Ubuntu Installation :: Grub Rescue - Access My Files On External - Failing - Drive ?
Jun 28, 2011
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?
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Feb 8, 2010
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.
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Jan 7, 2010
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.
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Jun 7, 2010
I was messing around with the partitions and accidentally y deleted the ubuntu partition! I have Windows 7 as a dual boot but I can't access to that OS anymore. The message that I get is: error: no such partition. grub rescue>
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Oct 24, 2010
First time poster and recent Ubuntu adopter. I recently installed 10.10 on my main HD alongside a separate windows (xp) partition (it worked perfectly). Then I decided to get fancy and installed 10.10 to a flash drive directly from a live cd. I attempted to boot from the flash drive, and got a black screen with a blinking underscore for about 10 minutes, then I forcefully rebooted. Now, whenever I attempt to boot at all from my main HD I get "error: no such device and a ton of misc numbers. And the flash drive will not allow me to boot from it. Currently, I'm working within the Live CD.
I have a few projects I need to complete with Dreamweaver inside XP, so recovering it completely would be nice.
Code:
Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010
============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================
=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks on the same drive in partition #1 for (,msdos1)/boot/grub.
=> No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdf
[Code].....
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May 2, 2010
Recently my laptop broke down and wont start up. I'm currently trying to recover my files to my mac with an IDE to USB cable. It recognized my windows partition fine and I was able to get all my files off of that, but the majority of my stuff is on the ext4 partition that I have on it. Does anyone know how to access the ubuntu partition of this hard drive from my mac?
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Sep 30, 2010
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
Device, Boot, Start, End, Blocks, Id, System.
/dev/sdb1, *, 1, 61452, 7865839+, b, W95 FAT32.
Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 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:0x0000a613a
Device, Boot, Start, End, Blocks, Id, System.
/dev/sdc1, *, 1, 30402, 244197376, 83, Linux.
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.
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Jun 12, 2011
I have grub 1.98 and it boots fine with out my usb hdd connected but brings me to grub rescue when it is.
It takes me to grub rescue and tells me that it cannot find device: "UUID"
This UUID is not even the UUID of the drive that I cannot plug in if I want my computer to boot to grub.
Here is blkid with the usd hdd plugged in after boot:
Code:
/dev/sda1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="BA56FD4B56FD0941" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda2: UUID="E23E02D93E02A71F" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: UUID="9579da2d-5ba0-407c-a95d-9f134a1417f3" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="caefabd7-c8f0-4fca-8005-d682ae939b91" TYPE="swap"
[Code].....
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Jul 15, 2010
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.
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May 25, 2010
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
[code]....
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Jul 18, 2011
Have win 7 on one drive and ubuntu on 2nd drive then son goes and deletes partition that Ubi was in ,now cannot access any system all i get is grub rescue on screen and i cannot boot with any thing taking a guess the grub bootloader has died and made a mess of the windows bootloader.
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Dec 20, 2010
dual boot ubuntu / windows on seperate drives ubuntu drive fails today and now boots saying cannot find device (id) grub rescue>
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Jan 2, 2010
My girlfriend has a dual boot netbook I set up for her with Vista + 9.10. Her internet service went down yesterday temporarily and she was messing around with the computer to get back online and somehow booted into the Windows Rescue Partition and began the Windows Restore process, then turned the computer off during the middle of the restore process.It's her only computer and she lives 1800 miles away. And since it's a netbook there's no optical drive.
When she boots up now, the netbook goes straight into Grub Rescue mode. I got her to try most of the commands for Grub Rescue, but most of them come back as "Unknown Command". The "LS" command works though, and she was able to get a list of partitions displayed.Does anyone know of some commands she could use try to boot back into 9.10 (assuming it's still there)? Or even boot into Windows? Specifically, is there a simple command that could be combined with "LS" to specify a partition and try to boot into it?
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Dec 16, 2010
I updated yesterday and now when I start my laptop it goes in to grub rescue mode. I have booted from a 'live cd' and thought I could repair grub from there. In gparted however the partition with ubuntu (sda1) is seen as unknown file system, in terminal when I list the partition table it shows up as FAT16 type. When I try a grub-install it gives this error message:
[Code]....
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Apr 11, 2010
First the hard data:
Upgraded from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 via upgrade manager
System is AMD 64
Have dual boot with XP on seperate hard drive
[code]....
Then the wheelspin:
Seem to have knocked out GRUB as normal loading screen does not appear anymore.
Worse, I think I accidently installed grub to something labelled SDC5.
Cannot get anything except the "grub rescue" prompt. I'm not sure if using the LiveCD (9.10) can help. Have tried a few prompts from other threads but just ended up with mud splattered all over the place. I'm gathering I need to load grub, but can I do it using any grub rescue commands?
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Aug 2, 2010
i've just installed 10.04 lts onto an external usb drive and everything seems to be working smoothly - except i cant work out how to access the other files on the usb drive. - i used the wubi installer to install ubuntu onto the drive.
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May 19, 2010
I have an external drive that has been formatted as NTFS and I need to recover the files. For the most part, on windows, I can read the drive however When I'm copying, it interrupts with an I/O failure. Is there a way to copy the files from Linux and have it continue even if it has an error?
