Computer won't boot to 9.10; No Grub Menu

[gackt]

AH Live saver live saver live saver

one thing doug, if you keep getting Cannot open `/media/Karmic/boot/grub/device.map' then i suggest you mount the file system first. I was stupid enough and stressed enough not to mount the file system ( just click the drive on the explorer)...of course it cann't look for the file what am i thinking!!.

Thanks!

[darkod]

@Herman
This short and precise procedure how to reinstall grub2 deserves a sticky. I've seen a number of threads here past few days asking how to reinstall grub2 but I have no experience with it to help personally.

[Nimnio]

I did a clean install of Windows 7 which (as expected) replaced Grub, and to get Grub back up and running, Herman's advice worked perfectly! After reinstalling Grub2 as instructed, I used update-grub2 (as per this post, point 6) to get Grub to add Windows 7 to the list.

Noob advice: Just getting into Windows/Linux dual-booting? Install a second hard drive. Install Windows on the first drive. In your bios, change the drive order, and then install Linux (and Grub) on the second hard drive. This way you can protect Window's sensitive MBR. As a beginner, I find this technique reassuring.

[palewire]

If `ls /media` returns an empty directory, what does that mean? Did I incorrectly boot from the Live CD?

[nimajiman]

If `ls /media` returns an empty directory, what does that mean? Did I incorrectly boot from the Live CD?

No, I doubt you booted incorrectly from the CD, you probably just haven't yet mounted the partition you actually installed Ubuntu on.

As you are running straight from the liveCD, you need to tell the 'live' version to read from the hard drive that you installed Ubuntu on.

It should be as simple as clicking 'places' up the top left and then clicking the label (or XX GB Filesystem) etc that you installed to. Then try "ls /media" again and see what comes up.

[MikeCheck]

This worked for me also. Thanks a lot for the instructions.

[PaulInBHC]

This saved me a lot of searching today. I resized my partitions.

Thanks for the grub2 info and the tip on labeling drives. I've wanted to be able to tell from places just what the heck I'm looking at when I've got 4 or 5 partitions.

[adonet]

I'm sorry to say that It still doesn't work for me. I'm trying to install Grub 2 in the partition of Linux Mint 8.

This is what I get:

mint@mint ~ $ sudo grub-setup -f -d /media/Mint8/boot/grub -m /media/Mint8/boot/grub/device.map /dev/sda9
grub-setup: warn: Attempting to install GRUB to a partition instead of the MBR. This is a BAD idea.
grub-setup: warn: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and its use is discouraged.
grub-setup: error: Cannot read `/grub/core.img' correctly

Do you have any suggestion?

Thanks Jeroen

[madmaze]

My computer is running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, and I shrunk the partition to accommodate Karmic Koala. I installed it, and everything went just fine, but when I rebooted it went straight to windows. I tried doing a fresh install with just Ubunutu and again, everything installed just fine but it wouldn't boot. The error message stated something along the lines of "Insert boot device and press Enter to continue." Any help here would be great b/c I'm an avid Ubuntu user. I always keep a Windows dual boot around just in case, but have no intention of switching back.

Thanks!

sounds to me like a bad MBR =/ happend to me a few months ago.. sometimes you can fix it with M$ recovery console..
http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/fix-mbr-xp-vista/

[2ways]

Hi Folks,

I'm installing 9.10 on a Sony Vaio laptop (pcg-frv31) and am having trouble booting from the hard drive.

I've installed 9.10 from the CD and it's all 'there' as it were, but when I remove the CD ad reboot, I get 'operating system not found'.

The problem seems to be along the lines of what's being discussed here, so I have tried all the ideas above, but to no avail.

1. There doesn't seem to be any protection on the MBR in CMOS.

2. Originally, /media was empty when I tried listing the contents, so I clicked on the main partition in Places and that mounted it, but when I rebooted, it still can't find the operating system and when I tried 'ls /media' after rebooting, it was empty again. That is, I had to re-mount the filesystem.

3. The option to label my mount point in GParted is greyed-out in the right-click menu, but I would love to rename it! How can I do it?

4. There is no device.map in grub. /media/'mountpoint'/boot/grub is empty.


5. When I reboot to the live CD, all location information is gone, time is wrong, etc. That is, nothing in my proper installation has taken hold.


6. I have tried to re-install Ubuntu from the CD and, at the partitioning stage, it tells me that Ubuntu is the operating system installed on the partition I am about to reformat, so Ubuntu thinks that Ubuntu is installed.


The upshot is that 9.10 just isn't installing properly. The CD with the disk image checks out fine.


Thanks for any help.


Lewis