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windyweather
May 31st, 2011, 02:30 AM
Had a fully upgraded 10.04 x64 system.
Upgraded over the network to 10.10, and it booted fine.
There was some complaints along the way, and some stuff went by about grub config at this time, but the system booted just fine after the 10.10 upgrade.

However, in the 10.10 > 11.04 upgrade, I didn't recall seeing any grub issues, but now the system stops in grub with a grub> prompt.


GNU Grub Version .98-1ubuntu7
minimal BASH-like etc etc.
grub>

At one point I used Gparted Live to copy the system disk to another disk and at that time, based on a suggestion in these fora:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1748593

So, do I do the same thing again to repair this?

Boot the GPartedLive CD and do the grub from there, or

do some magic from this grub boot prompt? The "Install" command does not appear in this list for this grub that I can see.


Thanks.
Stuck after upgrade.
ww

drs305
May 31st, 2011, 02:41 AM
Please boot the LiveCD, go to the "BIS" link in my signature line to download and run the boot info script. Then post the contents of RESULTS.txt between 'code' tags, which are generated by pressing the post menubar's # icon.

The RESULTS.txt will give us a pretty good indication of what needs fixing in your boot files.

From you post it looks like you stuck with an older grub version, but if you upgraded Grub in Natty, be sure to have the Natty CD available for repair work (it's not necessary for running the script however).

windyweather
May 31st, 2011, 02:52 AM
I'm burning a 11.04 x64 LiveCD.
Does any one work, or does it need to match the system that I'm working on? I'll use the matching one just in case.

- ww

drs305
May 31st, 2011, 02:56 AM
I'm burning a 11.04 x64 LiveCD.
Does any one work, or does it need to match the system that I'm working on? I'll use the matching one just in case.

- ww

If you stick with Grub 1.98 you won't need the Natty CD. Natty uses Grub 1.99RC, and there were enough changes that repairs via the LiveCD need to be made with the correct version. If you stick to 1.98 a Maverick (or even Lucid) CD will work, but if you are going to run Natty I'd upgrade to 1.99 anyway so the CD will be useful.

windyweather
May 31st, 2011, 03:20 AM
Here are the results.
:guitar:
ww

windyweather
May 31st, 2011, 05:00 AM
Wanting to move on, I tried the same commands as before and then tried a reboot.
It acted like it was booting, and even showed the purple Ubuntu screen with the dots, but then hung. So it looks like the grub thing was working and it found the right OS, but something else is wrong.

I tried rebooting a couple of times, but the screen was dark after that. No splash screen. However the HD was active for long enough each time that it seemed that the system had been found and was running.

So perhaps those errors during the upgrade that said something about the nvidia drives were a portent of failure.

I've decided to move on and just reinstall the os.

Using the liveCD and a thumbdrive, I was able to get the small amount of personal files, including a bitcoin wallet [which contains no coins] from that machine.

It seems that upgrade is a fragile process. I would not have expected failures to upgrade after this many releases.
Apparently there were three along the way in upgrading from 10.04 >> 10.10 >> 11.04.

Samba upgrade failed. I have a local config file, but everyone will have that won't they?
Nvidia drive upgrade reported errors, and apparently failed to achieve a "visible" system after the last upgrade. 10.04 >> 10.10 worked fine.
10.10 >> 11.04 trashed the grub config so the system would not boot, rather than fixing it during the upgrade.
Sometime during the process, 10.10 >> 11.04 I think, the desktop fonts got trashed or reset for a while. Pulling a rightclick on the desktop showed the menu with blocks for all the characters. Other apps looked like they worked ok - I have screen shots of these I think. Very odd.


I have 3 more systems that are 10.04, so I will plan accordingly when I schedule their upgrades.

Thanks for your help.
- ww

linuxinstalledfromhdd
May 31st, 2011, 05:03 AM
Yes, I try to avoid doing upgrades with the dist-upgrade if I can help it. Fresh installations and data migration are always the best way to go in my opinion. Sorry to hear about the bad news too.

windyweather
May 31st, 2011, 05:51 AM
I just did a fresh install and no dice.

It booted, and gave me a message about wanting to upgrade the NVIDIA driver from 172 to (current version) and after that, the reboot gave me a purple screen with no logo. Just sits there. HD going for a while, so it's not hung, but never goes to login screen or autologin, which is the way it's set.

This Zotac motherboard has an onboard Nivida chipset. Looks like someone didn't work out all the cases and it doesn't work with the latest driver.

Any procedure for reverting a video driver?

Or do I have to install from scratch again?

Sigh...

Way too fragile.
- ww

mörgæs
May 31st, 2011, 07:00 AM
Yes, there are some problems for Nvidia drivers in 11.04. How did the system work with the open-source drivers?

Can you boot into recovery mode?

For your other computers, why do you want to leave 10.04?

windyweather
May 31st, 2011, 07:16 AM
I did a "restore" or whatever it's called from the Live CD to repair an installation. And surprise surprise it apparently reverted the Nvidia driver rather than just putting back what was there.
I should remember my own problems. I had this exact problem with the previous system - 10.04. Previously, a restart cleared the problem. But not with Natty.
http://www.windyweather.net/wp/2011/02/28/ubuntu-10-04-nvidia-driver-install-issue/

Seems to work now.

BUT if you have an NVIDIA graphics device, be werry werry careful about upgrading the driver to the [Recommended] choice.. Trashed my system but good. Mine is a Zotac GeForce 9300 Motherboard.

Things appear to be working with my MCP7A-S integrated nvidia graphics chip with version 173.14.30. The [Recommended] choice whatever it is, trashes the system but good. Comes up "purple" and never gets to the login screen.

For future reference: How do I boot in recovery mode? I'll look it up.

I thought I would get them all upgraded to the same state. But with this much trouble maybe not. Maybe on the rest I'll wait until the next release. I'm going to use VirtualBox on this system so I can have a development sandbox to test installs of programs I'm writing.

Thanks,
- ww

drs305
May 31st, 2011, 11:41 AM
For future reference: How do I boot in recovery mode?

Of course if you have a Grub menu with the 'Recovery' option, that is the easiest. The recovery mode option is displayed by default unless you turn it off.

If you have a Grub menu but no 'Recovery' mode, highlight the normal entry with the cursor, then press 'e' to edit the entry. Go to the 'linux' line, which probably ends with 'quiet splash'. Remove 'quiet splash' and add single. Then press CTRL-x to boot. That should launch the recovery mode.

If you aren't getting a Grub menu displayed, hold down the SHIFT key during boot to display it.

Note: for problems with nvidia video, you can use the same procedure: rather than 'single', add nomodeset, which will do a normal boot and may boot to a usuable Desktop so you can install the correct driver.