Ubuntu Installation :: Cannot Use External Keyboard With Grub In 11.04
May 9, 2011
I'm using a Toshiba Tecra Laptop through a dock station with attached keyboard, mouse and display. I mainly use windows but also practice with ubuntu. After update to 11.04 I cannot select which system starts with the external keyboard and I must open the laptop and use its keyboard only for this task, once started everything works as usual.
As a partial solution I've tried to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and force windows as default system. But on boot grub still shows Linux (the first line) as preferred system. Do you now what's wrong?
By the way, now I find a lot of files in /boot/grub. If I'm not wrong they weren't there with 10.10, do you know their purpose?
I am trying to install 10.04 to an external HD (not flash). I ran the live CD, installed to it and all seemed to work fine, but I don't want to use GRUB. I ran 7 repair and did a bootrec /fixmbr and it's booting normal, but I can't boot to USB.I want it to boot normal, unless I hit F12 to boot to removable device. Not much of a Linux person, but I am trying to be.
I have a laptop with dual boot Windowz 7 64 bit and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 64 bit using windows MBR and EasyBCD. I have no issues booting into either. I also have a 500 GB external HDD which has a NTFS partition for backup data and Linux root and swap partitions at the end. I have GRUB installed on the external HDD MBR and can boot into Ubuntu on the external HDD via bios options. I recently bought a larger external HDD 1TB. Now so far I have made same partitions as old external HDD namely NTFS for bakup followed by Linux root and swap partitions. Linux partitions were cloned using disk cloning while on NTFS partition I only copied data. How do I copy the GRUB from old external HDD to new one so that I can boot into my linux on the new external HDD? BTW the new HDD is Western Digital Passport Essential SE, which also has some factory installed image at the start of drive.
I have windows 7 64bit on an internal harddrive, a larger internal harddrive for storage and a 1tb mybook external for storage. I have an ubuntu 9.10 iso burned to a cd that i got from the ubuntu site and I had previously installed dual boot successfully on my other computer, a laptop.
I went to install it on my desktop as well and when i was selecting how much space to allocate i noticed it was using the mybook and not the internal. I couldn't see an option to change which harddrive it used so in my ignorance i allocated 50gigs to ubuntu on my 1tb external mybook. This was obviously the wrong decision as after restarting the grub bootloader would not open and grub rescue came up everytime after that.
I have tried booting from the cd, reinstalling from the cd, and using a windows 7 repair cd. I can't even get into non installed version of ubuntu to try and use terminal. I have spent the 5 hours on the internet trying to figure out what to do and i have no clue. I want to get ubuntu off the mybook and get back on windows 7 where i can then reinstall ubuntu properly on one of my internal harddrives.
I installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to dual boot with Win Xp and everything went fine with the installation untill I went to boot back into Windows. My keyboard fails to respond in the boot loader so I am stuck with the default setting of booting back into Linux. To be clear, the keyboard works when the BIOS loads, I can hit DEL and go to the BIOS menu, etc, it's only when I hit the boot loader. The keyboard also works fine in Linux and Windows.
I have installed Linux mint and it failed on grub, if I press something grub crash, tired of that I install Ubuntu but my surprise was the same problem on grub, I was thinking if grub2 was the problem, so I tried grub legacy and was the same x_x
I remember use a old version of ubuntu with lilo (or was opensuse) but it works! but neither last ubunt nor mint with grub
Grub loader: select OS If I press ANY key it crash, if I wait the 9 seconds it enter to default OS (first option)
Note: It is neither PS2 nor USB keyboard, it's a laptop keyboard, a Compaq presario 2100
I'm trying to get FC13 running on a Toshiba SG20 - no keyboard, no monitor. grub.conf and the entry KEYBOARDTYPE=pc and I think that's where it's hanging. Can I say KEYBOARDTYPE=none ? There is nothing, that I can find, even on the gnu-grub site as to options for KBT.
I can attach the drive to my desktop - has screen and keyboard - and the system boots fine. However when I boot on my desktop I get the blue screen with the FC13 logo - semi circle - looks like a top laying on it's side.
