Boot problems after updating 9.10

[jimbr]

I had a working Win7/9.10 system with Ubuntu installed under Wubi. A few days ago I ran the Updater and all appeared to go well but at the end the restart failed with error message of a long string of characters and the prompt "Grub rescue". Research indicated that Win 7 Recovery Disk would work - downloaded it and could not get it to boot - more reading and found boot repair software that did work ok for Windows. However when I select Ubuntu to boot the system dithers a bit and reverts to a restart.

Reading on the forum indicates the need to get disk info in order to receive help - here is the result on my system:

NB Ubuntu is in a the Ubuntu folder on sda3 and sdb is the USB Memstick that I have booted from.

Thanks in advance, Jim


Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> Syslinux is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda
=> Syslinux is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb

sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Grub 2
Boot sector info: Grub 2 is installed in the boot sector of sda1 and
looks at sector 298464 of the same hard drive for
core.img, but core.img can not be found at this
location. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs: /bootmgr /boot/bcd

sda2: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows 7
Boot files/dirs: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe
/wubildr.mbr /wubildr

sda3: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Grub 2
Boot sector info: Grub 2 is installed in the boot sector of sda3 and
looks at sector 298464 of the same hard drive for
core.img, but core.img can not be found at this
location. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs: /ubuntu/winboot/wubildr.mbr /ubuntu/winboot/wubildr
/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /ubuntu/disks/swap.disk

sda3/Wubi: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop1,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so


sda4: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Grub 2
Boot sector info: Grub 2 is installed in the boot sector of sda4 and
looks at sector 298464 of the same hard drive for
core.img, but core.img can not be found at this
location. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

sdb1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: Fat32
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 * 2,048 3,147,775 3,145,728 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda2 3,147,776 244,320,255 241,172,480 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 244,320,256 467,421,183 223,100,928 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 467,421,184 488,394,751 20,973,568 12 Compaq diagnostics


Drive: sdb ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Disk /dev/sdb: 8032 MB, 8032092160 bytes
5 heads, 32 sectors/track, 98048 cylinders, total 15687680 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sdb1 * 8,064 15,687,679 15,679,616 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/loop0 squashfs
/dev/loop1 1f06deb5-d91b-494f-9667-ccb562c99335 ext4
/dev/sda1 98FAD0B4FAD08FBC ntfs RECOVERY
/dev/sda2 4AB2D34CB2D33AE1 ntfs
/dev/sda3 2C962C11962BD9DA ntfs
/dev/sda4 507A2F3E7A2F1FE8 ntfs LG_RECOVERY
/dev/sda: PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sdb1 5568-7049 vfat
/dev/sdb: PTTYPE="dos"

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

aufs / aufs (rw)
/dev/sdb1 /cdrom vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=cp437, iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/loop0 /rofs squashfs (ro,noatime)

[bcbc]

Looks like you installed grub2 to every partition. That's an old 10.04 upgrade issue (user unfriendly). But good that you got win7 booting again.

In terms of why Ubuntu is not working... not sure. Bootinfoscript says that the root.disk isn't in good shape. You could try mounting it, or running fsck on it. (Before you do it's a good idea to back it up (\ubuntu\disks\root.disk)).

So from a live CD, you can mount the windows partition, then try mounting the root.disk. If that fails, run fsck on it (don't run fsck while it's mounted):

sudo mkdir -p /media/win
sudo mount /dev/sda3 /media/win

Then Either:
sudo mount -o loop /media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /mnt
Or:
sudo fsck /media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk

Hopefully that will get it booting again, otherwise, this may turn into a recovery mission.
PS if you have a backup of root.disk from before the upgrade you can probably revert to it as well.

[jimbr]

Thanks for the reply and your suggestions - apologies for the slow response but I am juggling time with another project - followed your instructions but no change in the response to I select Ubuntu from the boot menu. I do not have the backup file you suggested.

I am very new to Ubuntu so would really appreciate any further suggestions. Thanks JB

[bcbc]

Thanks for the reply and your suggestions - apologies for the slow response but I am juggling time with another project - followed your instructions but no change in the response to I select Ubuntu from the boot menu. I do not have the backup file you suggested.

I am very new to Ubuntu so would really appreciate any further suggestions. Thanks JB

What happened when you tried mounting or running fsck? you can cut and paste the output if it helps

[jimbr]

No obvious reaction from os!

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mkdir -p /media/win
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda3 /media/win
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -o loop /media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /mnt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[bcbc]

Make sure everything is still there:

nautilus /mnt

look in /mnt/home/<user> to make sure your data is ok.

[bcbc]

Let's try chroot'ing into the wubi install and running update-grub. That seems to resolve wubi booting problems sometimes.

so, keep the root.disk mounted on /mnt as before:

run the following:

for i in dev proc sys dev/pts ; do sudo mount --bind /$i /mnt/$i; done
sudo chroot /mnt
update-grub
exit
for i in dev/pts dev proc sys; do sudo umount /mnt/$i; done

Unmount /mnt and /media/win and try and reboot into the wubi.

sudo umount /mnt
sudo umount /media/win

[jimbr]

This is what happened when I ran your code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ for i in dev proc sys dev/pts ; do sudo mount --bind /$i /mnt/$i; done
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo chroot /mnt
root@ubuntu:/# update-grub
Generating grub.cfg ...
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot stat `/media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk'.
root@ubuntu:/# exit
exit
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ for i in host dev/pts dev proc sys; do sudo umount /mnt/$i; done
umount: /mnt/host: not mounted
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo umount /mnt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo umount /media/win
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Will try a reboot now and let you know

[bcbc]

This is what happened when I ran your code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ for i in dev proc sys dev/pts ; do sudo mount --bind /$i /mnt/$i; done
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo chroot /mnt
root@ubuntu:/# update-grub
Generating grub.cfg ...
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot stat `/media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk'.
root@ubuntu:/# exit
exit
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ for i in host dev/pts dev proc sys; do sudo umount /mnt/$i; done
umount: /mnt/host: not mounted
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo umount /mnt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo umount /media/win
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Will try a reboot now and let you know

Ok sorry I left an extra 'host' in that - will edit my post above. I am a bit concerned about the update-grub response. It didn't look like it generated anything. Which isn't a good sign. The grub-probe error seems to be happening lately with wubi, so I am not concerned about that, but it's the lack of any other messages that's worrying.

I'm also not going to be online much longer. But let me know what the response is and I'll give you one last thing to try.

PS: if it does fail, run the bootinfoscript again, so at least I can take a look at the contents of the root.disk grub.cfg and fstab etc.

[jimbr]

Must also go off line v soon - no change with reboot - still boots windows ok but ubuntu selection spends a bit of time doing something and then returns to the boot menu. Thanks for help so far - talk again soon. egards, JB