A bootable CD to get to an interactive command line?

**mahela007** · January 21st, 2011

ok.. I selected overwrite and proceeded with all your commands. They worked without any problems and apparently the updates were downloaded and applied properly. However, now Ubuntu won't boot..

The message shown after the computer fails to boot is as follows.

Code:

WARNING bootdevice may be renamed. Try root=/deve/sda6
Gave up waiting for root device. COmmon problems:
-root ards (cat /proc/dmcline)
   - Check rootdelay
    -Chech root
  MIssing modules (cat /proc/modules: ls /dev)
ALTERT! /dev/hda6 does not exist. Dropping to a shell.!

( I typed that out manually. There may be typos)
According to bash on tiny core linux, my Ubuntu installation is on hda6.. not sda6. (note the h and not s).

EDIT: Running sudo fdisk -l on an old Ubuntu live CD (8.10) shows that linux is on /dev/sda6 whereas the same command on tiny core says linux is on /dev/hda6...

**amsterdamharu** · January 21st, 2011

If you boot up you'd see a menu where you can choose Ubuntu and Ubuntu restore. If not press the down arrow key when you start up.

Select the top one (usually Ubuntu with the highest kernel) now press e to edit it and check where it says: root=/dev/sda6

It might have changed to root=/dev/hda6 but you can edit it to /dev/sda6 and boot or try /dev/sda7 if you might think it's there.

**mahela007** · January 21st, 2011

Yup.. some success at last. It said 'root=/dev/hda6' in two places and I changed both. Ubuntu started up and input worked! However, the changes made to that boot entry don't seem to be permanent. I tried looking in /etc/default/grub. It doesn't seem to list what I need.

**amsterdamharu** · January 21st, 2011

When you started Ubuntu run the following command:

Code:

sudo update-grub

That would take care of things I guess.

**mahela007** · January 21st, 2011

Well, I didn't get the change to do that. After playing around (but not editing) the grub conf file, it starts up properly now. The file reads 'root = hd0,6'. Thanks for all your help. I love to have my Ubuntu back !!
PS: Any idea why tiny core said Ubuntu was on hda6?

**amsterdamharu** · January 22nd, 2011

Not sure why it's using hda, for scsi and sata sda should be used but maybe the init scripts in tinycore handle it differently or there is some stuff missing so it won't pick it up.