Ubuntu Installation :: Disk Failing - Need To Move GRUB
Apr 18, 2010
My boot disk is failing! I am a little nervous, so I'd like to have extra eyes on this so that I don't fubar it.
My setup is as follows, with WinXP and Ubuntu living on completely separate drives:
The boot disk (WinXP with grub2 on MBR) is failing. I need to replace it, pronto.
Do I need to get any data from the MBR on the failing disk before removing it?
Should I make the Karmic disk bootable and install grub on it before removing the failing boot disk?
Once I have Windows (re)installed on a new disc (which will still be /dev/sda) I want to install GRUB2 to its MBR and re-instate the old (current) boot options. How should I do this?
I have windows 7 installed in my internal laptop hard disk and I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 "the Karmic Koala - released in October 2009 and supported until April 2011", on my external hard disk. The problem I am facing is that the GRUB have been installed on the hard disk, for that reason if my laptop have restarted I need the hard disk to be attached to it to load the GRUB and to log in to windows. I need guidance in moving the GRUB to my internal hard disk or return the windows boot loader in charge, so I can boot my windows without the hard disk.
I just installed Karmic Koala on one of my hard harddrive. The other disk has Windows XP. Previously I had a working dual-boot setup, but after problems with Ubuntu I reinstalled it. On booting, I get the following:
There is no Grub menu which might allow me to drop to a Grub prompt and evaluate. This occurs whether I boot with the Ubuntu harddrive or re-set the BIOS to boot with the Windows harddrive. If I boot with a LiveCD, I see that both my Ubuntu and Windows harddrives exist and are readable; the Ubuntu was indeed wiped clean and reinstalled; the issue is with the boot process. How can I set this up to boot?
I've been landed with a disk from a friend whose machine we've never managed to get into the BIOS of and tweak the boot order to include a CD drive.
I pulled the disk from my own system and ran a from-scratch install on this shiny blank disk with numerous of the tweaks I like and he'll need. (Getting pleased with how the time to usable is still dropping doing an install).
What I'm concerned about is sticking this disk in his machine and using it. I've gone with the sort-of generic 32-bit base even though both his machine and mine are Athlons. However, he's a musician and has some rather nice audio kit - as well as, I suspect, different video hardware.
Am I likely to hit noticeable problems? Is there some script I can arm myself with to rescan available hardware and update config, or can someone give a list of packages to completely remove then reinstall via the recovery boot?
I know the latter option may well cause some dependency problems that see stuff I've already installed lost - I can cope with that if I can get the GUI running smoothly.
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 have 2 500gb drives in my system. One of the drives I use for swap and home is failing, good thing it is under warranty... Bad thing I have to remove the drive from my system.
I have / on the first drive taking it all up. On the drive that needs replaced I have /swap and /home taking up the whole drive.
Is there a way to shrink /dev/sda to put swap and home on that drive and to move it back when new drive arrives? Or would it be simpler to just re-install to one drive?
Can one install Linux on a dedicated hard disk on one machine, then move that disk to another machine and boot from it? I know Windows won't allow you to do that, but can it be done with Linux?
I recently installed Ubuntu Lucid Lynx for a friend; for non-technical reasons, the installation had to be to a USB drive instead of writing to the internal hard disk. After reading some online literature on the subject recently, I suspect that the GRUB may be on the internal hard disk MBR instead of the MBR for my USB drive. How can I move the GRUB to another MBR without completely reinstalling it?
If I use the super grub disk I can get to my ubuntu partition otherwise my windows partition boots automatically. I spent over an hour in the community documentation using the live cd to reinstall grub and nothing has fixed it. I think that grub is installed and the windows bootloader is just taking precedence.
I saw a similar thrad, but can't find it anymore. Anyhow it was not resolved. So I take the liberty to post this in a new thread: I have installed ubuntu 9.10 on a laptop in dual boot configuration (other OS is WinXP). grub starts and I can hit enter to boot Ubuntu. However as soon as I use an arrow key to move downwards in the menu, grub hangs. In this condition I cannot boot any other OS, not even the "safe" version of Ubuntu.
Any idea what is the cause of this? It is a fresh installation and I read in the other thread that reinstalling grub or re-running grub-update had no positive effect. Does anone know how I can install grub 0.97 ? Where do I find it?
I am on F15 32-bit with GNOME 3. I keep getting "A Hard Disk Is Failing" warnings from the Disk Utility, very frequently. Is this a serious issue? Because I knew this to be a bug in Palimpsest DU back in F13/14. Also how can I disable any notifications from this application?
How to diagnose a possibly failing harddisk. This is the system disk of a Windows XP machine that will not boot. It gets to the "progress bar" that runs across the screen a few times but then it always stops in the same spot. If I boot from a live Ubuntu CD what tools should I use to find out if the disk itself is failing? The disk is under warranty but if I take it to the shop and the problem turns out to be software errors then I have to pay so I want to be sure what is going on before going there..
Last week, i updated, my fedora. After that, during every boot up, I am getting a warning message like " Your hard disk may failing". It indicates that it is due to bad sectors. But I don't think so. There was a bug reported for a similar problem in fedora 11. I think it is not fixed yet. Hard disk is not having any problem during data access. Other OS including windows are not giving any warning message.