The default (graphical) installer did not work on my PC (i7 quadcore 8 GB DDR3). I have installed Ubuntu using the alternative installer (Desktop, 64 bit) on my external USB drive. I installed grub on the MBR of the second drive (/dev/sdb) as I did not want to touch my (first) Windows disk. After reboot (chosing the USB drive as boot device, else Windows is booted) grub reports an error and enters the rescue mode. I tried all possible combinations of "root=(hdX,Y)" in grub.cfg to no avail.
I repeated the whole procedure but now disconnected the internal HD with Windows. Installation went smooth again (Windows disk was not seen this time), but after reboot (the internal drive connected or not) I again get (slightly different this time) grub error: can not find file.
Computer: Toshiba Satellite Pro L510 laptop, 10.10.This has always happened but I have gotten around it by time-out and putting my menu.list in order. When I first boot the machine (switch on for the day from computer being off) I get to the grub options to select a kernel and I have no keyboard. No up/down arrows so have to go with the kernel on top of the list (not always desirable).
When I get to the log-in screen if I hit restart and go back to the grub screen I have a keyboard and can select any kernel. If I login to the kernel I have full keyboard, no problem. If I then restart, I have keyboard at the grub list.
Nutshell: It is only when starting the computer fresh that the keyboard is dead at grub menu (and then only). Any time after that, once the computer has been switched on, if I restart I have keyboard at grub menu and can select different kernels. (Of course, if I switch the computer off and back on again, no keyboard ...)
I have Ubuntu/Vista dual boot desktop with Single HDD (200GB) that i cloned to an external USB HDD (320GB) using clonezilla. My intention is to use the external HDD as a backup to up running in case my 3 year old desktop HDD fails. To make sure the clone is good to use if need, i connected external HDD to USB port and tried boot from it but got "Error 18". I tried to Google got some infoDid a fdisk -lu and got the following.
Code: Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
I have dual boot (winxp) which has been working for over a year now.But for some reason recently, grub wont recognise the keyboards arrow keys. ie cant change menu selection. in fact it wont recognise keyboard at all it seems. Pressing enter wont work either. I have to wait for the timeout.
The arrows work before hand (like in bios settings) and after once ubuntu has booted. Just not in the grub menu
Its something to with the USB wireless keyboard. If i replace it for standard PS2 kybd it works.
I've tried to be clever but as usual I didn't think before acting and missed a small detail.
I have recently installed karmic (dual booting with Vista) on my dell xps laptop. The install went fine, I'm very happy with my new OS.
I bought a new Seagate 500GB portable external HDD. I got a bit over-excited and installed karmic on the external drive. This worked fine and I got a lovely (but slow to appear) Grub2 menu showing my vista and both ubuntu options.
My problem is that now, when I unplug the external drive, Grub fails and I get a grub rescue> prompt. So I need the external drive to be plugged in if I want to boot.
It seems I have done something to the grub configuration. I have read around the subject but I am not confident about how best to proceed.
I understand there is an 'advanced' option in the installer which will allow me to choose where to install grub. Presumably I want it on the internal drive so that I can boot without the external one plugged in.
Am I right in thinking I can just pop in my install disk and redo the installation?
If I indicate I want to install Grub on the internal drive, which partition should I aim for?
Will I get a grub option for booting to the external drive?
Will I be able to plug the external drive into a different machine and boot from it?
I haven't done anything with the fresh install on the external drive so I don't mind losing that.
I have an hp laptop and i had ubuntu on it for 3 years. my hard drive started to fail a while ago (i had ubuntu 10 on it until 1 week ago) and a then it all went black...I took the laptop to a repair shop, they told me it was the disc, so i bought a new disc, installed it on my laptop and reinstalled the new ubuntu 11. so far so good. i have now a working OS, internet connection and i can in fact type this message.
