Grub does not find partition?

[creznedmick]

Greetings
My trouble seems to be grub in my new installation of 8.1 not properly identifying its partition and thus not writing to the MBR.
I have two hard drives, one ATA the other SATA. Although the SATA drive; which contains the three active partitions (Vista, Ubuntu 8.1, Ubuntu8.4) is the first to load in the bios,they are sdb1, sdb5, sdb6. The ATA drive is identified as hda.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 3825 30724281 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 3826 9244 43528117+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb4 29704 30401 5606685 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb5 3826 5610 14337981 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 5611 7395 14337981 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 7396 9180 14337981 83 Linux
/dev/sdb8 9181 9244 514048+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I use two Linux partitions for Ubuntu so I can install the latest and move files,emails, favourites, settngs etc as I like. All worked and works well in the 8.4 (sdb6) boot menu. After installing 8.1 when I rebooted it reloaded the 8.4 Grub menu.
I mounted and did a chroot into 8.1 (on sdb5). I ran grub and tried

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

Error 15: File not found -It is there

grub> root(sd1,4)

Error 27: Unrecognized command

grub> root(hd0,4)

Error 27: Unrecognized command


The entry recognised in 8.4 for the partition (previously occupied by 7.1) was

# linux installation on /dev/sdb5.
title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic (on /dev/sdb5)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=72f0b024-c2ed-41ce-bc08-78d3d5d360f6 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
savedefault
boot

The entry for 8.1 is

title Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-7-generic
uuid 92f4ae4a-32cd-45d0-ae1e-6bc3eaf052e0
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=92f4ae4a-32cd-45d0-ae1e-6bc3eaf052e0 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic
quiet

I am Stuck. Any help greatly appreciated
Michael

[Herman]

:) Hello creznedmick,
You should be able install Intrepid Ibex's GRUB to MBR without chrooting, providing the required GRUB files are present in the partition, in the /boot directory.

From a live CD, try,

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1
root (hd0,4)
NOTE: There's a space between the word 'root', and the '(hd0,4)'
Feel free to replace '(hd0,4) with (hd1,4) if the earlier command indicates that number for your hard disk.

setup (hd0)
quit

[Herman]

You should be able to do that from 8.04 if you prefer, you don't really need a Live CD when you already have another Ubuntu installed.

[creznedmick]

Greetings
Thanks Herman. You were right, a simple typo
Michael