Firstly, I'm ubuntu-naive so things may need to be explained painfully slowly. Secondly, I tried doing a search for similar problems but I had a hard time following the solutions so rather than just jump on another thread I figure i'd start a new one.I am trying to move on from XP and tried setting up 9.10. I did the LiveCD; followed the installtion prompts and installed, and restarted. Following restart I get the following;GRUB loading.error: no such diskgrub rescue>I've tried doing the boot info script lines but I keep getting "unknown command sudo" msgs.I can't get beyond this point.
Trying to do a new install of ubuntu 10.10 to my laptop. Installation and all works fine, but upon rebooting, after the bios screen i get:
Code: error: out of disk. grub rescue> I tried using following some instructions i found after googling for the problem: Code: ls (displays the partitions and devices Grub can see) set prefix=(hdX,Y)/boot/grub
[Code]...
but after the 5th step, i get another "error: out of disk" message. The odd thing is that I had an install of 10.10 on this laptop a month ago, and it worked fine. As a side note, I installed fedora 14 after this happened, which worked fine. Reinstalled ubuntu, and it was back to the same problem. I also tried installing with a kubuntu cd I had, to make sure it wasnt the install media, and had the same problem.
I've had this problem on a couple of Ubuntu server upgrades and am keen to get to the bottom of it. Basically, with an Ubuntu 10.10 server installtion where LVM has been used, running through the do-release-upgrade process works perfectly until the reboot stage. Then grub complains with "no such disk" and dumps me out to the grub shell. From here, I can see (from ls) the following:
Code: (hostname-swap_1) (hostname-root) (hd0) (hd0,5) (hd0,1) (fd0) I can enumerate the filesystem on (hd0,1) which seems to contain the /boot filesystem and the filesystem on (hostname-root) seems to contain the / filesystem.
If I execute: Code: linux=(hd0,1)/vmlinuz-image-2.6.38-8-server root=(hostname-root) initrd=(hd0,1)/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-server boot It boots, but into busybox saying that the target filesystem doesn't have requested /sbin/init.
I have a dual boot machine (Win XP + Ubuntu 9.10 on separate physical drives) which was working fine. I now want to replace the Ubuntu 9.10 with LinuxMCE which is based on Ubuntu 8.10. Using the LinuxMCE install disk, I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10 over the top of Ubuntu 9.10 (repartitioning the whole drive). On reboot, I now get a Grub "no such disk" error. I have run the boot info script which produced the following RESULT.txt:
Code: Boot Info Summary: => Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks for (UUID=6a59ab9e-041f-41e2-b27c-02b8ada4c1af)/boot/grub. => Grub 0.97 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb and looks on the same drive in partition #1 for /boot/grub/stage2 and /boot/grub/menu.lst. => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdc
I recently bought a new Gateway desktop. I use mostly Ubuntu but like to boot into Windows once in a while. Have used Ubuntu as my main OS for about 3 to 4 years, dual booting. After the Ubuntu 10.04 release, I decided to throw in another hard drive into the new computer and make it dual boot.
Mistakes:
1. I did not create the Gateway Recovery Disk in Windows before installing Ubuntu.
2. Installed Ubuntu 10.04 without disconnecting the Windows 7 drive.
3. The Ubuntu install never prompted me asking where to install Grub (apparently there is an advanced menu somewhere in the install process that lets you select), and it was installed to the first drive on the PC by default, which happened to be the Win 7 drive.
This left the Windows 7 unbootable because it did not appear in the Grub menu. I did some searching and managed to install Grub on the second drive (the one with the Ubuntu install) and also managed to add Windows 7 to the Grub menu so I could boot into Windows. This last procedure added the Windows 7 option to the Grub on both drives.
I then managed to fix the Windows 7 mbr using /fixmbr and /fixboot. The problems I still have are as following. I can't create the Windows Gateway Recovery Disk in Windows. Every time I try, I get a message telling me "Hard drive configuration is not set to the factory default. Restore aborted.". I already disconnected the Ubuntu drive but get the same results. I know this one is not a Linux issue, but maybe someone had a similar issue and might be able to help.
The next problem I have is that it looks like after the las Kernel update in Ubuntu, Grub overwrote the Windows 7 mbr again. Is there a setting file somewhere that now tells Ubuntu that Grub is installed in two places and that whenever there is an update it updates both? Can I change this? I really would like to avoid re-installing Ubuntu to fix this.
I hope I'm wording this issue clearly.I'd like to plug a disk (IDE or SATA) into an adapter that lets me plug it into my workstation via USB. (E.g. N82E16817153071 at newegg) It will show up as /dev/sdX where X is some arbitrary letter depending on what other disks the system happens to have.
I'd like to have a script then partition, format and copy files onto it. Then we need to install GRUB on it.
Then I will remove the disk and install it permanently into a different computer, here it will either be /dev/hda (if IDE) or /dev/sda (if SATA). However, it seems that in general when you install GRUB on a disk, it assumes it is going to be the same disk that boots??
