PDA

View Full Version : [ubuntu] Grub lost on upgrade ?



ronnie.s
October 6th, 2014, 03:03 PM
Hello. I have been using Ubuntu 10.04 since 2010 on my laptop. I had installed Ubuntu 10.04 alongside Windows 7 and this was working perfectly. Since the last few months my laptop internal hard drive is giving me a lot of problems these days and so I decided to install Ubuntu 14.04 on my 1 TB external hard drive and use it from there. I proceeded to do this as follows

1. I was already using my external hard drive and so I made space for the new operating system. I made partitions so that in all there are 4 partiions. The last two partitions contain my data and I intended to use the first two partitions for / and /home.

2. I installed Ubuntu 14.04 from a USB flash drive and selected install.

3. I selected "Something else", and I also chose my external hard drive as the place where the boot loader should be installed.

4. I installed Ubuntu 14.04.

5. Upon restarting the machine with my external hard drive plugged in, it detected Ubuntu 14.04 and booted. However, after I did sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade and restarted, it refuses to detect the OS on my external hard drive. It bypasses my external hard drive and goes into my internal hard drive, and then only detects the old 10.04 and windows.

I'm adding some extra information which might be useful.

There are now 4 partitions on my external hard drive in the following order

sdb1* sdb4 sdb2 sdb3 (the star indicating boot)

Just to give all information, I am attaching the output of
sudo fdisk -lu


ronnie@ronnie-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8457ecea

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 273104 136521 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 274432 20021247 9873408 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 20021248 143986687 61982720 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 143986699 625137344 240575323 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 143988736 190884329 23447797 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 190884393 619273619 214194613+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 619273683 625137344 2931831 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ca33c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 91602629 45801283+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 206322795 632639699 213158452+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 632639700 1953520064 660440182+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 91602630 206322794 57360082+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order
ronnie@ronnie-laptop:~$


and screenshots of gparted

256987256988

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks.

ronnie.s
October 6th, 2014, 03:28 PM
Hello. I have been using Ubuntu 10.04 since 2010 on my laptop. I had installed Ubuntu 10.04 alongside Windows 7 and this was working perfectly. Since the last few months my laptop internal hard drive is giving me a lot of problems these days and so I decided to install Ubuntu 14.04 on my 1 TB external hard drive and use it from there. I proceeded to do this as follows

1. I was already using my external hard drive and so I made space for the new operating system. I made partitions so that in all there are 4 partiions. The last two partitions contain my data and I intended to use the first two partitions for / and /home.

2. I installed Ubuntu 14.04 from a USB flash drive and selected install.

3. I selected "Something else", and I also chose my external hard drive as the place where the boot loader should be installed.

4. I installed Ubuntu 14.04.

5. Upon restarting the machine with my external hard drive plugged in, it detected Ubuntu 14.04 and booted. However, after I did sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade and restarted, it refuses to detect the OS on my external hard drive. It bypasses my external hard drive and goes into my internal hard drive, and then only detects the old 10.04 and windows.

I'm adding some extra information which might be useful.

There are now 4 partitions on my external hard drive in the following order

sdb1* sdb4 sdb2 sdb3 (the star indicating boot)

Just to give all information, I am attaching the output of
sudo fdisk -lu

ronnie@ronnie-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -lu
sudo: timestamp too far in the future: Oct 7 00:36:56 2014
[sudo] password for ronnie:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8457ecea

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 273104 136521 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 274432 20021247 9873408 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 20021248 143986687 61982720 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 143986699 625137344 240575323 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 143988736 190884329 23447797 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 190884393 619273619 214194613+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 619273683 625137344 2931831 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ca33c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 91602629 45801283+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 206322795 632639699 213158452+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 632639700 1953520064 660440182+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 91602630 206322794 57360082+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order
ronnie@ronnie-laptop:~$


and screenshots of gparted
256989256990

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

grahammechanical
October 6th, 2014, 04:24 PM
It is my guess that the internal hard drive has the boot priority and the only Grub being loaded is the Grub of Ubuntu 10.04 which does not know about Ubuntu 14.04. As far as I can see you have two options.

a) use the BIOS/UEFI to choose to load from the external hard disk.

b) load into Ubuntu 10.04 and run


sudo update-grub

That will update the Grub configuration file of the 10.04 Grub boot loader. The printout will show if Ubuntu 14.04 on the external hard drive is being detected.

Regards.

grahammechanical
October 6th, 2014, 04:32 PM
Why have are you dual posting? You have the same post in the New to Ubuntu section and a duplicate in the Installation and Upgrades section. That is not good manners.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2247192

oldfred
October 6th, 2014, 04:35 PM
From Live installer run the summary report from Boot-Repair and post the link.
If you tell it that sdb is external it should just re-install grub to sdb. And it can do a full uninstall/reinstall of all of grub if required. Best not to run auto fix, as that likes to just install one grub to all drives.

Boot Repair -Also handles LVM, GPT, separate /boot and UEFI dual boot.:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

coffeecat
October 6th, 2014, 04:50 PM
Threads merged. Please do not post duplicates in different parts of the forum. This causes confusion and duplication of effort from those helping.

ronnie.s
October 7th, 2014, 11:00 AM
I am sorry for dual posting. I tried looking for a way to transfer the post to "Installations and hardware" but when I could not, I just posted it there again.

