Hard disk failure in multiple boot system, how to remove non-existing systems

[zuheyr2]

Hello,

One of my 2 hard disks died, taking with it the Windows operating system as well as some older Ubuntu versions.
I am using Grub to boot Ubuntu 12.04 and what used to be several windows distros are still in the boot menu.

I am happy this will be Christmas cleaning but how do I clean the grub menu? Installing Windows on a new hard disk
will automatically correct the menu? Because Grub asks me to manually skip mounting disks that are not mountable...

I would like to try the latest Ubuntu distro as well on the new hard disk.

Thanks for reading!
Happy holidays and best wishes,
Zuheyr

[fantab]

Where is your grub installed? on the good HDD or dead HDD?

If its on the good HDD then remove the dead HDD and run:

sudo update-grub
after booting into ubuntu 12.04, that should clear up the Grub menu.

[zuheyr2]

Thank you!

Sorry, silly of me, thanks to Heavens, I am saved, the grub is installed on the good disk and
it boots. Thank you!

[zuheyr2]

Hello,

I closed the thread as solved thinking it would be when I throw away the bad disk and update grub
but it did not solve the problem. I even installed a parallel windows and grub found my old windows with it
and I installed also another 12.04 additional one whiel playing with Live CD.

However, I still get that cannot mount the disk, waitm, enter S to skip, M for manual configuration message...

Happy holidays, thanks very much for reading!

Zuheyr

[fantab]

Download and Run the BootInfo Script (http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/). Use this (http://paste.ubuntu.com/) to copy-paste the contents of your 'Results.txt file here as a link.

[grahammechanical]

When we run update-grub the command runs a Grub utility called os-prober. It is os-prober that searches for other operating systems and if it finds them it includes them in the configuration files that Grub uses to produce that menu. This is why it is recommended that the faulty disk with those versions of Windows and Ubuntu on it be disconnected. Then os-prober will not probe that hard disk. There is another command that you can run after running update-grub


sudo grub-install /dev/sda

I find that sometimes we need this command to make the changes in the Grub configuration files active. In other words, change the Grub menu.

That command will work if there is only one hard disk in the machine. If there is a second hard disk then you may need to change /dev/sda to /dev/sdb if you are running the command from Ubuntu on the second hard disk (sdb) and not the first hard disk (sda).

Regards.

[zuheyr2]

Hello,

Much appreciated, thank you.

Here is the link:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/6635604/

It is a bit long I am afraid. Thank you very much. Regards, Zuheyr

[zuheyr2]

Thank you for the response.

I have replaced the faulty disk which turned out to be the first hard disk, so Ubuntu 12.04 happened to be
on the /dev/sdb. Mainly I left it to boot-repair recommended corrections but I have also tried other solutions including
advanced options with purging the grub and then creating a new one with the chroot etc...


At this moment in time when I have created the bootinfo script results above, there is another 12.04 in sda that the grub does not detect.

Thank you very much for your time! Regards, Zuheyr

[oldfred]

Your sda is now a 3TB drive with gpt partitioning. Windows will only boot from gpt partitioned drives with UEFI, but you show a standard BIOS type install (labelled 1TB, which probably was MBR)? Also the Windows in sdb3 has no boot files. Typically Windows installs all boot files to the BIOS boot drive and partition with the boot flag. So unless sda is BIOS and has a working Windows you cannot boot sdb3. But since a primary partition you may be able to copy boot files to sdb2 and use a Windows repairCD or flash drive to make it work.

You have installed grub2's boot loader to many partitions. That does not work normally and should only be done if you only have no other way to boot. With several hard drives you can install grub to any drive for any install. Best to have grub installed to same drive as your install so when drive fails you can still boot another drive.
If installing grub to a gpt partitioned drive you need to create a tiny 1 or 2MB unformatted partition with gparted and right click manage flags to add the bios_grub flag. It can be anywhere on drive.

But with new gpt partitioned drives I also suggest a 300 to 400MB fat32 partition at the start. When drive is then converted to UEFI boot on a new system you do not have to totally reformat to add the efi partition.

You may want to houseclean some old kernels. I like to use synaptic.
Determine your current kernel:
uname -a
uname -r
In synaptic search for linux-image to choose to delete old ones
Also command line in post #8
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1283521

If your boot install has any partitions from sda and sda is not working then you will get error messages on those partitions not being mounted. Or if a new drive with new UUIDs then you need to update UUIDs. I did not attempt to compare them all. :)

[fantab]

How did you determine that one of your HDD is faulty? I hope you are absolutely sure that your HDD is at fault.
Boot-Repair utility creates a LINK to 'Bootinfo Summary', you must post that link here as well; so we know what boot-repair found and how it repaired the boot or what it recommends.