I am first trying an IDE disk so it will be /dev/hda. I get a "GRUB Hard Disk Error" when booting it as /dev/hda rather than whetever it was on the USB adapter. I used this to install grub:
grub-install --root-directory /mnt/removable/ /dev/sdX Where X was the appropriate letter based on the USB adapter. Then I fixed /mnt/removable/boot/grub/device.map to use /dev/hda../dev/hdc instead of sda..sdc.
I haven't found much about this specific scenario I have so far on the web. I am guessing that stage1 is either attempting to find files based on what the original workstations primary disk geometry was, or it's assuming that the disk is the same location as it was when it was a "removable" one (i.e. /dev/sdX or (hd5) or whatever, when it should just be looking at (hd0).
The goal is to do this kind of installation easily and quickly, and not have to do it individually on each final computer via install CDROM or whatever, or reboot the workstation each time in order to attach the disk as the same location there, etc. (This is a manufacturing setting).
I accidently deleted my ubuntu partition, and when boot I get this message:GRUB loading.error:unknown filesystemgrub rescue>I can't get into my bios options either... I just see the MSI splash screen and it cuts right to this error message.
My ubuntu desktop died yesterday. I rebooted my computer in like 1 month and after grub, the screen is all black and it stays there... forever. So I decided to see if the problem persists or not when I completely upgrade my ubuntu to the latest version. So I downloaded the latest ubuntu iso from the site, burned it, and booted from CD and I see several selections to choose from the menu list. The second one was "Install Ubuntu". What I'm worried about is I don't know whether selecting 'Install Ubuntu' will erase all my previous data, or there will be an option to upgrade Ubuntu without erasing all the data. Is it safe to install from the live disk? Will my data be safe? Is there any way to upgrade my Ubuntu on the HD to the latest Ubuntu from a live disk?
I have an old HP PC with 2 drives: Primary (C = 20GB) and a slave (E = 60GB). I have Windows XP Pro OS (which I want to completely replace with Ubuntu). Ubuntu 10.10 is installed on E as a side-by-side (with XP on C). I am done testing Ubuntu and now want to completely replace the XP OS.Ubuntu is installed on E-drive as a partition. ISSUE: When I log on the PC goes directly to the GRUB menu but I get no option to boot from the Live Disk 10.10 during the boot-up.
HISTORY: I have tried (unsuccessfully) to remove Ubuntu from my E-drive by use of the uninstall function from Windows control panel. I have also tried to remove it using the manage/Disk Management process but the "Format" and "Delete" options are unavailable (grayed out) so cannot use that. I would like to do a complete clean up and fresh install of Ubuntu as my only OS.I have read and tried a number of internet articles / recommendations about opening BIOS and redirecting the start-up to the disk, but I do not get any option or any time during the boot to do that.
QUESTIONS: 1) How can I get my HP PC to boot from (recognize) the Ubuntu Live Disk (CD)?
2) Would a complete removal and clean reinstallation be a better approach?
3) And how can I remove Ubuntu from the partition on E (as I want to dedicate the C-drive exclusively for Ubuntu)?
This is my first post so please be patient. I am unfamiliar with this part of the installation process.
My system has Windows XP Pro SP2 installed on /sda1 and originally a 10.04 on /sdb1-3, now upgraded to 11.04. The Ubuntu system works fine (teething troubles with nvidia drivers on upgrade but fixed now), and the Windows system shows up in the grub menu, but when it's selected, I just get `GRUB Hard Disk Error' and nothing else. Windows installed properly, and booted successfully until I installed Ubuntu in the first place. I can still access the files on that drive from within Ubuntu.
I've tried fixboot in the Win Recovery Console, which sounded like it did something, but didn't fix the problem. This problem isn't new to grub2, by the way - I just haven't needed Windows in a year.
Plan to use GRUB for multiple booting to select the OS but only with luck have I got it partially to work. Windows 98 and Puppy 431 O.K on first HDD but Puppy 421 on second HDD /dev/sdb1 stops at error 21.
Last nigth I upgrade my system to squeeze and it whent well except for grub-pc and udev. If i try to upgrade now udev will not install do to problems with the kernel version and grub-pc can't seem to find the boot image.
I am fresh to Ubuntu and am having trouble getting it to boot on my system. I normally run XP, but recently added a second internal hard drive and installed Ubuntu on it. The installation went fine and upon initial reboot I received -
GRUB loading. error: no such disk grub rescue>
I am wondering if there is an issue between two different operating systems upon boot. I am not familiar with GRUB commands.
Downloaded Ubuntu 10.04.1 Desktop AMD64, tried to install it to a cleand HDD using the whole HDD, i.e. gave it permission to use the whole HDD. Installation process appeared to run OK but when it came to the restart it just fired up the message
error: out of disk grub rescue>
I've searched this forum and found numerous references to these error messages but cannot make head nor tail of the diagnostic suggestions. Apart from anything else they suggest strings of command lines which I don't understand and can't enter anyway since they don't correspond to my keyboard layout (if I hit > or ) something completely different appears on the screen). Is there someone here who can provide a step-by-step solution in lay language ? Or is there such a thing as a bootable file which can be downloaded and inserted into my CD drive to correct this problem ?
