GRUB>
>
> I grabbed a supergrubdisk and put it in, and used the selection (they
> are not very intuitive really) that automatically tries to fix grub,
> and it said it would make the Linux the first selection but it
> actually just fixed it to what I had it set at, which was windows as
> the main boot.  I don't know what it did, but it fixed it.  I don't
> know why CentOS didn't fix the MBR/grub situation so it would work in
> the first place.
>
> Anybody else have fun with these problems?  IIRC, a version or two ago
> Ubuntu was breaking especially with grub 2, during updates.
>
> I am OK with grub2 now, as I have installed StartUpManager, so I can
> control the timeout, which system is the default boot, and other
> things, again.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 10/31/10, Charles R. Kiss <charles at kissbrothers.com> wrote:
>> Thanks for the tips.  Just to give a little bit more info : I'm not
>> getting
>> to the boot menu, after the blinking cursor, the display is:
>>
>> error: file not found
>> grub rescue>
>>
>> Is there anything I can do with this prompt (input) to get to the old boot
>> menu, to start up the Windows boot loader (which is in there somewhere),
>> or
>> even get to kubuntu?
>>
>> Sent from Samsung mobile
>>
>> tfug-request at tfug.org wrote:
>>
>
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