GRUB miscue results in "Error 15 - no file found"

[Javelin Dan]

This is a dual installation with Ubuntu 12.04 on sda1 and Puppy Lucid 5.28 on sda3. The other day I was screwing around with trying to install Puppy Precise on a brand new Kodak 16 GB flashdrive. This is something I’ve done many times before and am very familiar with, but I was “downloading while distracted” and may have entered a typo while installing GRUB. Also, the flashdrive may have been funky because while I was manually running Gparted, the installation of my swap file hung up and ended in an error the first time (never happened to me before) – but it installed normally on the second try. In any case, when all was said and done and I tried to reboot, I was greeted with the message “Error 15 – no file found” on both partitions.

I first popped in a Live CD of Puppy Linux (simply because it boots faster) and opened up Gparted to look at my partitions. Because of their configuration and size, I realized nothing had changed there and that my problem must have something to do with my GRUB installation. I then re-installed GRUB for both partitions via the Puppy live CD. Upon reboot, I found that I had my ability to boot Lucid Pup back, but any attempt to boot Ubuntu failed and still resulted in the “Error 15” message.

I then jumped on the internet and started to research this problem. I learned two things: 1.)This is apparently a pretty common problem, especially with dual boot set-ups, and 2.) A lot of people way smarter than me got hung up on this problem and asked for help. So I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad about getting my “you-know-what” caught in the wringer. Yeah, that’s the ticket, we’ll go with that!

I found three possible solutions that I could understand and follow. The first was a GUI solution explained here: http://www.howopensource.com/2012/05...4-live-cd-usb/, a command line only solution explained here: http://howtoubuntu.org/how-to-repair.../#.UPbYQPJLT1U, and a guide for installing Super GRUB here: http://www.supergrubdisk.org/super-grub2-disk/. Being basically a GUI guy who occasionally gets a little bumfuzzled with the command line, I chose to try these fixes in the order in which I’ve listed them, starting with the easiest first.

While others I read about had much more persistent problems, I was able to solve mine with the first option by simply popping in a live Ubuntu CD, installing the utility “Boot Repair”, and following the directions in the tutorial they provide. There was one very minor glitch where after copying and pasting some code (they make it super easy by highlighting everything – all you have to do is click “copy” and then paste in the terminal), I got a terminal window that said something was going on and there was an “OK” button at the bottom, but clicking on that or hitting “Enter” did nothing to advance beyond that window. No worries, I just minimized the window, and kept clicking “Forward” and following the instructions in the rest of the tutorial. Soon, I had a window congratulating me that I had successfully repaired and reinstalled GRUB to sda1, my Ubuntu partition location. A reboot confirmed this, and I now have everything back and "boot-a-licious" the way it was before.

Apparently, the procedure to properly install GRUB to Ubuntu is very different from the one to install it to Puppy Linux(?). I do realize that this procedure won’t solve everyone’s problems, but if not, maybe one of the other solutions suggested here will. I’m just trying to leave a trail of bread crumbs for any non-command-line-proficient newbies that might come this way. As I often say..."Every time I fail I learn something, and I've learned a lot!" To any who tries this, best of luck!