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Thread: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

  1. #1
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    Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    I have 3 hard disks. THe first one has windows, the second windows programs, and the third linux. Grub is installed to the MBR of the third, and it is my primary boot disk. Everything was working fine, but then, when I chose to boot to windows (which I had done before just fine), grub told me "Error 13: Invalid Signature" (or something like that). I made sure it pointed to the right paritition ((hd0,0) or /dev/sda1) and it did. I had wanted to upgrade to grub2 anyway, and I figured that would fix it, so I did that, and had it recheck and regenerate everything on its own. It generated an entry for windows (Windows 7, though it detected it as a Vista loader, but that is normal). Ubuntu booted fine in grub2, but when I tried to boot into windows, i got
    Code:
    Booting 'Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1)'
    error: invalid signature
    Press any key to continue
    Upon pressing a key I was returned to the grub menu.

    I figured it was a problem with windows then, so I booted into a windows 7 install CD, used the bootrec.exe program to repair the boot sector, and for good measure write a Windows MBR to the first hard disk. When booting from grub, same deal, but when I told the computer to boot from the first HDD, windows booted just fine.

    So... anybody got any ideas?

    fdisk -l:
    Code:
    Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x45824581
    
       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sda1   *           1       12748   102398278+   7  HPFS/NTFS
    /dev/sda2           12749       60801   385985722+   7  HPFS/NTFS
    
    Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x0005bb9c
    
       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sdb1               1       60801   488384001    7  HPFS/NTFS
    
    Disk /dev/sdc: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x0007e5e0
    
       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sdc1   *           1          25      200781   83  Linux
    /dev/sdc2              26       65705   527574600    5  Extended
    /dev/sdc3           65706       91201   204796620    7  HPFS/NTFS
    /dev/sdc5              26       38270   307202931   83  Linux
    /dev/sdc6           38271       65705   220371606   83  Linux
    Attached Files Attached Files

  2. #2
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    hey,
    i think your problem is that grub is using the wrong device name. instead of /dev/sda1 it should be /dev/hd0 or something like that.

    what I need you to do is show me
    Code:
    dmesg
    also show me /boot/grub/menu.lst file

    from there i will determine your problem

  3. #3
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    The output of 'fdisk -l' would indicate that the device names are correct, but I am attaching the output of 'dmesg' anyway.

    The relevant stuff is probably here:
    Code:
    $ sudo dmesg | grep sd[abc]
    [   34.167023] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors: (500 GB/465 GiB)
    [   34.167028] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
    [   34.167030] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
    [   34.167038] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
    [   34.167076]  sda: sda1 sda2
    [   34.193693] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
    [   35.012733] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors: (500 GB/465 GiB)
    [   35.012738] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
    [   35.012740] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
    [   35.012748] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
    [   35.012778]  sdb:<6>usb 2-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
    [   35.040306]  sdb1
    [   35.040338] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
    [   36.070214] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] 1465149168 512-byte hardware sectors: (750 GB/698 GiB)
    [   36.070219] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
    [   36.070221] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
    [   36.070229] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
    [   36.070259]  sdc: sdc1 sdc2 < sdc5 sdc6 > sdc3
    [   36.115180] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
    [   39.540724] kjournald2 starting: pid 922, dev sdc5:8, commit interval 5 seconds
    [   39.553978] EXT4-fs: mounted filesystem sdc5 with ordered data mode
    [   44.592423] EXT4 FS on sdc5, internal journal on sdc5:8
    [   45.265730] kjournald2 starting: pid 2277, dev sdc1:8, commit interval 5 seconds
    [   45.266803] EXT4 FS on sdc1, internal journal on sdc1:8
    [   45.266868] EXT4-fs: mounted filesystem sdc1 with ordered data mode
    [   45.272555] kjournald2 starting: pid 2278, dev sdc6:8, commit interval 5 seconds
    [   45.272939] EXT4 FS on sdc6, internal journal on sdc6:8
    [   45.281889] EXT4-fs: mounted filesystem sdc6 with ordered data mode
    As to the menu.lst, grub2 doesn't have one. It has been replaced by /boot/grub/grub.cfg (attached in first post). That file is automatically generated from scripts in /etc/grub.d/ and is updated whenever 'update-grub' is exectuted. (you can also prefedine fixed entries that it will include).

    the relevant bit of the grub.cfg is:
    Code:
     51 ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
     52 menuentry "Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1)" {
     53     set root=(hd0,1)
     54     chainloader +1
     55 }
    (the line numbers are because I copied it out of vim).

