GRUB problems ?

[jameslui]

Hi all, I have Fedora 11 on both my IBM X60 and Lenovo S10. Unfortunately, after I upgrade from yum, I thought it's the new kernel problem and go through the questions that ppl have on this page. But in my case, my GRUB isnt even loading and there's just a cursor keep flashing on my screen.

Yes, it happens on both my laptop and netbook, is there anyone else having the same problem ?

Thanks!

[JohnVV]

Hi all, I have Fedora 11 on both my IBM X60 and Lenovo S10. Unfortunately, after I upgrade from yum,

?? do you mean update ?
or did you "upgrade " from fedora 10 or 9
if upgrade then there could be many reasons for it not booting

-- if update ---
it sounds like a graphics driver problem .But without knowing what hardware is installed ....

i do know that this current ( and the last) kernel had a problem with "nvidia" being listed as the driver in the xorg.conf

changing that to "nv " from booting into a old kernel aloud me to boot into the new kernel and install my nvidia driver

--- but this is for nvidia ONLY----

[jameslui]

Hi John, thx for your quick reply, yes it should be "update" from yum, not the kind of f9 -> f10 that upgrading, I apologize for my mistake.

[JohnVV]

no problem i see that kind of mix up all the time

from the context of your post i was thinking you meant "update"

look on the forum for similar posts . This i common if your built in chip is nvidia .I don't know if others are affected ( like ati or intel )

[jameslui]

Thanks John, your solution looks great, I'll try it out.
Again, thanks so much for all your quick replies and helps.

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by jameslui

Unfortunately, after I upgrade from yum, I thought it's the new kernel problem and go through the questions that ppl have on this page. But in my case, my GRUB isnt even loading and there's just a cursor keep flashing on my screen.

Yes, it happens on both my laptop and netbook, is there anyone else having the same problem ?

Yes. If I understand, that sounds exactly like the problem I had on both my Dell laptop and my self-assembled i7. That is, I could see the BIOS screen (and could modify BIOS) but then I only got a flashing cursor line, no text, no graphics, no further activity--dead.

In both cases, I booted a rescue CD or USB and ran this, which fixed the problem.

chroot /mnt/sda1
grub-install hd0

Though depending on the rescue disk, you may have to mount sda1 and/or other partitions.
Also, using a RIP Linux rescue USB, I had to do this before grub-install:
MAKEDEV sda

[jameslui]

Woooooooooooooooooot, I get my Linux box back !
Thanks so much for ur great solution KenJackson! Wish you have a great day today =)

[stoat]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

Originally Posted by jameslui

Woooooooooooooooooot, I get my Linux box back !

Hello KenJackson and jameslui,

Would either or both of you be willing to clarify all of that just for the record? The linux rescue mode of the Fedora DVD or the first CD of the CD set (i.e., "Rescue installed system") will mount your system partitions for you at /mnt/sysimage. So with the Fedora disk, the sort of classic steps to re-install GRUB in the master boot record of the first drive are more like this...

chroot /mnt/sysimage
grub-install /dev/sda

NOTE: your grub-install hd0 is okay syntax, too.

I just wondered why you went to the trouble to create a mount point named /mnt/sda1 and, I guess, mount a partition there and then run the grub-install command. I tried this myself for fun by booting with the Fedora 11 DVD. Without chroot-ing to /mnt/sysimage, I created mount points and mounted my F11 boot and root partitions...

mkdir -p /mnt/f11/boot
mount /dev/sdb7 /mnt/f11/boot
mount /dev/sdb8 /mnt/f11

That went fine. Everything was there. Same as it was in /mnt/sysimage, BTW (I was not allowed to unmount /mnt/sysimage). Then I changed the root directory to it...

chroot /mnt/f11

Still okay so far. But when I ran the grub-install command, I got the "Not found or not a block device" error message. I presume that is what your makedev step was for, but I could not find makedev anywhere even with whereis. I repeated all of this with Fedora 10 which I have installed in a single root partition. The same exact things happened.

So, I am very interested in how this kinda unusual method worked for jameslui, but I can't reproduce it here. What did I do wrong? Re-reading your stuff, I'm sort of thinking now that you weren't talking about using the Fedora disk for this idea. If that is the case, this idea would be useful to have clarified. The classic method is well-known. Even a LiveCD HOWTO is around here somewhere. Maybe this could add to those as a sort of third-party rescue disk method.



P.S.: Okay I found MAKEDEV as you wrote above. Not makedev. Will play with it some more.



P.P.S: Okay. Got it. There were a couple of unfamiliar error messages, but the grub-install command ran okay. So there it is. An interesting variation on the GRUB re-install thing...

[KenJackson]

Hi stoat,

I had been meaning to gather up the specifics and post a good summary of what happened, but I didn't get to it yet. Plus I can't find my FC11 CD. I could burn another, but where could it be?

Anyway, the first time it happened, I did use the FC11 CD, which did, as you say, mount my partitions for me. I didn't remember what names it assigned. I tried grub-install without chroot, but it couldn't find it's files. So chroot seemed like the simplest answer.

The second time, I couldn't find my FC11 CD and, very alarmingly, I couldn't boot another CD anyway. I still haven't tracked that one down. That is--did trashing my MBR somehow prevent a CD from booting? I don't know how, but I haven't tried to reboot yet to investigate.

Anyway, I had previously put RIP Linux on a USB stick (very convenient), so I booted it. It didn't mount my partitions, but it at least setup a nice /etc/fstab file, so I only had to mount /mnt/sda1.

When I chrooted to it and tried grub-install, it complained about the mapper device. On inspection I found the /dev directory was empty except for null. So /sbin/MAKEDEV sda fixed that.


I think this is a serious bug. Since it struck me twice and jameslui once, surely it's affecting others. Even with the experience I have, it took me a while to figure out what to do the first time. Surely some novices are dead in the water.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

I think this is a serious bug.

You're referring to jameslui's GRUB boot loader getting busted by a yum update. Right? I guess so. But it's fairly common and for a good long time. I've never read an explanation for it (if there is one). But re-installing GRUB usually fixes it. I think anyone using a GRUB-booted system should have a Super Grub Disk or the Fedora disk or some other way to emergency boot it. Eventually, they'll need it.

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by stoat

I guess so. But it's fairly common and for a good long time.

Fairly common?!!

I only recently switched to Fedora from Mandriva. I never had that problem with Mandriva, PCLinuxOS or Ubuntu. And my brief search didn't turn up any similarities.

I am sure that if a novice is talked into ditching Windows and using Fedora Linux and then that happens, he'll curse Linux and pine for Windows. Yeah, I think it's serious.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

Fairly common?!!

I think so. At least it is around here IMO. But people usually only come here with troubles, so reading here a lot can skew a person's perception of the real world scope of any problem. And maybe it's more of a Fedora thing.

Now in this case here, the victim described only a blinking cursor. The best-known manifestation is the single word "GRUB" followed by a space and a blinking cursor with the system hung there. But there are a couple of other variations. Anyway, I discussed them in another thread here and listed lots of posts as examples and references. I wrote that because this issue comes up here so often. I just link to that now without having to explain it all any more.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=197514