After booting in to 10.04 I plugged in my external hard drive and gave the command "sudo update-grub". It detected the 14.04 in my external hard drive. Now when I switch on my computer with my external hard drive plugged in, one of the following two things happens

1. It loads a grub 1.98 menu (this is from my 10.04) which contains as an option ubuntu 3..... , however, when I choose this option I get an error that the device is not found, followed by an error that (hd1,1) missing or something to that effect. I go to the grub menu and type "ls" and see that it detects only hd0 (hd0,1) (hd0,2) ... (hd0,7) and does not detect hd1, which is my external hard drive. I press ctrl+alt+del and start again, this time i go to the boot menu. It turns out that sometimes the boot menu has an option +USB but at other times it does not have such an option. The first option is removable drives, the second option is +USB (whenever this is there), the third is +HDD ( I guess this refers to my internal hard drive).

2. On the few occasions that I went to the boot menu and found that +USB option is there, I choose it and then I get a grub 2.02 menu which has 14.04, 10.4 and windows.

Sometimes when I chose the option to boot from removable drive, I get the message "Media not found, check cable" followed by "Operating system not found", followed by "Press any key to continue". I noticed that sometimes upon going to the boot menu after these messages shows up +USB and then choosing that I am able to boot into my external hard drive.

Could it be the case that there is some problem with my machine that it does not always correctly detect my external hard drive? Thanks.

I ran Boot-Repair and here is the result


Boot Info Script e7fc706 + Boot-Repair extra info [Boot-Info 23Dec2013]


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

=> Grub2 (v1.97-1.98) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector
1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and
looks in partition 5 for /boot/grub.
=> Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb and looks at sector 1 of
the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks
in partition 112 for .

sda1: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: vfat
Boot sector type: Windows 7/2008: FAT32
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files:

sda2: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows 7/2008: NTFS
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD

sda3: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows 7/2008: NTFS
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows 7
Boot files:

sda4: __________________________________________________ ________________________

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

sda5: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System: Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS
Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img

sda6: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files:

sda7: __________________________________________________ ________________________

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

sdb1: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: Grub2 (v1.99-2.00)
Boot sector info: Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the boot sector of sdb1
and looks at sector 13170079 of the same hard drive
for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks
in partition 112 for .
Operating System: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab
/boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img

sdb2: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files:

sdb3: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files:

sdb4: __________________________________________________ ________________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files:

============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda __________________________________________________ ___________________

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System

/dev/sda1 63 273,104 273,042 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 274,432 20,021,247 19,746,816 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda3 20,021,248 143,986,687 123,965,440 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda4 143,986,699 625,137,344 481,150,646 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 143,988,736 190,884,329 46,895,594 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 190,884,393 619,273,619 428,389,227 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 619,273,683 625,137,344 5,863,662 82 Linux swap / Solaris


Drive: sdb __________________________________________________ ___________________

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System

/dev/sdb1 * 63 91,602,629 91,602,567 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 206,322,795 632,639,699 426,316,905 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 632,639,700 1,953,520,064 1,320,880,365 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 91,602,630 206,322,794 114,720,165 83 Linux


"blkid" output: __________________________________________________ ______________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/sda1 B643-1278 vfat
/dev/sda2 52B44479B4446219 ntfs RECOVERY
/dev/sda3 2C2A46692A462FDE ntfs OS
/dev/sda5 8bd64e6b-73e6-482c-9ce4-d830c96cc66b ext4
/dev/sda6 f86f588f-4496-4057-ae76-c5d85d375471 ext4
/dev/sda7 cf1e34da-8fb9-471d-bb2b-46947cf749ff swap
/dev/sdb1 08464d7c-e5b6-46a7-98d5-81e0b5bda01a ext4
/dev/sdb2 3f824394-263b-44ff-a7c7-de1120ebde17 ext4 Work
/dev/sdb3 54dad381-2d43-456e-b8f4-8725dcb6653b ext4 Ronnie
/dev/sdb4 449cc952-54ed-43da-a051-d9bfdf4cf121 ext4

================================ Mount points: =================================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

/dev/sdb1 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sdb2 /media/ronnie/Work ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks2)
/dev/sdb3 /media/ronnie/Ronnie ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks2)
/dev/sdb4 /home ext4 (rw)

yancek
October 7th, 2014, 02:03 PM
I would start by checking that the cable for the USB is securely plugged in as suggested in your messages. You seem to have all the correct files where they should be and the menuentry for 14.04 looks correct.

ronnie.s
October 7th, 2014, 02:07 PM
Every time I plug in the USB, the green light goes on perfectly. Moreover, in 10.04, there has never been a problem with the external hard drive. That is the reason I find it a bit hard to believe that there could be something wrong with the cables or the external hard drive. Perhaps from now on everything will work smoothly.

Would you recommend I try repair using boot-repair? Thanks.

Ok I completely screwed everything by doing a recommended repair. Now on switching on my laptop directly goes into windows. If I plug in my external hard drive and then switch on the laptop, then every once in a blue moon it gives me the option of booting from a usb storage and then I can choose 14.04 in my external hard drive or I can choose 10.04 in my internal hard drive (my external hard drive carries this information that there is a 10.04 on sda5). What should I do?

The external hard drive which is a Seagate is detected on other machines and I can boot from it without any problems. Any help would be of tremendous use.

I managed to boot into 14.04 and then once again ran boot-repair. This has completely messed up everything, though this time I have this link which was given to me once boot-repair completed

http://paste.ubuntu.com/8516862

Now the status of my computer is that without the external hard drive plugged in if I switch it on, then I get the following errors
PXE-E61 Media test failure check cable
Another similar error
Operating system not found
On pressing any key ....
Windows ..... ntoskrnl.exe not found

After repeating ctrl+alt+del and F12 a few times, I always eventually get a +USB option in my boot menu. From this I can boot into Windows or Ubunto 14.04 or Ubuntu 10.04. Can someone please help me. Thanks.