Grub Issue

LenL · #1 16th May 2008, 02:33 PM

After installing FC9 and doing a yum update all appeared to be working well.

This AM when I turned on the computer and it booted all I get is "GRUB" on the screen. It does not boot into FC9. I suspect something went wrong with the boot loader?

Can someone give me some suggestions on what commands etc are needed if I go into rescue mode to fix the boot loader?

Or should I just reinstall and not be bothered?

aabate58 · #2 16th May 2008, 03:02 PM

This happened to me too. I just booted from the CD, went to Rescue, mounted the installation (chroot /mnt/sysimage) and entered "grub-install /dev/sda". This worked for me. Not sure if it matters, but this happened to me doing an upgrade from F8 to F9. Clean installs did not give me this grub issue.
Hope that helps!

-Al

arvinddeshpande · #3 16th May 2008, 03:22 PM

Well! Las night I somehow managed to upgrade fc8-x86_64 to fc9-x86_64. My NFS server crashed in between after anaconda installed 495 packages and had to redo the whole scene again before it again crashed while performing postupgrade tasks.
Anyways this did not update my grub at all......next time I had to again go to NFS installation and select an option to INSTALL grub....even though it was there somehow "update grub" did not work for me several times.
Just my 2 cents!

dann · #4 16th May 2008, 03:26 PM

If you get to the grub menu, you can probably save it without doing a reinstall. Type "c" if you're not already at the command prompt.

#make sure you know what disk you installed FC9 onto
geometry (hd0)
# it should say something like ext2 partition XXXblocks etc.

#make it the root partition
root (hd0,0)

#load the kernel
kernel /vmlin - hit tab to view which kernels are installed - pick one

#find the initrd
initrd /init - again hit tab to find the right one

#then boot it
boot

If the system boots, you should then be able to fix /etc/grub.conf to the correct settings to next time grub will work without intervening.

LenL · #5 16th May 2008, 04:42 PM

Al,

Yes I did the same update you did from FC8 to FC9.

I think you meant: chroot /mnt/sysimage? I did that and it worked but when I did the following command grub-install/dev/sda i get an error msg: NO such file or directory. Since I am installing fedora on my second drive (D) i then changed it to grub-install/dev/sdb and got the same error msg.

Looks like I am dead in the water and may have to do a new install.

aabate58 · #6 16th May 2008, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LenL

Al,

Yes I did the same update you did from FC8 to FC9.

I think you meant: chroot /mnt/sysimage? I did that and it worked but when I did the following command grub-install/dev/sda i get an error msg: NO such file or directory. Since I am installing fedora on my second drive (D) i then changed it to grub-install/dev/sdb and got the same error msg.

Looks like I am dead in the water and may have to do a new install.

Ya, that's what I meant.

Anyway, sdb would be a sata/scsi drive. If yours are IDE, I believe it's /dev/hdb. If you want grub on your MBR, you would use /dev/hda.

aabate58 · #7 16th May 2008, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LenL

Al,

Yes I did the same update you did from FC8 to FC9.

I think you meant: chroot /mnt/sysimage? I did that and it worked but when I did the following command grub-install/dev/sda i get an error msg: NO such file or directory. Since I am installing fedora on my second drive (D) i then changed it to grub-install/dev/sdb and got the same error msg.

Looks like I am dead in the water and may have to do a new install.

Oh, and btw, there is a space after grub-install. Sorry!

LenL · #8 16th May 2008, 07:28 PM

I could not get around the issue and I was just wasting time. Perhaps if I was not new to fedora/linux I would have tried the command line method but I just kept getting into more foreign territory as I tried suggestions!

I just finished up a new install. Perhaps as my linux knowledge gets better and I can grasp more of the nuances and undertand more of the wealth of knowledge on this forum I can solve problems like this in the future.

By the way what was really strange was after I did the original update to FC9 and a fairly big yum update after, I was using FC9 with NO problems! It was working great and I was impressed with how well everything worked! Boy was I surprised this AM only getting "GRUB" trying to boot!

Oh well!

aabate58 · #9 16th May 2008, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LenL

I could not get around the issue and I was just wasting time. Perhaps if I was not new to fedora/linux I would have tried the command line method but I just kept getting into more foreign territory as I tried suggestions!