    Actually, looking at that now, I wonder if it shuoldn't be (hd0,0) instead... I will reboot and the post another update about that.

    Oh, apparently the output of dmesg is too large a file to attach as a text file. Oh well.

    EDIT: So I tried changing it to root=(hd0,0) but it said "no such partition". So, that wasn't the problem. Or at least not the solution. It could be related to the problem. "Invalid signature" seems to suggest that it is finding something, it just doens't like it for some reason.
    Last edited by cak3; September 12th, 2009 at 03:05 AM.

  4. #4
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    So, a google search for "grub invalid signature" returned this thread as the first result, which isn't entirely helpful. I guess google gives ubuntuforums.org high priority. Oh yea, anyway... bump.

  5. #5
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    If you change the boot order in bios, is there still a valid windows MBR on that drive to boot directly into windows. I suspect the problem may be a windows problem rather than grub. You should probably check that out. Post back your results.
    12.10 Quantal w/grub2/Mint13 installed on raid0, Gigabyte AMD MB, AMD 64x4 CPUs at 3.2GHz, 16 GB ram, HD7770 ATI video, dual boot win7 on 64gb ssd and win8 on 1Tb SATA raid. 13.04 installed on raid0 and ssd

  6. #6
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    Quote Originally Posted by ronparent View Post
    If you change the boot order in bios, is there still a valid windows MBR on that drive to boot directly into windows. I suspect the problem may be a windows problem rather than grub. You should probably check that out. Post back your results.
    Yea, I kinda mentioned that in the first post, though it wasn't very clear. I have a windows MBR on the first HDD, and if I choose to boot from that HDD (via the BIOS boot selection menu, same idea as changing the boot order) I can get into windows. I didn't have a windows MBR on that drive until I wrote it from the win 7 disk after I started having this issue, since I couldn't get to windows via grub.

    I agree that it seems likely that it has something to do with windows, but the error is within grub, so I am hoping to at least figure out what "invalid signature" means and what needs to be done to fix it.

  7. #7
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    anyone?

  8. #8
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    Considering the fact that you are able to boot into that same Windows installation (at least this is what I gathered) when not using GRUB, it would appear that the Windows installation is fine - e.g., I'd say the issue is with GRUB and its interpretation of your Windows drive. Maybe it's having issues with the boot sequence, or the way the hard drives are connected physically?

    You have two partitions on hd0. What is on each one? I personally find it odd that GRUB2 didn't find partition 0 on hd0, considering that should be this one:

    /dev/sda1 * 1 12748 102398278+ 7 HPFS/NTFS <<<<<<
    /dev/sda2 12749 60801 385985722+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

    ... but maybe I'm just talking out my *rse.

    It doesn't help your situation that the grub.cfg file isn't to be edited manually even if we knew what was wrong with it!

  9. #9
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    The second partition on hd0 is all my user data for windows (the first one begin just the system itself). I was looking at the cfg file, and it seems grub2 calls the first partition (hdx,1) instead of 0 (which matches the /dev/sdx1 scheme). I assume this is so at least, since it uses (hd2,1) as the root when booting linux (which works) and the boot partition is the first one.

    It could be something with the drive, thats a good idea. I'll try writing grub to the MBR of one of the others and see if it works. Won't be able to do that till later today though.

  10. #10
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    Re: Grub "Invalid Signature" error when booting windows

    hd0,0 (equal to /dev/sda1) would be the first partition on the first hard drive, which I believe is the one GRUB2 should be pointing at as that's the system partition, according to what you've described (makes sense size-wise as well). As such, I personally cannot see any issues with your grub.cfg file and its reference to the Windows drive; it would appear that the problem lies elsewhere.

    Did anything at all change before all this happened, especially hardware changes? Could you find out what the exact error was that you got when you were still using GRUB Legacy? GRUB2 isn't exactly a well-known entity as it stands.

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