Help with boot repair

[akgem1]

I have an old PC/server that was running Ubuntu 8.04 server on it. When I turned it on after it was shut down last time, it said something about the BIOS being corrupted and had to be reset to factory defaults. After doing so, I started getting the "Grub error 18" error message and spent last 2 days trying to figure out how to fix it. I found the link to the boot repair tool and tried using it, but I keep getting the message "Please close all your package managers (Software Center, Update Manager, Synaptic, ...). Then try again.", and I have no idea why and/or how to get past it. Here is the link to the Bootinfo Summary generated by the tool:

http://paste.ubuntu.com/841790/

I'm completely lost at this point and have no idea what else to try. This server was running our search engine/database, so I would really hate losing all of it and having to reinstall the OS and everything else. Does anyone have any ideas on what else I could try to get this box up and running again?

[oldfred]

Info on error 18 from grub legacy.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p15.html#18

You do know 8.04 is past support.

Versions and release & support until dates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28operating_system%29#Releases

I think boot repair requires or wants to download added things and since you are past support that is not working.

It did show some error on RAID? Are you running RAID, script only shows one drive.


ERROR: sil: wrong # of devices in RAID set "sil_aeaheiddcabj" [1/2] on /dev/sda

[akgem1]

Yes, it was configured to run RAID 1, but one of the drives died a while back, so it's been running on just one drive for last couple of years since the PC is so old we couldn't find a matching replacement drive for it. The guy that set up and supported this server left the company, so I just inherited this whole mess and trying to keep it running. I don't know enough about Linux to be proficient with it, and I haven't had time come up with a plan on upgrading/replacing this server.

P.S. The WiKi link you provided indicates that the server version of 8.04 is still supported.

[oldfred]

I forgot that servers have a longer life.

You should remove the RAID meta data from drive if not using RAID. Often many apps see the RAID data and do not work as they are not compatible with RAID.

Presence1960 on remove old raid setting from HD
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1325650
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sdb
Also check BIOS for raid settings
More discusion:
http://wwww.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9274738#post9274738