GRUB error: no such disk after new install

[aebrett]

I've recently installed Ubuntu 9.10 Server 64-bit on a brand new machine, and on startup, after the initial grub message it pauses for about 7 seconds and prints the message "error: no such disk". After this error, it continues to boot normally so it's not causing any real problems except for the fact that it's an annoyance.

I'm using LVM with a single 1.5TB disk, and these are the interesting lines of the output from 'mount':


/dev/mapper/maine-root on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda5 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
/dev/mapper/maine-home on /home type ext4 (rw)
/dev/mapper/maine-media on /var/media type ext4 (rw)


with the following partition sizes:


Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/maine-root
37G 1.9G 33G 6% /
/dev/sda5 228M 30M 186M 14% /boot
/dev/mapper/maine-home
37G 178M 35G 1% /home
/dev/mapper/maine-media
1.3T 387G 839G 32% /var/media


Here's the contents of my /dev/disk/by-uuid directory:


lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 2010-01-31 12:41 0a958fb4-52be-4cbb-98d7-ee9653c7cac4 -> ../../mapper/maine-root
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 2010-01-31 12:41 22e83a37-3ab6-4fd7-9624-5cd5bfac93f5 -> ../../mapper/maine-media
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 2010-01-31 12:41 9448f693-ecfb-4839-873b-0a47a7878538 -> ../../mapper/maine-home
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 2010-01-31 12:41 b8cbb74e-fcac-4cbd-8b41-948cf22f7786 -> ../../mapper/maine-swap
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-01-31 12:41 cbf2e92c-02c1-4232-9a5a-3adb2f5b46e6 -> ../../sda5


and finally the contents of /boot/grub/grub.cfg


#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s /boot/grub/grubenv ]; then
have_grubenv=true
load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
save_env saved_entry
prev_saved_entry=
save_env prev_saved_entry
fi
insmod lvm
insmod ext2
set root=(maine-root)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 0a958fb4-52be-4cbb-98d7-ee9653c7cac4
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
set gfxmode=640x480
insmod gfxterm
insmod vbe
if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
# For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
# understand terminal_output
terminal gfxterm
fi
fi
if [ ${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=3
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/white
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-17-server" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,5)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set cbf2e92c-02c1-4232-9a5a-3adb2f5b46e6
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-server root=/dev/mapper/maine-root ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-17-server
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-17-server (recovery mode)" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,5)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set cbf2e92c-02c1-4232-9a5a-3adb2f5b46e6
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-17-server root=/dev/mapper/maine-root ro single
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-17-server
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-server" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,5)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set cbf2e92c-02c1-4232-9a5a-3adb2f5b46e6
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-server root=/dev/mapper/maine-root ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-14-server
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-server (recovery mode)" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,5)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set cbf2e92c-02c1-4232-9a5a-3adb2f5b46e6
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-server root=/dev/mapper/maine-root ro single
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-14-server
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
linux16 /memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" {
linux16 /memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
if [ ${timeout} != -1 ]; then
if keystatus; then
if keystatus --shift; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=0
fi
else
if sleep --interruptible 3 ; then
set timeout=0
fi
fi
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###



I've tried fiddling around with the contents of grub.cfg, but I'm reluctant to do anything to drastic for fear of leaving my system unbootable. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to what could be going wrong here? In case it makes a difference, this machine doesn't contain either an optical drive or a floppy drive (I installed Ubuntu from a USB key, and no other OS's have been installed on it)

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Andrew

[aebrett]

OK, I finally got to the bottom of this. I discovered that it was the line "insmod lvm" that was causing this error, and after further investigation worked out it was /dev/fd0 which was the disk in question. I don't have a floppy drive attached on this machine, but in the BIOS, the floppy defaulted to '1.44MB 3.5"'. After disabling the floppy in the BIOS, grub no longer gives me this error.

[muylento]

Thanks a lot for the solution. Had exactly the same issue with floppy drive in a virtual PC install though, but this worked!

[foxmajik]

I had this error with Ubuntu Server as well, but it was because the secondary hard drive, which contains the root partition, was set to "OFF" in the BIOS.

In my case the error prevented the system from booting because it could not find the secondary IDE drive which contains the root partition.

Apparently Linux can see the drive after boot but GRUB cannot if it is set to OFF in the BIOS for a Dell Optiplex GX150.

Setting it to AUTO fixed the problem for me.