grub error 17

[nodenet]

I had dual boot ubuntu and vista on my laptop. Then I dropped it. Vista wouldn't boot after that, but I was able to live with that
as I was able to mount the partition and could see my files.
I lived with that for six months but today i dropped it again and am getting grub error 17.
Put ubuntu into ram , ran diagnostics, tells me to replace harddrive.
However in that mode I can still see the Vista partition files.
My problem is that I want to recover a few text files from my old ubuntu desktop.

Where do I start?

[darkod]

If it can work, boot with ubuntu cd, Try Ubuntu option, and look in Places. Both vista and ubuntu partitions will show something like xxGB filesystem (if they can be read).

Open your root partition (you would be able to guess it by size) and look inside for the files you need. Copy to usb stick or external hdd. Same for vista partition.

[nodenet]

have done that but it is only showing the vista partition.

fstab shows

unionfs /unionfs rw 0 0
tmpfs tmp tmpfs nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/sda6 swap swap swap defaults 0 0

[nodenet]

have downloaded the Boot Info script onto usb stick, put on desktop of Try version
Do i just right click it and run?

[nodenet]

This is result of Boot Info Script

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> Grub 0.97 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks on the same drive
in partition #5 for /boot/grub/stage2 and /boot/grub/menu.lst.
=> No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb
sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows Vista
Boot files/dirs: /bootmgr /boot/bcd /Windows/System32/winload.exe

sda2: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: Extended Partition
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:

sda5: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda6: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: swap
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:

sdb1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders, total 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9c62b218

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 * 63 171,991,889 171,991,827 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 171,991,890 234,436,544 62,444,655 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 171,991,953 231,769,754 59,777,802 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 231,769,818 234,436,544 2,666,727 82 Linux swap / Solaris


Drive: sdb ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Disk /dev/sdb: 2002 MB, 2002780160 bytes
16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7640 cylinders, total 3911680 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3193ce41

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sdb1 8,064 3,911,679 3,903,616 e W95 FAT16 (LBA)


blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________

/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sda1: UUID="6274A9BA5FA690E3" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda6: UUID="d99001db-1246-69ba-d3b9-3502ba8b9090" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="STORE N GO" UUID="1B9A-F07D" TYPE="vfat"

=============================== "mount" output: ===============================

proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
tmpfs on /lib/modules/2.6.24-16-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /lib/modules/2.6.24-16-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/ubuntu/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=ubuntu)
/dev/sda1 on /media/disk type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/STORE N GO type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,uid=9 99,utf8,umask=077,flush)

=========================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc =======================

Unknown BootLoader on sda2


Unknown BootLoader on sda5


Unknown BootLoader on sdb1

00000000 eb 42 90 4d 53 44 4f 53 35 2e 30 00 02 40 20 00 |.B.MSDOS5.0..@ .|
00000010 02 00 02 00 00 f8 00 01 20 00 10 00 80 1f 00 00 |........ .......|
00000020 80 90 3b 00 00 01 29 7d f0 9a 1b 53 54 4f 52 45 |..;...)}...STORE|
00000030 20 4e 20 47 4f 20 46 41 54 31 36 20 20 20 10 00 | N GO FAT16 ..|
00000040 01 00 00 7e fc bd 00 7c 66 bb 00 00 00 00 8e d3 |...~...|f.......|
00000050 8b e5 fb 8e c3 26 c5 77 78 52 1e 56 8b fd b9 0b |.....&.wxR.V....|
00000060 00 f3 a4 8e db c6 46 09 0f 8a 46 18 88 46 04 89 |......F...F..F..|
00000070 6f 78 89 5f 7a 32 e4 cd 13 84 d2 79 2a b4 41 bb |ox._z2.....y*.A.|
00000080 aa 55 cd 13 72 0f 81 fb 55 aa 75 09 d1 e9 73 05 |.U..r...U.u...s.|
00000090 c6 06 3f 7d 74 b4 08 cd 13 72 0c 83 e1 3f 89 4e |..?}t....r...?.N|
000000a0 18 8a ce 41 89 4e 1a 0f b6 46 10 f7 66 16 e8 ac |...A.N...F..f...|
000000b0 00 8b 4e 11 c1 e9 04 51 e8 53 00 be dd 7d 8b fb |..N....Q.S...}..|
000000c0 b9 0b 00 f3 a6 75 2e f6 05 18 75 29 58 e8 9c 00 |.....u....u)X...|
000000d0 8b 47 1a 66 ff 76 46 50 48 48 3d ed ff 77 24 0f |.G.f.vFPHH=..w$.|
000000e0 b6 4e 0d f7 e1 e8 85 00 e8 23 00 81 7f 09 e8 5f |.N.......#....._|
000000f0 75 11 e9 14 01 83 c3 20 79 c1 b8 01 00 e8 6c 00 |u...... y.....l.|
00000100 59 e2 b4 66 8b 46 fa 66 a3 78 00 e9 da 00 bf 05 |Y..f.F.f.x......|
00000110 00 51 8b 46 48 33 d2 f7 76 18 91 8b 46 46 f7 76 |.Q.FH3..v...FF.v|
00000120 18 42 87 ca 3b 56 1a 73 18 f7 76 1a 8a f2 86 c5 |.B..;V.s..v.....|
00000130 c1 e8 02 c0 cc 02 0a c8 0a f4 84 e4 b8 01 02 eb |................|
00000140 08 8c 46 44 b4 42 be 3e 7c bb 00 7e 8a 56 fe cd |..FD.B.>|..~.V..|
00000150 13 59 73 1f 4f 74 ac 32 e4 cd 13 eb b4 03 46 1c |.Ys.Ot.2......F.|
00000160 13 56 1e 89 46 46 89 56 48 8b 46 0e 99 01 46 46 |.V..FF.VH.F...FF|
00000170 11 56 48 c3 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.VH.............|
00000180 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
*
000001b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0d 4e 6f 6e 2d 73 79 |..........Non-sy|
000001c0 73 74 65 6d 20 64 69 73 6b 2c 20 70 72 65 73 73 |stem disk, press|
000001d0 20 61 6e 79 20 6b 65 79 2e 2e 2e 07 00 42 4f 4f | any key.....BOO|
000001e0 54 57 49 5a 20 53 59 53 be b9 7d ac b4 0e b3 07 |TWIZ SYS..}.....|
000001f0 cd 10 ac 84 c0 75 f5 98 cd 16 cd 19 00 00 55 aa |.....u........U.|
00000200


=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================

hexdump: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /dev/mapper: No such file or directory

[darkod]

Not sure, but if it's on desktop you can execute it in terminal with:
sudo bash ~/Desktop/boot_info_script*.sh

It will create the mentioned results.txt file on desktop.

[darkod]

From the live desktop try:

sudo fsck /dev/sda5
sudo fsck /dev/sda6

It will check filesystem on root and swap partition. If you're lucky it will sort them out. You notice in the script results the filesystem of /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 are not recognized.

[nodenet]

the result from running fsck /dev/sda5
was

fsck.ext2 Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying ti open /dev/sda5
Could this be zero length partition?

result from fsck /dev/sda6


fsck.swap : not found
Error 2 while executing fsck.swap for /dev/sda6

[darkod]

Sorry, this is beyond my knowledge. Maybe someone else will jump in.