Grub fails after latest upgrade
Grzegorz Andruszkiewicz
After latest upgrade of my laptop running Debian unstable the grub-pc
package failed to update and now my grub is corrupted. After reboot I
I get:
GRUB loading.
Welcome to GRUB!
error: the symbol 'grub_env_find' not found.
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue>
How can I now boot into my main linux partition? When I try the linux
or kernel commands it claims that they don't exist. I would like to
avoid having to boot from another device, because this laptop doesn't
have a CD drive - so I would have to play around with usb stick and
boot from there.
Grzegorz Andruszkiewicz
And I forgot to mention that I get the same error message when I try
to go to normal mode.
Joe
Just a wild guess, but try Ctrl-Alt-Delete a couple of times. A few
weeks ago, my Grub2 got into a state where it couldn't find a file on
boot, couldn't find it again with a different message after the first
C-A-D and booted perfectly on the second. It took me about two days to
get sufficiently frustrated to try it more than once... I was running
the Grub commands manually at the rescue prompt before that, which
worked once I had the syntax right. From my current grub.cfg:
set root=(hd0,1)
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.30-2-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/first-root ro
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.30-2-amd64
boot
Which I think was what worked for me.
Eventually the problem went away, after another update. I didn't see any
sign of anyone else being affected, but we're all different. I have a
separate /boot and the rest on lvm, which not too many people seem to
do. You won't have the /dev/mapper thing if you don't use lvm, just your
/ partition. I believe cat should work at the grub rescue prompt, you
should be able to read your current (hd0,1)/grub/grub.cfg to see what's
there.
--
Joe
Yo$$1960
> After latest upgrade of my laptop running Debian unstable the grub-pc
Grub2 in Sid (unstable) is currently broken. Look at Debian-user (ML)
archives for possible fixes.
--
Regards _
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is
/ _)rad never immediately apparent"
He signed up for just three years, it seemed a small amount
Tin Soldiers - Stiff Little Fingers
Chester A. Arthur
> On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:48:33 -0800, Grzegorz Andruszkiewicz wrote:
>
> Grub2 in Sid (unstable) is currently broken. Look at Debian-user (ML)
> archives for possible fixes.
What is the deal with grub2? It's way complex, and apparently doesn't do
anything that grub can't do, except put up a graphic briefly during boot.
What's the point? I see no benefit. I left the 'buntu family for Debian
for several reasons, including their embrace of grub2. Please don't make
the same mistake. Grub2 is a loser.
Anton Ertl
>On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:08:43 +0000, Yo$$1960 wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:48:33 -0800, Grzegorz Andruszkiewicz wrote:
>>
>> Grub2 in Sid (unstable) is currently broken. Look at Debian-user (ML)
>> archives for possible fixes.
>
>What is the deal with grub2? It's way complex, and apparently doesn't do
>anything that grub can't do, except put up a graphic briefly during boot.
>What's the point?
AFAIK Grub is no longer maintained upstream, because the
developers work on Grub2.
Personally, I prefer LILO. One big advantage of LILO is that I notice
a typo in the filename while I still have an editor to fix it; the
other big advantage is that it works well with md RAID1 (grub may have
gotten better in that respect, though).
- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
Grzegorz Andruszkiewicz
Hi, I tried Ctrl-Alt-Delete a few times but didn't help. I also tried
the commands, but it says that linux is not a command :( Any other
ideas? I think I will be forced to buy a memory stick and make it
bootable with a live cd.
Yo$$1960
> What is the deal with grub2? It's way complex, and apparently doesn't do
> anything that grub can't do, except put up a graphic briefly during boot.
At the moment, maybe not. It's designed to be far more adaptable, than
Grub is/was.
> for several reasons, including their embrace of grub2. Please don't make
> the same mistake. Grub2 is a loser.
Don't shoot me; I'm only the messenger. :-)
If you don't want to use G2 then don't. Use either Grub-legacy or LILO.
Both are available in the Debian repositories. Debian is, primarily,
about choice, after all....
--
Regards _
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is
/ _)rad never immediately apparent"
We don't need no-one to tell us what's right or wrong
The Modern World - The Jam
Lic. Mariano Acciardi
Hi,
I had same problem, I solved it in 15 minutes doing this:
1) Download squeeze version of grub-pc and grub-common in a pen drive.
2) Boot with net install CD of squeeze also
3) Enter in Advanced | Rescue option
4) Select root partition
5) Select Open shell console in root partition and mount /usr
partition if is in another disk in original system
6) Mount pen drive
7) cd to wherever you have mounted pen drive
8) Run dpkg -i of grub-common and grub-pc packages previously
downloaded
I also wrote a litle how-to in my site (in spanish):
http://www.marianoacciardi.com.ar/textos_gnulinux/grubrecover.pdf
Regards
Mariano Acciardi
Grzegorz Andruszkiewicz
That's what I had to do pretty much. I went for the grml distribution
(http://grml.org/), because it fitted on my ancient 128MB usb stick. I
booted from the stick, reinstalled grub and it works fine now.
I decided to downgrade grub to testing by default :)
Thanks for help,
Grzegorz
Magnate
I agree. I've filed several bug reports against grub2, including a serious
one which rendered an existing *stable* system completely unusable, and have
not been impressed either with the software or with the attitude of the
maintainers.
I think the main reason for the move is that grub2 supports unique device
IDs, but don't quote me on that.
CC