grub 17: no /boot/grub folder

[Mount]

Hello All,

I've looked through many solutions to this error but have not been able to find an answer to my specific situation.

I have a dual boot system and have tried to do an upgrade of Ubuntu. During the installation I selected the partition which contained the previous version of Ubuntu, formatted (EXT3) and installed there. I also specified the mount point "/".

Now when I reboot I get "Grub Error 17". I started looking for a solution and have tried:

Changing the boot priorities.
Reinstalling again (just in case)

In addition to this I have tried booting from the live CD and inspecting the /boot/grub/menu.lst file. The problem is is it is not there! I only have five files in this folder and no deeper folders. What does this mean?

Any suggestions .....?

[ammikulka]

i have no clue but if i have a thumb drive in the USB i get an error 17 message do you have anything in your usb?
other than that sorry i cant help you

[Mount]

Hi I tried taking the USB stick out for the second install but that didn't change anything. Thanks anyway

[Mount]

oops, I've found the menu.lst file not. It was in a place i didn't expect. I have a drive (at least it looks like a drive) called FileSystem which is where I was looking. This file contained all the usual folders /etc/ /bin/ et cetera. strange.

Could some one go through the contents of the menu.lst file with me and check it against what I get from gparted?

//************************************************** *************
// gparted pages.
//page 1

/dev/sda1 ntfs
/dev/sda2 extended
/dev/sda5 ntfs
/dev/sda6 ntfs
/dev/sda7 ntfs
/dev/sda8 ntfs

// page 2

unallocated
/dev/sdb2 extended
/dev/sdb5 ntfs

//page 3

/dev/sdc3 linux-swap
/dev/sdc2 ext3
/dev/sdc1 extended
/dev/sdc5 ntfs

// End gparted
//************************************************** *************

//************************************************** *************
// menu.lst

..........

## ## End Default Options ##

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=7d88c471-3171-4a0d-985a-167ab3c5701c ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=7d88c471-3171-4a0d-985a-167ab3c5701c ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, memtest86+
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

.........

// End menu.lst
//************************************************** *************


I don't really understand how I should have my harddrives set up!


Thanks



//************************************************** *************

[Mount]

Hello,

I've just noticed that the mount point for "/dev/sdc2 ext3" in my about post is "/media/disk".

Do I need to change this? or is this a consequence of using the Live CD?

cheers

[caljohnsmith]

Since your Ubuntu entries use (hd2,4), that means that Grub must be installed to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of one of your other drives. That's OK, but it's not as ideal as when you can simply boot from your Ubuntu drive directly and leave your other drives untouched. Can you set your BIOS to boot your sdc drive (Ubuntu) on start up? If so I would recommend putting Grub in its MBR, and just boot from that drive. That will save you a lot of headaches if you have problems with drives or move anything around.

To get a better idea of your setup, please open a terminal (applications > accessories > terminal) and post:

sudo fdisk -lu
Also, to install Grub to the MBR of your Ubuntu drive, try this:

sudo grub
grub> root (hd2,1)
grub> setup (hd2)
grub> quit
Then set your BIOS to boot the Ubuntu (sdc) drive, and see if you can at least get the Grub menu; if you can get that far we can work from there. :)

[Mount]

Hello caljohnsmith,

Thanks for the reply.
Since your posting I have done something which enables me to boot as far as the GRUB menu. When I select any of the items
from the menu I get:


Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
for the Ubuntu and:


Error 12: Invalid device requested
for the Windows menu item.

Does this help you diagnose the problem?

Thanks .....

Here's the output of the fdisk command in any case:



Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa3661429

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 195350399 97675168+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 195350400 976768064 390708832+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 195350463 390700799 97675168+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 390700863 586051199 97675168+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7 586051263 781401599 97675168+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda8 781401663 976768064 97683201 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa7b16004

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb2 16065 312576704 156280320 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 16128 312576704 156280288+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdc: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders, total 320173056 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbb6a7f7c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 155878695 320159384 82140345 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc2 * 4193028 155878694 75842833+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3 63 4192964 2096451 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc5 155878758 320159384 82140313+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[caljohnsmith]

Well like I mentioned in my previous post, it would be a lot more ideal to set your BIOS to boot your Ubuntu drive on start up, because if you are booting another drive that now has Grub in the MBR (Master Boot Record), then if either your Ubuntu drive or that other boot drive have any problems in the future (or if you even just disconnect one), you won't be able to boot either.

I would recommend following the instructions from my previous post to boot the Ubuntu drive directly, but if you want to live with your current setup, then go ahead and reboot again, and when you get the Grub menu, select the first Ubuntu entry, press "e" to edit it, select the line that says "root (hdX,Y)" where X and Y are numbers, press "e" to edit it, change the X to be either 0, 1, or 2; press return to save the change, then press "b" to boot. One of those values of X should work to boot Ubuntu if your Grub menu isn't too far out of whack. Note that the above change is not permanent, so you'll need to modify your menu.lst to make it permanent.