Boot with the Live DVD/USb and post the output of:

sudo parted -l
sudo fdisk -l
sudo blkid

Like oldfred points out, you have some house-cleaning to do as you have accumulated some old and unused kernels. We can do this later. Lets just get your system booting again.
(If you can then please don't make any changes to HDD's between you posting the outputs and us replying).

[zuheyr2]

Oldfred, I am very grateful, thank you for this thorough answer. Your reply showed me there are so many things I overlooked, in my previous search.

> Windows will only boot from gpt partitioned drives with UEFI, but you show a standard BIOS type install (labelled 1TB, which probably was MBR)?

I confess only now I your reference link to find what is UEFI and all my Ubuntu research about how to add windows after ubuntu just mentioned make a partition and put the windows there...
Forgive my ignorance, sincerely.

>So unless sda is BIOS and has a working Windows you cannot boot sdb3.

Yes that's why I needed to install another Windows 7 that can load my previous Windows 7 which was no longer available.

>But since a primary partition you may be able to copy boot files to sdb2 and use a Windows repairCD or flash drive to make it work.

I am not sure I grasp this, which files exactly I should copy. I must look at this more.

>That does not work normally and should only be done if you only have no other way to boot.

"recommended" Boot-repair help was not working, that's how I managed to make it boot, using the advanced options of the boot-repair.

>But with new gpt partitioned drives I also suggest a 300 to 400MB fat32 partition at the start. When drive is then converted to UEFI boot on a new system you do not have to totally reformat to add the efi partition.
I can still scrap the hard disk /dev/sda and do what you suggest but for /dev/sdb probably it is too late!? I am not touching anything, not cleaning yet atm as fantab asked me not to until we sort out the situation.

Great many thanks indeed. Kind regards, Zuheyr

[zuheyr2]

Fantab, my sincere thanks, much appreciated.

> How did you determine that one of your HDD is faulty? I hope you are absolutely sure that your HDD is at fault.

Grub would no longer find my Windows on it, it was saying no operating system is found. I am not absolutely sure, no. No I did not check the disk
to see if it is faulty. My desktop is pretty old, and I already changed several hard disks (after checking to see they are faulty)...

But if the MBR was on the /dev/sda as OldFred mentions, how the system could reboot without /dev/sda then?? I am in a rush for my projects so I did not think enough perhaps.

The system reboots but the problem is this:
I get the error from grub: UUID=0c29c6c5-9817-4d4f-a51c-2f736bb61c2b is not yet ready or not present.
It asks me to wait, or type S to skip (which I do) or type M for manual modification.


I thank you very much, most kind of you, before including the long ouputs to the commands you asked me to provide you with.
Kind regards, zuheyr
The output of "sudo parted -l"
Model: ATA WDC WD30EFRX-68E (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 3001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos


Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1049GB 1049GB primary ntfs boot
2 1049GB 1592GB 544GB extended
5 1049GB 1049GB 599MB logical ext4
6 1049GB 1079GB 30.0GB logical ext4
7 1079GB 1092GB 13.0GB logical linux-swap(v1)
8 1092GB 1592GB 500GB logical ext4




Model: ATA WDC WD20EARX-00P (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos


Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 322GB 322GB primary ntfs
3 322GB 913GB 591GB primary ntfs boot
4 913GB 1314GB 401GB extended lba
5 913GB 913GB 537MB logical ext4
6 913GB 935GB 21.5GB logical ext4
7 935GB 948GB 12.9GB logical linux-swap(v1)
8 948GB 1314GB 366GB logical ext4
2 1314GB 2000GB 687GB primary ntfs
========================================

Output of sudo fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 3000.6 GB, 3000592982016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364801 cylinders, total 5860533168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0004f7ff


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 2048002047 1024000000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 2048004094 3109720063 530857985 5 Extended
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda5 2048004096 2049174017 584961 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 2049175552 2107767348 29295898+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 2107768832 2133157887 12694528 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 2133159936 3109720063 488280064 83 Linux


Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x506f0275


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 629139455 314568704 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 2565875712 3907028991 670576640 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3 * 629139456 1782573055 576716800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb4 1782575041 2565875711 391650335+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdb5 1782575104 1783623679 524288 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 1783625728 1825568767 20971520 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 1825570816 1850736639 12582912 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb8 1850738688 2565875711 357568512 83 Linux


Partition table entries are not in disk order
=================================

output of sudo blkid:
/dev/sda1: LABEL="WD1TB" UUID="6F16032E3A5685E2" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda5: UUID="6e9647fd-9722-4117-999e-8bd692cb8ddd" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda6: UUID="f01d10c3-f751-4c7c-8f77-df81cac0320a" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda7: UUID="2c5e0156-6f29-4839-b1f8-583cfb515a05" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda8: UUID="beb528f4-523e-4a30-a700-c0e16fe20cbd" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="storage" UUID="5A3E999B3E9970AD" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="new" UUID="3608CDAC3F6806E5" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="01CD643B0CEAE0A0" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="3c7a72cc-b856-4d82-9121-4b968540299a" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="dbf12d4e-838e-4117-a486-9034b9ff7957" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb7: UUID="8de601aa-e3bb-4131-8b61-928a0f76cfb0" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb8: UUID="cc5e88b9-c95f-45a0-a7e7-ed14172aebeb" TYPE="ext4"
================================================

[fantab]

I get the error from grub: UUID=0c29c6c5-9817-4d4f-a51c-2f736bb61c2b is not yet ready or not present.
It generally means:
1. That there could be filesystem errors on the HDD or partition. Running 'CHKDSK' from Windows will resolve this.
---OR---
2. That the UUID of your partition changed somehow. Replacing the old UUID of the partition with the new in /etc/fstab or Grub files will also resolve the issue.

If you look at the UUIDs from the 'blkid' output you will see that there is no UUID=0c29c6c5-9817-4d4f-a51c-2f736bb61c2b, for which you are getting errors.

I don't see that 1Tb HDD in your output. It would have helped if we could see the UUIDS of that disk as well.

Most importantly, HDD larger than 2TB are not supported by 'msdos'/MBR partition table. You should use GUID Partition Table [GPT] (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPT). Windows will only boot from GPT in UEFI mode.

Model: ATA WDC WD30EFRX-68E (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 3001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos

This disk surely would have had GPT originally. You, most likely, changed it to 'msdos'/MBR.
You will have to create a new GPT table. This will erase all the data and partitions on the HDD. You need to BACKUP your data.

I would go a step further and also make the other 2Tb HDD GPT, as well.
But before that you have to make sure your computer is equpped with UEFI. If it does have UEFI then you need to reinstall all your OS in UEFI.
If you don't have UEFI then keep your second HDD as 'msdos' and boot all your OS from it.

Run SMART tests on the 1Tb HDD to find out if it is indeed faulty. You can run the tests with the utility 'Disks' from Live Ubuntu after re-plugging the faulty HDD.

[zuheyr2]

Thank you!

I will definitely run the CHKDSK on the old 1TB disk, as well as the SMART tests. In my previous disk failures Ubuntu always issued warnings, not this time.

Yes I have taken that 1TB disk (as I only have two hard disk bays in my Dell Inspiron 530S slim tower) but I will put it back, check its UUID and test it.

I only provided the Windows with a NTFS partition in /dev/sda as per my incomplete Ubuntu research. Perhaps I created the mess by asking the boot-repair
to put grub2 loaders in many partitions.

The second thing to do is to check if my computer, Dell Inspiron 530s Slim tower, is equipped with UEFI.

Thank you very much. I do hope this thread will be useful to many multiple booters.

Kind regards, Zuheyr

[oldfred]

You can boot Ubuntu from gpt partitioned drives with BIOS. That is all I have and use gpt on two of my drives and even one flash drive has gpt.
But Windows only boots from gpt with UEFI.

If system is older, then it is unlikely to have UEFI. Systems started to have UEFI/BIOS with Intel second gen chips. Only some later Windows 7 systems boot with UEFI.

If you convert your 3TB drive to MBR(msdos) you also then convert it to a 2TiB drive as that is the max for MBR since MBR is about 30 years old and TB was not even thought about on a PC back then.

MBR tech details including 2TiB limit and GPT link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

[zuheyr2]

Hello,

Most sincere thanks. I think I have enough information to do my late homework and put the pieces together.

I will not yet close the thread until I solve get a perfect boot as I hope this thread may be helpful
to fellow Ubuntu beginners.

Best wishes and best regards.