OK to mv /initrd.img.old to /initrd.img so I can boot?

[watchpocket]

The /boot/initrd.img-3-13.0-57-generic archive on my Precise system got hosed during a "routine" upgrade of kernel files, and doesn't exist.

That means I can't boot into Precise. (Because /initrd.img links to it, and "it" isn't there.)

I do have an /initrd.img.old linked to /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic.

Should I be able to link /initrd.img to /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic and thereby boot with no problems? (Once I get booted in, I can upgrade the kernel appropriately.)

I ask because the other files in /boot -- System.map, abi, config and vmlinuz -- all contain both kernel numbers -55 and -57 (as well as some older versions).

If there's a -57 for all these files in /boot, will it still be possible / okay to link /initrd.img to /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic and boot up without causing conflicts or problems?

Thanks.


[ Edit: my subject header mistakenly contains "ubuntu-mate" -- I don't know how to change that after I've posted. My question is about an Ubuntu Precise installation. ]

[Bashing-om]

watchpocket; Uuoohhh ..

Do not think that is such a good idea.
Perhaps better to boot up and older kernel and rebuild the -57 image .

sudo update-initramfs -u -k 3-13.0-57 -generic

This is providing that there is operating headroom in /boot.
Always a good idea to remove no-longer-needed(wanted) old kernels.
Check for space:

df -h
df -i

let the system

do it's job

[watchpocket]

. . . Perhaps better to boot up and older kernel and rebuild the -57 image .

Thanks for the response, Bashing-om. I'm not sure how I'd boot up into an older kernel -- I didn't include older kernels in my GRUB2 menu when I configured it. (A mistake, I now realize.)

I did try to boot into recovery mode but had no success with that.

I can boot to my sda1 disk (my Ubunut-MATE system). My sdb1 disk is the Precise system, and that's what I can't boot into, that's where I'm missing the init.img-57.

sudo update-initramfs -u -k 3-13.0-57 -generic

I take it I would not want to issue this command from sda1. And I can't boot into sdb1. Would this work (and be functioning on sdb1) if I mounted sdb1 and then cd'd into /media/rj/Ubuntu-12.04.5, and then issued the command from there? And should I be using the "-c" flag (creates a new initramfs) instead of the "-u" flag (updates an existing initramfs), since I have no init.img for -57 at all?

This is providing that there is operating headroom in /boot.
Always a good idea to remove no-longer-needed(wanted) old kernels.
Check for space:

df -h
df -i

. . .

I do want to get rid of all but the current and maybe previous two kernels. Space shouldn't be a problem:

--> df -h 
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       907G   13G  849G   2% /
none            4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev            3.9G  8.0K  3.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs           799M  1.2M  798M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            3.9G  3.9M  3.9G   1% /run/shm
none            100M   52K  100M   1% /run/user
/dev/sdb1       907G   17G  845G   2% /media/rj/Ubuntu-12.04.5

--> df -i
Filesystem       Inodes  IUsed    IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/sda1      60399616 610218 59789398    2% /
none            1021633      2  1021631    1% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev            1018935    531  1018404    1% /dev
tmpfs           1021633    542  1021091    1% /run
none            1021633      3  1021630    1% /run/lock
none            1021633      7  1021626    1% /run/shm
none            1021633     25  1021608    1% /run/user
/dev/sdb1      60399616 541425 59858191    1% /media/rj/Ubuntu-12.04.5

Here is something I posted about the same issue a few days ago, but it didn't get much attention:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2286417

[Bashing-om]

watchpocket; Well.

A couple of things we can do. Like perhaps pull a CHange Root routine into the sda install, from either the install on sdb or from a liveDVD and do what we need to do.

But first.
Let's take a gander at what we are working with and toward.