So if it works, when you get into Ubuntu, just do:

gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
And change the line that says "# groot=(hdX,Y)" to whichever (hdX,Y) worked to boot Ubuntu; save, quit gedit, then run:

sudo update-grub
And you should be able to boot Ubuntu on start up next time. If you want help booting Windows, let me know which (hdX,Y) worked to boot Ubuntu.

[Mount]

Hi,

Great i've got Ubuntu back! Thanks so much!

Only problem is that I can't get into Windows. I have tried, from the grub menu, editing the 'root (hdX, Y)' statements with a series of Xs and Ys but I can't seem to find Windows. I get several errors depending on the X and Y values.

Do you have a suggestion on what values to use? BY the way Ubuntu boots with 'root (hd2, 1).

Thanks

[caljohnsmith]

So is Windows on your 500 GB sda drive? If so, open your menu.lst again with:

gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
And then add the following entries at the bottom of the file:

title Windows XP (hd0)
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title Windows XP (hd2)
root (hd2,0)
map (hd0) (hd2)
map (hd2) (hd0)
chainloader +1

Save, reboot, and most likely one of those entries will work to boot Windows. If not, let me know exactly what happens when you choose each one. :)

[Mount]

Ok,

Selecting 'Windows XP (hd0)' gives


Starting up ...

and the system just hangs

Selecting 'Windows XP (hd2)' gives


Error22: No such partition

Press any key to continue...



Windows in indeed on the 500Gb drive. When I got the machine this disk was split into 5 equal partitions

Thanks

[caljohnsmith]

OK, you can remove the (hd2) Windows entry from your menu.lst, because it looks like the (hd0) is correct. From a terminal in Ubuntu, try the following:

sudo apt-get install testdisk
sudo testdisk
After starting testdisk, choose "no log", choose the correct HDD and "proceed", choose "intel", choose "advanced", select the Windows XP partition, choose "boot", then choose "Rebuild BS"; if testdisk gives you an error about boot sectors not matching, then choose "write". After you are done doing the "rebuild BS" in testdisk, reboot and try and boot Windows again. Let me know what happens. :)

[Mount]

really I can't thank you enough for going through this with me. I'm completly lost otherwise.

After doing "Rebuild BS" I had a message "Extrapolated boot sector and current boot sector are identical" also I don't seem to have a 'write' option. I have a 'Dump' one though...

[caljohnsmith]

really I can't thank you enough for going through this with me. I'm completly lost otherwise.

After doing "Rebuild BS" I had a message "Extrapolated boot sector and current boot sector are identical" also I don't seem to have a 'write' option. I have a 'Dump' one though...
You're welcome, glad to help out when I can. :) Since your Windows boot sector is OK according to testdisk (the boot sector matches with the backup boot sector), you can go ahead and quit testdisk. If you have your Windows Install CD, I would recommend booting that, go to the "recovery console", and running:

chkdsk /r
And run chkdsk as many times as necessary until it reports no errors. After that reboot, try Windows again, and let me know what happens.

[Mount]

I don't think i have the windows cd is was a preinstalled machine. Is there another way round?
Could I use any Windows XP CD?
cheers,

[caljohnsmith]

I think you're most likely going to need your Windows Install CD, but since you don't have one, you can download a Windows Recovery CD from here (http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/tools/bootdiscs/xp_rec_con.zip). That will at least let you run the "chkdsk" command, but I'm doubtful that a chkdsk will be enough to fix Windows. You will probably have to do a Windows Repair, but you'll need your Win Install CD for that.

[Mount]

Hi, I found a XP Cd and did what you said and seemed to finish fine. Not when I select 'Windows' from the grub menu i still get
the "Starting up ..."

Regarding windows disks. I have an XP cd but it is not the same one that was used to install windows on my machine. Could this be used to perform the Windows repair?

[caljohnsmith]

Hi, I found a XP Cd and did what you said and seemed to finish fine. Not when I select 'Windows' from the grub menu i still get
the "Starting up ..."

Regarding windows disks. I have an XP cd but it is not the same one that was used to install windows on my machine. Could this be used to perform the Windows repair?
I think you can use the other Windows CD to do the repair, but it will ask you for your product key I believe; you'll need to find the product key if it is a sticker on your laptop or somewhere else.

[Mount]

Then is would seem that we've been foiled!

I have just found the Windows Recovery Disk which came with this computer. I tried to run the repair thing. Problem is i don't seem to know the administrator password ](*,)

why? why? why?

[caljohnsmith]

Then is would seem that we've been foiled!

I have just found the Windows Recovery Disk which came with this computer. I tried to run the repair thing. Problem is i don't seem to know the administrator password ](*,)

why? why? why?
If you google it, I know there are many ways to recover the admin password for Windows; I just don't remember any off-hand since I've never had need for them. Good luck. :)

[Mount]

Yes! Sorted.

Thanks for your guidance caljohnsmith. I really apreciate it.

Here's the final solution:

In the BIOS I changed the 500GB drive (the one with XP on) to be
second in the Hard Drive sequence. Then I changed the Window grub command to be:



grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> chainloader +1
grub> map (hd0) (hd1)
grub> map (hd1) (hd0)


taken from this site http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-legacy-faq.en.html#q5

finally ... time for bed