Ubuntu

Computer will not boot into Ubuntu

Asked by Joe

I have a HP desktop running Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows Vista. All of a sudden, I cannot boot into any version of Ubuntu. I can only boot into Vista. I get the Grub 2 menu with a list of available versions. The Grub 2 menu does not count down 10 seconds like it usually does. When I select any version of Ubuntu, the screen goes black, and the computer just sits there. I performed a chdisk from Vista, but no problems were solved. I do not know what disk checks toi run from a Live CD. I tried to re-install Grub 2 from the
Live CD, but thuis failed. I do not record the error message. Any ideas on how to proceed? Thanks in advance, Joe

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Junjun Mao (jmao) said : 		#1

If you see grub menu but it doesn't count down 10 seconds, that means the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg might be corrupted. What is in this file?

Here example of installing grub2 from live cd:
http://www.ubuntu-inside.me/2009/06/howto-recover-grub2-after-windows.html

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#2

I followed the instructions at this link, and rebooted. Same problem. When I did the "grub-install" command, I did first receive a message: sudo: unable to resolve host ubuntu. Installation finished. No errors reported. I visually checked the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and it looked visually okay. When I performed a re-installation of grub 2 following other instructions ( I do not have the link handy, I did receive the following error:"grub-setup: warn. Attempting to install GRUB to a partition instead of the MBR. This is a BAD idea..." I will retry all again.

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#3

I retried but no luck. I other installation was to mount the Linux partition and perform a sudo grub-install. I redid this and everything work with no errors, but the problem still remains. Is there a linux version of chdisk that I could run?

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#4

I ran fsck and no errors were found. Next visit I will include the contents of /boot/grub/grub.cfg .

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#5

The file /boot/grub/grub.cfg does not exist. I believe this file is no longer used in GRUB 2 which is what I was running and what comes on the Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD. There is a file called /etc/default/grub and its contents are
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT="10"
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entrys
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_RECOVERY="true"

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#6

I copied a backup copy of /boot/grub/grub.cfg to my mounted partition and rebooted, and Ubuntu came up normally. I still do not get the grub 10 second countdown, but I can live with that. Thanks to Junjun for his comments. It bothers me that re-installing grub from the Live CD did not work.