Boot up another install such as sda, and mount the sdb ubuntu precise partition and we take that look;
from 'sda':
terminal commands:

sudo mkdir /mnt/looksee
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/looksee
ls -al /mnt/looksee/boot

Once done "looking" we must UNmount what we manually mounted, otherwise; file system corruption will happen at some level.

sudo umount /mnt/looksee

see then what options we can scare up.

where there is a will there is a way

[watchpocket]

Boot up another install such as sda, and mount the sdb ubuntu precise partition and we take that look

sda is on its own one-terabye drive (running Ubunt-MATE). sdb is also on its own one-terabyte drive (running Ubuntu-12.04.5). I have a third one-terabyte drive (sdc) for storage, with no OS on it. All three drives consist of one large partition and a small swap partition.

I can easily boot from a live USB stick if necessary. Thanks!

--> sudo mkdir /mnt/looksee  
[sudo] password for rj: 

--> sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/looksee
--> ls -al /mnt/looksee 
total 132
 4 drwxr-xr-x  26 root root  4096 Jul 18 01:22 ./
 4 drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 Jul 18 23:00 ../
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Jul 18  2014 .rpmdb/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 May 31 15:57 bin/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 Jul  9 02:06 boot/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Jan 11  2014 cdrom/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 Aug 20  2013 dev/
12 drwxr-xr-x 152 root root 12288 Jul  9 02:13 etc/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 Jan 11  2014 home/
 0 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    33 Jul  9 02:13 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-57-generic    <-- this is gray to the right of the "->", & I have all files set to appear purple, others are purple. 
 0 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    33 Jun 19 03:54 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic
 4 drwxr-xr-x  27 root root  4096 May 22 13:29 lib/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Apr 10 02:44 lib32/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Apr 10 02:44 lib64/
16 drwx------   2 root root 16384 Jan 11  2014 lost+found/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 May 31 15:54 media/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Apr 19  2012 mnt/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 Jul  6  2014 opt/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Apr 19  2012 proc/
 4 drwx------  13 root root  4096 May  9 01:13 root/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   9 root root  4096 Aug 20  2013 run/
12 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 12288 Jun 19 03:54 sbin/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Mar  5  2012 selinux/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Aug 20  2013 srv/
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Apr 14  2012 sys/
 4 drwxrwxrwt   8 root root  4096 Jul  9 02:13 tmp/
 4 drwxr-xr-x  11 root root  4096 Dec 14  2014 usr/
 4 drwxr-xr-x  13 root root  4096 Jul  9 02:13 var/
 0 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    30 Jul  9 02:13 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-57-generic
 0 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    30 Jun 19 03:54 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-55-generic

