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Miykel
April 30th, 2011, 03:36 AM
G'Day; I got the notice from Ubuntu to upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04, so I did but no good, when it boots I get to a black screen which says GNU GRUB Version 1.99 rc1-13 Ubuntu3,
an indication to press TAB key which gives you a heap of commands of which only reboot seems to work. Any fixes for this or just start again, Can't get to recovery mode either, just the Windows Bootloader the this (shell ??) screen.
Kind Regards Miykel

KoRnholio
April 30th, 2011, 06:26 AM
This same thing happened to me as well. I know I should be able to boot from this GRUB menu, but I'm not sure of the syntax for doing so.

manzdagratiano
April 30th, 2011, 06:37 AM
You both have been pwned by grub, as I have been in the past. Arm yourselves with your LiveCD/LiveUSB, and follow the steps in the 'SIMPLEST' method in:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20GRUB%202 (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20GRUB%202)

This should get you back in business.

KoRnholio
April 30th, 2011, 06:42 AM
Well, I got an initial boot a much easier way, lifted from the sticky thread in this forum. I checked (hd0,5)/boot/grub and saw nothing, then tried hd0,1 and it worked, so I adapted the instructions thusly:

set prefix=(hd0,1)/boot/grub
set root=(hd0,1)
insmod (hd0,1)/boot/grub/linux.mod
linux (hd0,1)/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro
initrd (hd0,1)/initrd.img
boot

I'm glad this worked, as I don't have a livecd, given that this is an upgrade. I may have to get one to fix the problem for good (not sure if what I did would have to be done every time I boot), but having to get a live cd just to boot this would have been a disaster.

manzdagratiano
April 30th, 2011, 07:03 AM
Yup, what you have done seems to be temporary workaround only.
BUT, since you have now booted into a good system, you may fix your grub from the console:

$ sudo grub-install /dev/sdX

where 'X' is the drive (not partition!) which has your /boot on it. This will reinstall grub to the mbr, as is the safest thing to do. Also, after that, issue:

$ sudo update-grub

and it should report what it fixed.

Also, you need not burn a CD for this purpose though... just download the Ubuntu iso from the website and use "Startup Disk Creator" from System -> Administration to make a Live USB - the process takes 3mins after download and is completely painless!

KoRnholio
May 1st, 2011, 04:58 AM
I tried that with /dev/sda (according to the disk utility that's what my HDD is), and it errors out thusly:


tristan@tristan-laptop:~$ sudo grub-install /dev/sda
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: This msdos-style partition label has no post-MBR gap; embedding won't be possible!.
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: error: will not proceed with blocklists.