seeking assistance w install ...grub?

[hit1mn]

hi all,

i have been working w a 9.04 install up until a couple days ago. everything was working well and had been testing a bunch of apps in vm's then installing locally.

after a handful of reloads I created a hd image w clonezilla (updated ver, not jaunty ver)


A couple days ago I hosed up my local install and reloaded the image

see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1148368

After trying to install grub every which way I could find I ended up zeroing the drive in an attempt to validate it's integrity w
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/TARGETDRIVE bs=1M

This completed after several hrs on a 500gb sata.

Then reloaded the clone image. Same result

Zeroed the disk again overnight and now am not able to complete a simple local install.

The installed had failed (hung) at 2 diff spots..33% and 83%

Any suggestions?

MB BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX 128M RT
CPU AMD|PH X4 9950 BLK2.6G 65N R
MEM 2Gx4|OCZ OCZ2G8008GQ R (8GB total)
WinTV-HVR-1800 (CX23385/7 driver)
SATA HD 1T|WD 32M WD10EADS (2ea)(Green)
SATA HD 500GB WD (1ea) Blue
DVD BURN SAMSUNG|SH-S223Q LS
2.6.28-11-server w/GUI

Thanks

[hit1mn]

back to a blinking cursor.

One the 3rd try my install completed. Took all defaults except did not use lvm

I'm hoping this means my clonezilla image is good

[hit1mn]

ubuntu@ubuntu:/dev$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000402ea

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 58336 468583888+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 58337 60801 19800112+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 58337 60801 19800081 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002e48d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 121601 976760001 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ab931

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 118653 953080191 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 118654 121601 23679810 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 118654 121601 23679778+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
ubuntu@ubuntu:/dev$


anyone with a suggestion?

[dstew]

What is your problem at present? You say you completed the installation. Are you able to boot that installation?

[hit1mn]

I figured I would be but no. Still have blinking cursor

thanks

[dstew]

Do you get any grub messages at all? After BIOS accesses the disk, what happens?

[hit1mn]

here is some updated output after the local install. I'm not sure why anything would change though....

after rebooting and the bios splash screen it just drops to a blinking cursor, no grub msgs

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,0)

grub> root (hd0,0)

grub> setup (hd0,0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,0) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu
.lst "... succeeded
Done.

grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 60801/255/63, The number of sectors = 976773168, /dev/sda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 121601/255/63, The number of sectors = 1953525168, /dev/sdb
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> geometry (hd2)
drive 0x82: C/H/S = 121601/255/63, The number of sectors = 1953525168, /dev/sdc
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub>

[dstew]

The behavior you have is consistent with your BIOS loading what it thinks is a boot loader from the hard disk it thinks is the boot disk, but the "boot loader" is non-functional, or just random bytes, which would be the case if the disk had recently been zeroed.

In looking at your grub re-install, I note you did setup (hd0,0). This would cause the grub boot loader to go into the first sector of the first partition on (hd0). I think what you really want is the boot loader to go into the Master Boot Record (MBR) of (hd0). If that is what you want, you need to do
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
The MBR is not a part of any partition. Some BIOSes can boot a partition, but most will need a boot loader in the MBR.