--> ls -al /mnt/looksee/boot  
total 300900
    4 drwxr-xr-x  4 root root     4096 Jul  9 02:06 ./
    4 drwxr-xr-x 26 root root     4096 Jul 18 01:22 ../
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525141 Dec 16  2014 System.map-3.13.0-44-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525572 Jan 15  2015 System.map-3.13.0-45-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525792 Mar 10 16:50 System.map-3.13.0-46-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525711 Mar 12 15:56 System.map-3.13.0-48-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525956 Mar 25 12:58 System.map-3.13.0-49-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3526265 Apr 15 18:10 System.map-3.13.0-51-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3526298 May  5 14:33 System.map-3.13.0-52-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3526638 May 20 13:59 System.map-3.13.0-53-generic
 3448 -rw-------  1 root root  3527402 May 27 07:15 System.map-3.13.0-54-generic
 3448 -rw-------  1 root root  3527402 Jun 18 06:19 System.map-3.13.0-55-generic
 3448 -rw-------  1 root root  3528045 Jun 22 06:08 System.map-3.13.0-57-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164720 Dec 16  2014 abi-3.13.0-44-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164967 Jan 15  2015 abi-3.13.0-45-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164852 Mar 10 16:50 abi-3.13.0-46-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164723 Mar 12 15:56 abi-3.13.0-48-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164723 Mar 25 12:58 abi-3.13.0-49-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164671 Apr 15 18:10 abi-3.13.0-51-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164671 May  5 14:33 abi-3.13.0-52-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164671 May 20 13:59 abi-3.13.0-53-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164806 May 27 07:15 abi-3.13.0-54-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164806 Jun 18 06:19 abi-3.13.0-55-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164984 Jun 22 06:08 abi-3.13.0-57-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165757 Dec 16  2014 config-3.13.0-44-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165757 Jan 15  2015 config-3.13.0-45-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165757 Mar 10 16:50 config-3.13.0-46-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165782 Mar 12 15:56 config-3.13.0-48-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165782 Mar 25 12:58 config-3.13.0-49-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 Apr 15 18:10 config-3.13.0-51-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 May  5 14:33 config-3.13.0-52-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 May 20 13:59 config-3.13.0-53-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 May 27 07:15 config-3.13.0-54-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 Jun 18 06:19 config-3.13.0-55-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 Jun 22 06:08 config-3.13.0-57-generic
    4 drwxr-xr-x  3 root root     4096 Jun 20 13:20 extlinux/
   12 drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    12288 Jun 20 13:20 grub/
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18920653 Jan 16  2015 initrd.img-3.13.0-44-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18927341 Feb 16 18:34 initrd.img-3.13.0-45-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18926775 Mar 13 03:51 initrd.img-3.13.0-46-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18926245 Mar 23 18:38 initrd.img-3.13.0-48-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18923909 Apr 10 02:46 initrd.img-3.13.0-49-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18924568 May  2 20:17 initrd.img-3.13.0-51-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18925240 May  8 02:17 initrd.img-3.13.0-52-generic
18488 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18929418 May 22 13:31 initrd.img-3.13.0-53-generic
18488 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18929000 Jun 12 15:58 initrd.img-3.13.0-54-generic
18488 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18929785 Jun 20 13:20 initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic
  176 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   176764 Nov 27  2011 memtest86+.bin
  176 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   178944 Nov 27  2011 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5896992 Dec 16  2014 vmlinuz-3.13.0-44-generic
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5898624 Jan 15  2015 vmlinuz-3.13.0-45-generic
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5899520 Mar 10 16:50 vmlinuz-3.13.0-46-generic
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5900896 Mar 12 15:56 vmlinuz-3.13.0-48-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5902944 Mar 25 12:58 vmlinuz-3.13.0-49-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5904096 Apr 15 18:10 vmlinuz-3.13.0-51-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5904192 May  5 14:33 vmlinuz-3.13.0-52-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903360 May 20 13:59 vmlinuz-3.13.0-53-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903392 May 27 07:15 vmlinuz-3.13.0-54-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903328 Jun 18 06:19 vmlinuz-3.13.0-55-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903904 Jun 22 06:08 vmlinuz-3.13.0-57-generic

--> sudo umount /mnt/looksee
-->

[Bashing-om]

watchpocket; Hey :

I see no fault with the image mapping ; -57 is the current boot, with -55 (.old) as the backup. I would not expect a problem.

As a reference; My output for the hard drive I am presently booting:

sysop@1404mini:~$ ls -al /
total 108
drwxr-xr-x  25 root root  4096 Jul 16 16:35 .
drwxr-xr-x  25 root root  4096 Jul 16 16:35 ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Jun 16 17:30 bin
drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 Jul  6 13:58 boot
drwxr-xr-x  14 root root  4360 Jul 19 11:34 dev
drwxr-xr-x  98 root root 12288 Jul 19 11:34 etc
-rw-r--r--   1 root root     0 Jul 18  2013 forcefsdk
drwxr-xr-x   5 root root  4096 Jun  9  2014 grub
drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 May 19  2013 home
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    33 Jul  6 13:58 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-57-generic
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    33 Jun 16 17:30 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic
drwxr-xr-x  22 root root  4096 Jul  6  2014 lib
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Feb 27 10:31 lib64
drwx------   2 root root 16384 May 19  2013 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 May 19  2013 media
drwxr-xr-x  11 root root  4096 Feb 19 12:51 mnt
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 May 19  2013 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 150 root root     0 Jul 19 11:34 proc
drwx------   7 root root  4096 May 20  2013 root
drwxr-xr-x  17 root root   540 Jul 19 11:39 run
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 12288 Jun 25 06:40 sbin
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 May 19  2013 srv
dr-xr-xr-x  13 root root     0 Jul 19 11:34 sys
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Mar 31  2014 test
drwxrwxrwt   6 root root   180 Jul 19 11:41 tmp
drwxr-xr-x  10 root root  4096 May 19  2013 usr
drwxr-xr-x  13 root root  4096 Mar 13  2014 var
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    30 Jul  6 13:58 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-57-generic
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    30 Jun 16 17:30 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-55-generic
drwxr-xr-x   2 r

Are your 3 hard drives in a raid configuration ?

sda is on its own one-terabye drive (running Ubunt-MATE). sdb is also on its own one-terabyte drive (running Ubuntu-12.04.5). I have a third one-terabyte drive (sdc) for storage, with no OS on it. All three drives consist of one large partition and a small swap partition.