The thing is: all my files are on the old drive, which doesn't load/boot/start/read anymore. I have tested it on some friends's pc, tried a few HD disgnostic tools, they all send the same message: "fail"
I then tried to mount my old drive (with all my precious files in it) on my laptop as an external drive (usb) hoping that ubuntu 11 could read it as an external usb key: it gets read by the system, but it shows no files at all. it also shows an error message saying the drive can not be mounted, with some "sdb1" thing. i am sorry but i'm really dumb when it comes to tech language.
Then i tried to boot it on start-up but i got the grub rescue> thing and nothing else, just a sad, blinking cursor to recover my files,i have also tried testdisk but couldn't understand very well how to use it, and then photorec, from which i recovered bits and pieces of files, with no name. some of them are just parts some of them are complete.
My problem is: i have to get access to my files, as I use them for work, i couldn't do a back-up recently and i have some real important deadline to meet... for which i need those files. is there any way i could solve the grub issue and have that drive load/mount again as external usb?
I just installed Ubuntu 9.10 on a dell d630 laptop and tried to connect an external ps2 keyboard and mouse using USB connectors to the laptop's USB ports. However, they are not detected by the system.
It worked fine for awhile, but recently my usb keyboard wont work, ONLY IN GRUB. So I cant use grub to select another boot option. This kbd does work in Ununtu and on my other XP machine. Old version of Grub, I believe. (not GRUB 2). No error messages displayed.
i recently started dual booting with Kubuntu using an external HDD. GRUB works fine, but it sees two Kubuntu's on the drive. In GRUB, i see "Ubuntu-Linux Kernel (for some reson its not identified as Kubuntu) on /dev/sdb1 (external drive)", then i see recovery mode beneath it, and the exact same line right below recovery mode, followed by another recovery mode. strangely, selecting either one boots into kubuntu no problem at all. is this a problem and is there anyway i can delete the duplicate entries?
I set up my Mac Mini to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I started with Windows only, and allowed it to rewrite the partition table (GPT/MBR). When I tried to install Ubuntu, it didn't see Windows until I used Gdisk to delete the GPT portion. Then it recognized the Windows partition and installed Ubuntu as per normal. Now when I boot, I get GRUB and the option to boot Ubuntu or Windows 7. The only problem is that the USB keyboard (Aluminum or standard PC keyboard) doesn't work until an OS is loaded.
Is this an EFI problem? I'm starting to think that EFI is required for USB keyboard support at bootup since it replaces the BIOS functionality. Is this even remotely accurate? Did I mess things up by not going the rEFIt route? I'm not sure what I can do at this juncture as I can only boot into Ubuntu.
I could install OS X, rEFIt, then Windows and Ubuntu, keeping rEFIt as the boot loader, but if there's an easy solution I'd like to avoid that. More importantly, I'd like to understand what's going on.
Here is my current setup for my laptop: I dual boot Windows Vista and Ubuntu 9.04. Vista is on the laptop's HDD while Ubuntu is on an external USB HDD. When turning my laptop on, if the external hard drive is either not on or disconnected, I get "Error 21" and nothing happens. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but when I need to take my laptop somewhere where I do not have access to my external HDD, it is rendered completely useless. So is it possible to set up GRUB (or possibly another bootloader) to boot regardless of whether or not it detects the drive Ubuntu is installed on?
I cant boot from my External HD with ubuntu installed. I get this message: error: file not found. grub rescue>
In an attempt to fix this problem, I tried using the following sudo command: sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt sda5 does not exist, I tried 4, then 3, then 2, and it worked, but that was a partition of my internal HD containing windows 7.
I also typed in: sudo grub-install --root directory=/mnt /dev/sda not I get the following error when I try to boot from my internal HD: error: no such device: 57288a24-5d12-4fb1-b27e-eb09a1f9b7c6. grub rescue> Is there a way to get grub to boot into windows 7 again?
When I type: sudo fdisk -l I receive a list of my drives and their partitions, This is my assumption as to what drive is
Which: /dev/sda1 = Vista loader, for Windows 7 /dev/sda2 = Windows 7 (At least I hope its still there.) /dev/sdb1 = Bootable Flash Drive. /dev/sdc1 = External HD.
