Can't boot! error: out of disk grub rescue>

[etomar]

I'm running a dual-boot of Ubuntu 9.10 and Vista on my MSI VR440X. I used my laptop this morning and everything was working fine. But I just got home and turned on the laptop and it won't boot! I get:

GRUB loading (as usual)

but after that I get:

error: out of disk.
grub rescue>

I even tried booting from an Ubuntu CD. I boots, but any option I choose gives me a black screen with nothing but a _ as if I have to type a command or something. I know it can't possibly mean I'm out of disk space; I had plenty left. Besides, it all worked perfectly this morning. In fact, I didn't even run Ubuntu this morning, I used Vista! I anyone could help me I would really appreciate it. By the way, I'm a total newb when it comes to command prompts and whatever... Anyway, thx!

[etomar]

Please! I can't boot Ubuntu or Windows... No one knows what I could do??

[Jabb3r]

Hi. I saw your post. Sorry yu sys is playin up. I aint no expert with any of this, but mebe one thing that might get you somewhere is to look @ the grub commands so you try to boot your linux image direct and see if that helps. I can't think of the commands off the top of my head but I know grub is pretty powerful to get things up and running again.

Will update with the kinda thing I mean.

Edit: Found this with a quick search. Ignore the making a floppy part but look @ the commands and see if you can adjust as necessary.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4622

Good luck

[mihaimm]

I have exactly the same problem. Started last night, after a reboot. When inspecting (hd0,1)/dev... I see no sda1 there... no sda at all actually. No wonder grub can't find the disk.
The big questions now... how can /dev/sda be missing, what causes this and, most important, how to fix it?

[mihaimm]

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4622

This article is from 2001... this is a problem with grub 2.

[OnlyTim]

Seems odd that this happened to me yesterday as well? After doing a update manager session, I came back to the computer a couple of hours later and it had locked up. I did a reboot, and got the errorut of disk,grub rescue. Using live CD now to post this. I was running dual HDs with the grub on HD0, which, now cannot be seen.

My question...I want to load grub on the HD1 and remove HD0 (which is failing anyway) anyway to do that using live CD?

Thanks

[lmarmisa]

May be you could try to reinstall grub2.

Start the system with a LiveCd.

Open a terminal and type:

fdisk -l

Take note of the Linux partition (I'll suppose that it's /dev/sda1 but change it if neceesary)

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
chroot /mnt
install-grub /dev/sda
update-grub2

That is all.

Best regards,

Luis

[OnlyTim]

Hi Luis,

I used the fdisk -l and received no output. Still a newbie of sorts so thanks for your patience.

I can mount the HD which is dev/sda1 with my working boot file and see the grub folder. can I reconfigure it there?

[lmarmisa]

I am sorry.

I forgot the first command

sudo bash
fdisk -l
...

Regards,

Luis

[drs305]

Getting a grub-rescue prompt normally means G2 can't find the grub.cfg file. Fortunately the Grub 2 rescue prompt will let you search for the partition on which the system is installed.

Try using the Grub 2 Rescue mode to identify the correct partition and boot to it. Here are the community doc instructions on how to use the Rescue mode:
Grub2 Rescue Mode