Most raid configurations require the boot code to be outside of the raid array.

sometimes I do wonder

[oldfred]

Are you using the short grub config files like in Cavsfan's instructions?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ma...tomGrub2Screen

You do not want to mix versions.

You can convert this type:

 menuentry "Ubutu on sdb1" {
    set root=(hd1,1)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
        initrd /initrd.img
}

to this:

 menuentry "Ubuntu on sdb1 - old" {
    set root=(hd1,1)
        linux /vmlinuz.old root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
        initrd /initrd.img.old
}

That should work as long as new link does get copied to .old when even newer one is added and you still have those versions of kernel & initrd in /boot.
Otherwise you have to go to specific boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-57-generic type entry.

You can manually edit grub boot stanza with the changes to boot and then update from inside your install. But if kernels are not correct or other issues then you will have to chroot from either you Mate install or live installer.

Above entry assumes booting from sda, if using grub on sdb, the drive will be hd0 as boot drive is always hd0 but device for root will still be sdb1.

[watchpocket]

I see no fault with the image mapping ; -57 is the current boot, with -55 (.old) as the backup. I would not expect a problem.

Well, if you look in my sdb drive's /boot dir, you'll see that every file there has a -57 except initrd.img, the latest one of which is initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic
(and right now, /media/rj/Ubuntu-12.04.5/initrd.img links to a non-existent /media/rj/Ubuntu-12.04.5/boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-57-generic):