The text from the terminal is as follows: Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x8da4c52c
Device, Boot, Start, End, Blocks, Id, System. /dev/sda1, 1, 1355, 10877952, 27, Unknown. /dev/sda2 *, , 1355, 38914, 301961224, 7, HPFS/NTFS. (The commands changed this from FAT32) Disk /dev/sda: 8054 MB, 8054636032 bytes 8 heads, 32 sectors/track, 61451 cylinders Units = cylinders of 256 * 512 = 131072 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier:0x00000000
Eventually I would like to fix the error I get when I boot from the external, I would like to to boot to ubuntu, but for now I am concerned with getting my internal HD to boot windows 7. Where I originally found the terminal commands to begin with. I think sda5 is where linux was installed in the example I found, and didn't realize it.
i have ask somebody and told me to download grub to mbr to external drive i find some sudo commands but i found some errors like no mount...i dont understant.
Code: Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010 ============================= Boot Info Summary: ============================== => Lilo is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb
My 13 year old Pentium 3 1.3 ghz machine is finally ready to call it quits. specifically, my slave drive where all of my music is stored. I can access a very small portion of the the files on the HD, The files are still there but are not showing up. any ideas on how I could access this drive. I wanted to try to reinstall my os on the primary drive in hopes that it wouldget it working, unfortunately I've run into what's seems to be a common problem of my usb keyboard not being recognized.
i have a usb mouse and keyboard and am testing booting without rhgb quiet on the previous kernel version. however the keyboard is not working at this point, which i only noticed just now.
I recently compiled a new kernel (2.6.38.8) but it seems I forgot something. Right after grub, when the new kernel is selected (by using the keyboard), the keyboard stops working (it's on usb). When I select the old kernel everything is working nicely.
I actually used the config of the old kernel to configure the new one but excluded some modules before I finally compiled it. Now I'm asking myself which modul did I erroneously throw out?
Edit: A somewhat related question: Is there a log somewhere in the kernel source folder (or someplace else) which shows the kernel compilation process?
After installing ubuntu 9.10 on external HDD I cannot boot vista if external usb is unplugged(where ubuntu is installed). it says grub loading and after that recover grub ( i think that is what is says ... not certain in this moment ) anyway hope you get my dilemma. If you need more information I'll be glad to provide it.
I have windows on my box, I have fedora 14 on my external that goes through my usb. Grub is installed on my usb. Since the only thing stored on my external was fedora i really didn't have to do much to it. just go into bios and boot from usb. Now that im using fedora more, Id like to add Vista to my choices. I guess the numbers change once your using an external drive. Ive read some of the problems like mine but they didn't quite do it. Im going to inclose 2 screen shots of my drives/partitions and my grub.conf.
# grub.conf generated by anaconda # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file # NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
I recently decided to try out openSUSE 11.4 with gnome and install it on my external USB HDD. To do so i followed this guide here SDB:Installation on external hard drive - openSUSE
Unfortunately after finishing the install when trying to boot into the system i got GRUB error 17. The only thing i did differently from the guide was placing the /boot partition after a ~800 GB NTFS partition with my data.
I tried to solve the problem by reinstalling the system with different settings than before. After completing all of the steps in the guide mentioned i disabled booting from MBR and enabled booting from /boot partition. Also set the installer to write generic boot code to MBR.
Though after the installation i realized that grub is not loading at all this time and went on to fix it by completing the steps here SDB:All about GRUB - openSUSE . After doing so i'm back to GRUB error 17.
I have upgraded my laptop to 10.04 while having my usb-keyboard plugged in.f I boot the laptop without a plugged in keyboard, the laptop keyboard is not working. It starts working as soon as I plug a usb-keyboard in though.Quite annoying if I take my laptop with me and the first thing after booting is to find a usb-keyboard to plug in Does anyone know where can I reconfigure this? [edit]I just found out, that the laptop keyboar seems to be in numlock mode... meaning that the keys [j,k,l] is mapped to [1,2,3] etc
