GRUB fails to install properly, gives Error 22 upon boot

[BuggyBY]

Hello everyone.

Having just installed Intrepid Ibex after some false starts, I am having some trouble getting GRUB to boot from the correct partitions. I have previously described the problem in the University of Sheffield Free Software Society forum (recommend you read the whole sad story) (http://www.fss.union.shef.ac.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=258), but I will do my best to summarise the issue below:

At first, grub-install failed to start at all. This seems to have been because my desired Ubuntu boot partition was logical instead of primary, and has since been amended by letting a proprietary partition manager work its magic to turn the logical partition primary.

Then, a fresh reformat and reinstallation of the entire ubuntu system (I like to go for overkill when it comes to installation errors) finished without any error, and the PC rebooted to display nothing but:


GRUB Loading stage1.5



GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 22

I restarted from the Ubuntu Live CD and edited the install partition's GRUB menu.lst to point to the correct partitions only, but the same error remains accusingly on my screen whenever I boot from hard disk.

The regulars at fss.union.shef.ac.uk (the aforementioned student society's forum) suggested I ask for help here as well, and with some delay, this is what I am now doing.

[caljohnsmith]

Ubuntu can boot just fine from a logical partition or primary partition, so that shouldn't be your problem. How about booting your Live CD, open a terminal (applications > accessories > terminal), and post the output of:

sudo fdisk -lu
Also, for each of the drives fdisk lists, like sda, sdb, etc, please post the output of:

sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sda
So replace "sda" above with each of your drives. Note "-l" is a lowercase L, not a one. And finally, for each command above that returns "eb48", please post:

sudo xxd -s 1049 -l 2 -p /dev/sda
And replace sda with the drives that previously returned "eb48". That will greatly clarify what your setup is like.

[BuggyBY]

Here's the full terminal output:


ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa94750a2

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 15824024 7911981 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2 15824025 284896709 134536342+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 15824088 284029199 134102556 b W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sdb: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0970ca77

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 11839904 5919921 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2 11839905 390716864 189438480 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 11839968 114238214 51199123+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb6 114238278 257602274 71681998+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb7 257602338 390716864 66557263+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdc: 300.0 GB, 300090728448 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36483 cylinders, total 586114704 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe0ebe0eb

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 63 21719879 10859908+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc2 21719880 586099394 282189757+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc5 21719943 226532564 102406311 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc6 226532628 523188854 148328113+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc7 523188918 580862204 28836643+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc8 580862268 586099394 2618563+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sdd: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1938021 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa42a1187

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 63 512000495 256000216+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdd2 512000496 1024000991 256000248 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdd3 1876801311 1953525167 38361928+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdd4 1024002000 1876801310 426399655+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdd5 1024002063 1459280591 217639264+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdd6 1459280655 1876801247 208760296+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sde: 4022 MB, 4022337024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 489 cylinders, total 7856127 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 38 7839719 3919841 b W95 FAT32
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sda
eb31
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sdb
33c0
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sdc
eb48
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sdd
33c0
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sde
0000
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo xxd -s 1049 -l 2 -p /dev/sdc
0281
Hope this helps. I wonder why sdb3 is missing from the partition list - as far as I know it's my installation's root partition.

[caljohnsmith]

OK, that clears a few things up; Grub is installed to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of your sdc drive, and it points to the 2nd boot drive and 3rd partition for its boot files, which is supposed to be your sdd drive it looks like. But your sdd drive is probably not the 2nd boot drive on start up, so that would explain why you are getting the Grub error 22. You have linux partitions though on both your sdc and sdd drives; do you know which has the main Ubuntu file system? I'm guessing your main Ubuntu install is on sdd3. But then what is on sdc7?

In order to help find out, please post the output of:

sudo grub
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
grub> find /grub/stage1
grub> quit
And more importantly, if your main Ubuntu partition is on the sdd drive, can you change your BIOS to boot the sdd drive on start up instead of the sdc drive? That will greatly simplify fixing your booting problem, and it would be the most ideal solution I think since your drives would then not be dependent on each other for booting.

[BuggyBY]

sdc7 is probably my /home partition. I've changed sdd to be the first hard drive (apparently it was the fifth), but only got a "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" error. I changed the boot device to a third hard drive on a whim, and suddenly the BIOS stopped recognising any more than two hard drives! I changed back to the original boot device, and now GRUB gives me Error 17, which the manual tells me stands for "Cannot mount selected partition - This error is returned if the partition requested exists, but the filesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB."

Very odd.

[BuggyBY]

Also, now the Ubuntu Live CD does not boot properly anymore, instead giving the following output:

Loading, please wait...



BusyBox v1.10.2 (Ubuntu 1:1.10.2-1ubuntu6) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs) [ 73.396023] ata4: SRST failed (errno=-16)
[ 78.424021] ata4: SRST failed (errno=-16)
[ 78.424059] ata4: reset failed, giving up

I'm now left with a shell I am not sure what I'm supposed to do with. Upon reboot a similar message is displayed, replacing ata4 with ata8. On yet another reboot it changed back to ata4. It seems to oscillate back and forth between the two with every reboot.

Very odd.

[caljohnsmith]

It sounds like you might have accidentally changed something else in your BIOS in addition to modifying the boot order. You might try resetting the BIOS setting back to default if you can't find what is causing the problem. Once you can get the Live CD working again, you can do these steps to install Grub to the MBR of the sdd drive so that it will be bootable:

sudo grub
grub> root (hd3,2)
grub> setup (hd3)
grub> quit
And if you set your BIOS to boot the sdd drive, you should at least get a Grub menu on start up if all goes well. Let me know if your run into problems though.