--> ls -la /media/rj/Ubuntu-12.04.5/boot 
total 300900
    4 drwxr-xr-x  4 root root     4096 Jul  9 02:06 ./
    4 drwxr-xr-x 26 root root     4096 Jul 18 01:22 ../
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525141 Dec 16  2014 System.map-3.13.0-44-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525572 Jan 15  2015 System.map-3.13.0-45-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525792 Mar 10 16:50 System.map-3.13.0-46-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525711 Mar 12 15:56 System.map-3.13.0-48-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3525956 Mar 25 12:58 System.map-3.13.0-49-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3526265 Apr 15 18:10 System.map-3.13.0-51-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3526298 May  5 14:33 System.map-3.13.0-52-generic
 3444 -rw-------  1 root root  3526638 May 20 13:59 System.map-3.13.0-53-generic
 3448 -rw-------  1 root root  3527402 May 27 07:15 System.map-3.13.0-54-generic
 3448 -rw-------  1 root root  3527402 Jun 18 06:19 System.map-3.13.0-55-generic
 3448 -rw-------  1 root root  3528045 Jun 22 06:08 System.map-3.13.0-57-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164720 Dec 16  2014 abi-3.13.0-44-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164967 Jan 15  2015 abi-3.13.0-45-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164852 Mar 10 16:50 abi-3.13.0-46-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164723 Mar 12 15:56 abi-3.13.0-48-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164723 Mar 25 12:58 abi-3.13.0-49-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164671 Apr 15 18:10 abi-3.13.0-51-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164671 May  5 14:33 abi-3.13.0-52-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164671 May 20 13:59 abi-3.13.0-53-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164806 May 27 07:15 abi-3.13.0-54-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164806 Jun 18 06:19 abi-3.13.0-55-generic
 1140 -rw-r--r--  1 root root  1164984 Jun 22 06:08 abi-3.13.0-57-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165757 Dec 16  2014 config-3.13.0-44-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165757 Jan 15  2015 config-3.13.0-45-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165757 Mar 10 16:50 config-3.13.0-46-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165782 Mar 12 15:56 config-3.13.0-48-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165782 Mar 25 12:58 config-3.13.0-49-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 Apr 15 18:10 config-3.13.0-51-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 May  5 14:33 config-3.13.0-52-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 May 20 13:59 config-3.13.0-53-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 May 27 07:15 config-3.13.0-54-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 Jun 18 06:19 config-3.13.0-55-generic
  164 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   165771 Jun 22 06:08 config-3.13.0-57-generic
    4 drwxr-xr-x  3 root root     4096 Jun 20 13:20 extlinux/
   12 drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    12288 Jun 20 13:20 grub/
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18920653 Jan 16  2015 initrd.img-3.13.0-44-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18927341 Feb 16 18:34 initrd.img-3.13.0-45-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18926775 Mar 13 03:51 initrd.img-3.13.0-46-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18926245 Mar 23 18:38 initrd.img-3.13.0-48-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18923909 Apr 10 02:46 initrd.img-3.13.0-49-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18924568 May  2 20:17 initrd.img-3.13.0-51-generic
18484 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18925240 May  8 02:17 initrd.img-3.13.0-52-generic
18488 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18929418 May 22 13:31 initrd.img-3.13.0-53-generic
18488 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18929000 Jun 12 15:58 initrd.img-3.13.0-54-generic
18488 -rw-r--r--  1 root root 18929785 Jun 20 13:20 initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic
  176 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   176764 Nov 27  2011 memtest86+.bin
  176 -rw-r--r--  1 root root   178944 Nov 27  2011 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5896992 Dec 16  2014 vmlinuz-3.13.0-44-generic
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5898624 Jan 15  2015 vmlinuz-3.13.0-45-generic
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5899520 Mar 10 16:50 vmlinuz-3.13.0-46-generic
 5764 -rw-------  1 root root  5900896 Mar 12 15:56 vmlinuz-3.13.0-48-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5902944 Mar 25 12:58 vmlinuz-3.13.0-49-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5904096 Apr 15 18:10 vmlinuz-3.13.0-51-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5904192 May  5 14:33 vmlinuz-3.13.0-52-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903360 May 20 13:59 vmlinuz-3.13.0-53-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903392 May 27 07:15 vmlinuz-3.13.0-54-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903328 Jun 18 06:19 vmlinuz-3.13.0-55-generic
 5768 -rw-------  1 root root  5903904 Jun 22 06:08 vmlinuz-3.13.0-57-generic
-->

(Once I can boot into my sdb drive, I know how to (and will) get rid of all the old kernels.)

Are your 3 hard drives in a raid configuration ?

No they aren't, but I'd like to look into the potential advantages of that.

[watchpocket]

Are you using the short grub config files like in Cavsfan's instructions?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MaintenanceFreeCustomGrub2Screen

Yeah I'm pretty sure I do. I went through a whole long thing with him 6 months or so ago to get my grub set up.

You can convert this type:

 menuentry "Ubutu on sdb1" {
    set root=(hd1,1)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
        initrd /initrd.img
}

to this:

 menuentry "Ubuntu on sdb1 - old" {
    set root=(hd1,1)
        linux /vmlinuz.old root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
        initrd /initrd.img.old
}

Which file exactly in (I'm assuming) the /boot/grub dir are we looking at here?

For right now, I'll have to re-read a couple of times and think about the rest of what you wrote here to fully grok it:

That should work as long as new link does get copied to .old when even newer one is added and you still have those versions of kernel & initrd in /boot.
Otherwise you have to go to specific boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-57-generic type entry.

You can manually edit grub boot stanza with the changes to boot and then update from inside your install. But if kernels are not correct or other issues then you will have to chroot from either you Mate install or live installer.

Above entry assumes booting from sda, if using grub on sdb, the drive will be hd0 as boot drive is always hd0 but device for root will still be sdb1.

[Bashing-om]

watchpocket; HoKay;

Try this:

sudo update-initramfs -u -k 3.13.0-57-generic

to rebuild the initrd.img.

Then, to remove the old kernels one - in 12.04 - has to use either synaptic or the command line tools of apt/dpkg .

me, I follow the KISS principal

1 thing at a time