[SOLVED] Killed my GRUB, don't know how...

[plate]

I am very well aware of the fact that there have been others before me posting a boot failure, with the notorious:

Code: Select all

GRUB _

non-prompt as the only output on screen, followed by a complete system freeze (not even ctrl-alt-del works anymore).

So maybe I'm not the first idiot to run into this particular problem, but possibly the only one who managed to get into that sort of trouble after six moons of flawless operation of this exact same configuration. The only difference to the last successful boot process two hours ago: I recompiled my kernel from xfs-2.4.20-pre2 sources, putting bzImage beside a backup kernel called bzImage.old (same thing, just 2.4.19-rc2) in /boot (and yes, of course I mounted it before copying anything over. Maybe I shouldn't have...). Then I edited grub.conf to include the new and the old bzImage to boot from, reboot: Bang. See above. I swear, this is all I did: added three lines to accomodate the new kernel as a GRUB menu item.

I'm running out of ideas, especially since reading pertaining information about this problem here in the forums: none of the remedies discussed are applicable. I did try to re-enact the entire installation routine for GRUB just now, by the way, but interestingly enough it complains upon "setup (hd0,4)" thusly: "embed e2fs_stage1_5 .... failed (this is not fatal)"... Well, if this isn't, what is?

I'm sick of rebooting from CD all the time, please, somebody with magnetic hands, touch my forehead! Make me understand what's going on!

[pilla]

have you upgraded grub these days?

I've read about a case where the stage1_5 file had to be in /boot (and not in /boot/grub). Maybe you could try that.

How are you booting? Dual Linux/Windows boot? If you are not using WinNT/XP, maybe you should install grub in (hd0,0)

[plate]

No upgrade to GRUB since October. Yes, I did emerge baselayout in between, do you suspect that to cause any trouble?
I just remerged GRUB to be on the safe side and pasted stage1.5 files all over the place in /boot, let us see what happens when I reboot now (first time using Lynx to post here from inside the CD-image, jeezuz, all those colours! All those ... other ... colours! ).
And sorry, but I am not going to touch that MBR. With the number of reinstallations I have to have on the XP side of things, I had rather keep everything the way it was before.

[plate]

Nothing. GRUB just sits there pondering whether it's alive or not. Probably is, but doing zilch, nada, diddley. Very disappointing.

Any other ideas?

[plate]

And this is even more embarrassing: I fixed it, but cannot say for sure how I did it because I was fed up with rebooting all the time, and in the end I tried just too many things in one smooth go to be able to pinpoint any of them as the sole reason why everything works again:

• rm -r /boot (I just had to...)
• mkdir /boot, copied my backup kernel to it
• Remerged GRUB
• Recompiled my new kernel
• Edited grub.conf again, recreated soft link to menu.lst
• dd'ed the dummy boot sector for the NT bootloader
• Booted into XP first
• Edited boot.ini to include the fresh dummy boot sector file

And at the next reboot everything was thumbs up. Naturally. A dozen new gray hairs for nothing. All I can say is: If anybody else out there ever runs into the same problem, just try everything I did. It'll take you longer than necessary, but at least you'll get there...

[ichnaton]

Just to mention an old cow, for those to come on and avoid this path. I've had a running suse system for years, recently with grub. Now I'm adding gentoo until it works as good as the suse and then switch.

At a certain moment, I've added lines for the gentoo kernel and the gentoo kernel itself to the /boot partition and menu.lst of the suse.

Reboot..died: GRUB

cause: probably a version conflict of the grub's but actually i still don't know for sure.

The easiest thing to fix this was to upgrade (you know, that outdated process with a pacj of cd's) the suse and have it redo my /boot.

[bruce2]

I just experienced the same problem.

Remaking the dummy boot sector, copying it to the windows partition and reinstalling fixes the problem.

(e.g. dd if=/dev/hdaX of=/bootsec.lin bs=512 count=1, then copy that to windows and edit c:\boot.ini).

[nixnut]

That was a nice piece of grave digging
My compliments on your searching skills.

Oh, and welcome to the forums.

[plate]

Hehe. Why waste a perfectly good thread only because it's two years old? Welcome aboard, bruce2.