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phekdra
October 31st, 2009, 08:03 AM
Hello all,

I've just done a clean install of 9.10 rather than an upgrade, and now I can't boot. GRUB2 just hangs there saying 'Grub loading.' or something similar. Curiously, it worked the first time I booted after installing, but not subsequently. Occasionally the hard drive burps, but I've waited 10 minutes so I doubt anything more is going to happen.

My hard drives are set to AHCI mode in the BIOS, and when I disable this is boots perfectly happily. Now if I have to do this to get it to boot then I'll go back to GRUB1. Does anyone have any ideas? :(

I've done both a forum and a google search and it seems I'm not alone, but nobody appears to have an answer. I'd switch back right away if it hadn't booted first time - I'm clinging onto that as a possibility I might eventually get it working. :)

Andrew
dino99
October 31st, 2009, 09:23 AM
my config is like yours & i have the same problem to boot.

how i can boot:
i unplug power cord, wait 5 seconds & try to reboot. Usually, grub menu pop up
i edit the boot line (ctrl e) & remove the first 2 lines (recorfail ... fi), then i can boot normally (ctrl x)


there is an other solution:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8071880&postcount=18
phekdra
October 31st, 2009, 10:42 AM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8071880&postcount=18

:p I'm glad it's not just me. I think your second suggestion might cause less hassle!

Andrew
phekdra
October 31st, 2009, 07:11 PM
Well I've partially solved it. I noticed that my motherboard has another SATA controller that also supports AHCI, so I thought I'd try that. Both my hard drives plug in and...

GRUB loading.

....

:evil:

So I set the ICH? controller to disabled and Grub has booted perfectly happily every time since! :shock:

It appears it's not AHCI mode that Grub2 doesn't like, just the south bridge controller running in AHCI mode, even when no actual drives are plugged into it! It's quite happy with the onboard Gigabyte one.

As I said, it's not a solution, but it appears to be a partial explanation.

Andrew
GabbaGandalf
November 5th, 2009, 05:35 PM
hello,

i have got the same problem.

i created a bug report at launchpad:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/466906
lorentzr
November 9th, 2009, 08:11 PM
If you're using an HP machine, the answer you're looking for might be here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/441941
presence1960
November 9th, 2009, 08:25 PM
So I set the ICH? controller to disabled and Grub has booted perfectly happily every time since! :shock:

It appears it's not AHCI mode that Grub2 doesn't like, just the south bridge controller running in AHCI mode, even when no actual drives are plugged into it! It's quite happy with the onboard Gigabyte one.

As I said, it's not a solution, but it appears to be a partial explanation.

Andrew

I withheld posting this until I saw the above. My drives are set to AHCI mode and have never had a problem with GRUB 2 booting. So maybe it is a problem with how your mobo is setup or something.
NHellFire
November 17th, 2011, 09:25 PM
Seems to only happen with some chipsets. I've been through multiple installs of Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 because GRUB kept failing to load. Strangely... it worked fine with a 32bit install, it only failed to boot with 64bit. Definitely a GRUB issue though, SYSLINUX, NTLDR and Windows Boot Manager have no problems on it.