I just finished up a new install. Perhaps as my linux knowledge gets better and I can grasp more of the nuances and undertand more of the wealth of knowledge on this forum I can solve problems like this in the future.

By the way what was really strange was after I did the original update to FC9 and a fairly big yum update after, I was using FC9 with NO problems! It was working great and I was impressed with how well everything worked! Boy was I surprised this AM only getting "GRUB" trying to boot!

Oh well!

Glad you're up and running. At least you'll know what to try if it ever happens again. It is odd that all was working fine and then the grub prompt showed up. I must've missed that in your original post. I thought it happened right after the upgrade when you rebooted.
I too have, plenty of times, gotten myself so deep into a problem that I just reinstalled. It happens, and it's great way to learn the do's and don'ts.

Happy Linuxing!

-Al

nspmangalore · #10 27th November 2008, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aabate58

This happened to me too. I just booted from the CD, went to Rescue, mounted the installation (chroot /mnt/sysimage) and entered "grub-install /dev/sda". This worked for me. Not sure if it matters, but this happened to me doing an upgrade from F8 to F9. Clean installs did not give me this grub issue.
Hope that helps!

-Al

After my full system update to fedora 10, i'm having this same issue.
tried the above method.
DID NOT work for me.

i did a chroot /mnt/sysimage
i have my file sys there (intact)
however, when i try a grub-install on my linux partition, it says 'written with no errors', but no luck with the grub.
i still get the 'GRUB' text on my screen and nothing else.

nspmangalore · #11 27th November 2008, 07:55 PM

sorry!
seems like i jumped the gun a lil bit there...

i typed in reboot after rescuing the system.
i shud have typed exit for the changes to take place.

hmmm...
i learnt a new thing for today!

aabate58 · #12 28th November 2008, 03:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspmangalore

sorry!
seems like i jumped the gun a lil bit there...

i typed in reboot after rescuing the system.
i shud have typed exit for the changes to take place.

hmmm...
i learnt a new thing for today!

That's what makes linux so great - always something to learn! Cool, glad that's all it was!

-Al

nspmangalore · #13 28th November 2008, 06:38 AM

the issue is now resolved.
i am now able to boot via grub.
but unable to see the splashimage.
any solutions?

mathguy · #14 28th November 2008, 01:08 PM

Hi, I had the same problem as LenL and nspmangalore -- the upgrade from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10 worked fine, then I ran the system update to update packages since Fedora 10 release, and rebooted to be greeted by a page full of the texts "GRUB". So I tried the same fix: run the install DVD in rescue mode, chroot /mnt/sysimage and then grub-install /dev/sda. However, I get the message

/dev/sda: Not found or not a block device

though the MBR is located on /dev/sda and no change from Fedora 9. I then viewed the post

Fedora 10 i386 hang on SCSI boot

and, following the fix suggested there, tried

/sbin/mkinitrd -f --with=scsi_wait_scan /boot/initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686.img 2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686

but I get an couple of error messages:

resolveDevice: device spec expected
resolveDevice: device spec expected

If anyone has any ideas, I'd be really grateful! How do I persuade Fedora 10 to recognize the scsi device, /dev/sda?

aabate58 · #15 28th November 2008, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mathguy

Hi, I had the same problem as LenL and nspmangalore -- the upgrade from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10 worked fine, then I ran the system update to update packages since Fedora 10 release, and rebooted to be greeted by a page full of the texts "GRUB". So I tried the same fix: run the install DVD in rescue mode, chroot /mnt/sysimage and then grub-install /dev/sda. However, I get the message

/dev/sda: Not found or not a block device

though the MBR is located on /dev/sda and no change from Fedora 9. I then viewed the post

Fedora 10 i386 hang on SCSI boot

and, following the fix suggested there, tried

/sbin/mkinitrd -f --with=scsi_wait_scan /boot/initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686.img 2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686

but I get an couple of error messages:

resolveDevice: device spec expected
resolveDevice: device spec expected

If anyone has any ideas, I'd be really grateful! How do I persuade Fedora 10 to recognize the scsi device, /dev/sda?

Do you actually have scsi/sata devices? If they're IDE, you'll want to use /dev/hda.
Sorry if that comes off as a stupid question, but sometimes it's the little things.