Can't boot Debian in triple boot

[kat3c]

O.K., I'm a newbie, and I'm lost. After reading hours on GRUB and bootloaders, I still don't understand much. Here's my story:

I had (and still do) a working dual-boot XP/Karmic (GRUB version 1.97 beta4). I shrank the Ubuntu partition and set up partitions and installed Debian 5.04. When I got to the point of installing GRUB, I told Debian to install grub to MBR. On rebooting, Ubuntu was not an option on the NEW (looked different) grub menu. Maybe it was GRUB2? Could boot to either XP or Debian though.

Thought easiest thing was to reinstall Ubuntu since it seems to "see" other OS's more reliably. So I did, and installed GRUB again during its install to MBR. Then, all three were in the GRUB menu (version 1.97 beta4 again), but when tried booting to Debian, got an error (forget the wording), but think it was because the partitions got renumbered when installing Ubuntu.

SO, reinstalled Debian, reformatting the partitions but not deleting them first so the numbering stayed the same. When got to the part for installing GRUB, I told it to skip, hoping now the current GRUB would work.

Now, all three are on the GRUB menu, but when I try to boot Debian, I get "no such device" and a list of numbers/letters after it. And "press any key to continue", which takes you back to the GRUB menu (version 1.97 beta4, by the way).

What to do? Ideas? When I try booting from Super GRUB USB, it only sees the Windows (by name) OS, and then lists a stage 1 and stage 1_5? What's that?

Thanks for any help.

[kat3c]

O.K., did sudo update-grub in ubuntu and rebooted. Now, Debian 5.04 shows as last entry in GRUB, and choosing it starts a boot, which hangs at "Begin: Waiting for root file system....".

Ideas?

[kat3c]

One more piece of info. Waiting long enough at the "Waiting for root file system..." hang results in a series of notifications:

WARNING bootdevice may be renamed. Try root=dev/hda3
Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
-Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
-Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
-Check root= (did the sytem wait for the right device?)
-Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT! /dev/sda3 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!


In Gparted, the partition with Debian root is hdc3, although on the GRUB menu it's listed as /dev/sda3. However, in Gparted the Windows partition is hdc1 and on GRUB it's /dev/sda1, and it boots fine.....


Is my Debian install just borked? Did telling it to skip installing a bootloader (I got some kind of error that said "Install failed. This is a fatal error. You will have to boot with an external device..." ruin it?

If skipping the bootloader install did ruin it, how do you install Debian without borking your current GRUB? That's what happened the first time.

[khelben1979]

As a Linux newbie I think you should focus on making things easy instead of difficult and having different distributions installed on different harddrives instead of different partitions is a lot easier or stick to one distribution at a time.

Also, you have the possibility to use YouTube to educate yourself about how Linux works if you find reading documentation boring.

Okay, so good luck on this and one advice is to lower down your speed in how you do things to better understand what you're doing. There's no speed contest in understanding Linux in my opinion.

[oldfred]

To understand where everything is:

Boot Info Script courtesy of forum member meierfra
Page with instructions and download:
http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/
Be sure to highlight and use code tags (#) to make it easier to read when you post the results.txt.

[kat3c]

Below are the results. I highlighted/noted what I think is of interest, doesn't mean it is......Thanks.


Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010

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

=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks on the same drive in
partition #7 for /boot/grub.

sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows XP
Boot files/dirs: /boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM

sda2: __________________________________________________ _______________________

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

sda5: __________________________________________________ _______________________

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

sda6: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext3
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

#Ubuntu root part#
sda7: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext3
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System: Ubuntu 9.10
Boot files/dirs: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img

sda8: __________________________________________________ _______________________

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

sda9: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext3
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

#Debian root part#
sda3: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext3
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 5.0
Boot files/dirs: /etc/fstab

=========================== 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: 0x0e550e54

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 63 129,596,354 129,596,292 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 147,171,465 234,436,544 87,265,080 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 147,171,591 151,460,819 4,289,229 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 151,460,883 179,751,284 28,290,402 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 179,751,348 198,177,839 18,426,492 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 198,177,903 202,274,414 4,096,512 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9 202,274,478 234,436,544 32,162,067 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 129,596,355 147,171,464 17,575,110 83 Linux


blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/sda1 56B09B48B09B2D8D ntfs New old Dell laptop

#Debian root part#
/dev/sda3 eb7d1b5b-9dae-414a-b77e-0cb6f3c0ff61 ext3 9.0 GB Filesyste

/dev/sda5 swap
/dev/sda6 37837804-fc55-4dbc-aa13-08b08bc89b79 ext3

#Ubuntu root part #
/dev/sda7 a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef ext3 ubuntu root


/dev/sda8 b6a7e78e-5ddb-47da-b80c-8114b200d7e7 swap swap
/dev/sda9 b8cd9e96-901d-45c2-9f3a-0329b8b7babf ext3 ubuntu home

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

/dev/sda7 / ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda9 /home ext3 (rw)


================================ sda1/boot.ini: ================================


timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

=========================== sda7/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 ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef
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=10
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 2.6.31-20-generic" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=UUID=a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-20-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-20-generic (recovery mode)" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=UUID=a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-20-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-generic" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-generic (recovery mode)" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

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

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)" {
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 56b09b48b09b2d8d
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}
[B]menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux (5.0.4) (on /dev/sda3)" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,3)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set eb7d1b5b-9dae-414a-b77e-0cb6f3c0ff61
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/sda3
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686
}
### 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 ###

=============================== sda7/etc/fstab: ===============================

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=a3cc4cdd-c80d-48c0-be69-071e7366b6ef / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sda9 during installation
UUID=b8cd9e96-901d-45c2-9f3a-0329b8b7babf /home ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/sda5 none swap sw 0 0
# swap was on /dev/sda8 during installation
UUID=b6a7e78e-5ddb-47da-b80c-8114b200d7e7 none swap sw 0 0

=================== sda7: Location of files loaded by Grub: ===================


99.8GB: boot/grub/core.img
99.8GB: boot/grub/grub.cfg
99.8GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
100.0GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-20-generic
99.8GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic
100.0GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic
100.0GB: initrd.img
99.8GB: initrd.img.old
100.0GB: vmlinuz
99.8GB: vmlinuz.old

#Debian root part#
=============================== sda3/etc/fstab: ===============================

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hdc3 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdc6 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/hdc5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0

=================== sda3: Location of files loaded by Grub: ===================


66.9GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686
67.0GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686.bak
66.9GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686
66.9GB: initrd.img
66.9GB: vmlinuz