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Apr 2, 2011
I just installed Debian Squeeze onto my desktop and when i try to access it I get a dialog displaying:Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:Error opening '/dev/sdb1': Permission deniedFailed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Permission deniedPlease check '/dev/sdb1' and the ntfs-3g binary permissions,and the mounting user ID. More explanation is provided at[URL]
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Apr 8, 2011
I have an external USB drive with one ext4 partition on it. When I plug it in it's mounted and a file manager window pops up. However, I am not able to create files/folders unless I'm root. I have to open Nautilus as root to put files on it. How do I set it so that I as a user can add files/folders to the drive having them end up with the same owner/permissions I have as a user? It's to cumbersome having to sudo every move with regards to the USB drive.
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Jun 5, 2010
I've got Ubuntu 10.04 installed on one partition, and Windows Vista on another. I was messing around with my partitions, and now I can't boot to either one. I just get an error when I boot up on GRUB which says "error: no such partition", and then a prompt saying 'grub rescue>'. I've read up on other people's posts, and they said that I should reinstall GRUB from a livecd, but that doesn't look like it does anything. It seems that GRUB is trying to boot from hd0,8, and that doesn't exist anymore. I can change the 'root' and 'prefix' variables to the right partitions, but the 'boot' or 'chainloader' command doesn't work. You should be able to boot from 'grub rescue>', because that's what it's for, right?
I just want to be able to boot into Ubuntu, not Windows.
PS: Sorry if I'm specifying way too much information(or not enough), I'm fairly new to forums.
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Mar 19, 2011
I've tried reading other threads about grub rescue but it seems like it only works if the USB stick can actually be read. Sorry if I sound dumb, I'm really new to all of this.I installed Jolicloud (it's based off Ubuntu, apparently) to dual boot with Windows 7 which I got with my netbook. When I tried to get rid of Jolicloud, I think I accidentally deleted a partition-- now whenever I boot up my netbook, I get the black "grub rescue" screen of death.
I tried getting the netbook to boot from my USB but it won't do it. The USB light flashes but nothing happens. I know there's things in there because I can boot from the USB using my desktop. Jolicloud was initially installed from the USB so I don't know why it won't read it anymore.
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Apr 30, 2011
The day that the upgrade came out (not beta, the true release) I upgraded via the Update Manager. The upgrade went great until it asked me to reset to finalize. Upon doing that, I was greeted with a less than friendly grub-rescue> screen. The materials I currently have at my disposal are a 10.10 installation disc, and an 8.04 installation disc, and a rescatux disc (super grub) that seems to yield an error upon any of the four options presented... how can I use these (both have Live CD) to fix the grub...
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Jun 30, 2011
I installed Fedora on my pc over Ubuntu and now Grub wont go any further than rescue mode. (Apparently grubs boot folder was on the Ubuntu partition. Now I see why a dedicated boot partition is handy.) I used VMware to install Fedora as im currently out of CDs. VMware is setup to use the Physical HDD for the primary HDD in the VM. (I made sure VMware disabled access to the windows partitions so the guest couldn't access them.)
I am in Windows 7 at the moment and am avoiding rebooting as that will basically lock me out of the only computer I have access to. I tried running the Ubuntu LiveCD to restore grub but dont know how to mount Fedoras LVM partitions. What can I do to repair grub or at least install an MBR that is capable of booting windows? I can boot floppies and cds using VMware but am not sure what to use to fix this.
Fedora LiveCD wont mount any of the partitions to install Grub
Ubuntu LiveCD may work if I can mount the LVM partitions.
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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?
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May 19, 2010
I just (for the first time ever) installed a version of Ubuntu. It is 10.04. I installed off of the Live Disk. I was having a great time until the first time I went to boot into it and I got the message
"Error: No such device: "long number" Grub Rescue> "
[Code]...
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Sep 1, 2011
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?
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Feb 6, 2010
I just installed Ubuntu 9.10 on hd1 - /dev/sdb1 at the end of the installation I chose to install grub at hd0 - /dev/sda1. The file system I chose was ext4 for ubuntu "/" - 50 GB,
ext3 for "/home" - 5 GB, and 1.5 more for swap. When the installation was complete I got the following prompt:
GRUB loading
error: no such disk
grub rescue>
>
There was nothing I could do, pressing TAB did not show me all the commands like grub is expected to. Typing 'help' did not show any commands as well, instead it showed me - "NO SUCH COMMAND" or something like that (I did not took note of what the output was). I believe the problem is in the grub loader - which was not really installed properly in hd0 - /dev/sda1 (which is FAT32 - windows)
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Feb 11, 2010
I had windows XP and Ubuntu installed on my Asus 1000HE and the hard drive is failing so I need to RMA it. They told me to restore it to factory defaults which I just press F9 at boot 3 time and Ghost takes over and reformats, creates 2 partitions and installs XP on one of the and the other is for another OS or just storage if needed.
I did that now I get a grub rescue prompt when I boot my netbook. Is there a way that grub installed itself to my PE partition that's a hidden partition that came with the netbook? I've taken the drive out of the netbook and put it into my desktop and formatted both main partitions but not the restore one. Yet I still get the grub rescue prompt, how can that be?? I can't even boot from flash drive or get to bios it just goes straight to the rescue.I need to send the netbook back but can't unless its restored. Right now I'm on the 9.10 live flash drive I made on my desktop and my only hard drive attached it the netbooks.
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Mar 9, 2010
i get this error when i try to boot from harddrive:
grub loading error: no such disk grub rescue>_
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Mar 18, 2010
I tampered with installation process while I was reinstalling ubuntu, now I have this command on my screen and I'm stuck.
GRUB RESCUE>_
What do I need to type, to continue installation.
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