10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS Upgrade. GRUB Install Failed. Chainloader Fails.

[pchokola]

So here was my 10.04 LTS setup before the upgrade:

CentOS 6.2 Linux
/dev/sdc1 /boot
/dev/sdc2 LVM Volume "vg_lin100"

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
/dev/sdc3 /boot
/dev/sdc5 LVM Volume "Volume00"

During the 10.04 LTS install I tried loading GRUB2 into /dev/sdc3, and it said the install failed. I don't know how, but I was still able to chainload from CentOS into the menu for Ubuntu, and Ubuntu started up properly, so GRUB2 did in fact install.

So I performed an upgrade to 12.04 LTS, and again it said that the GRUB2 failed to install, so I pressed continue and the remaining upgrade completed. Now all I get is a blinking cursor.

Here is the boot-repair-disk output. Ignore drives /dev/sda and /dev/sdb as they are unrelated hard drives that contain different working operating systems:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/963644/

From what I gather from googleing around, putting GRUB2 into a partition other than where the MBR is located is a bad idea, however during the install of 10.04 the instructions during the install allowed it (it even gave examples). Is this limitation of the location of GRUB2 something new with version 1.99 vs 1.98?

Anyway, here is my dillema. I want to keep CentOS 6 as legacy grub, so it is identical to what would be used in production. I also want to have a menu when I load Ubuntu, because I really don't want to change the boot commands every time a kernel changes.

I do have a Clonezilla backup of my 10.04 installation, so I could go back and try this again, but if it turns out that I really need to do a clean install to clean things up (Other than the pain of setting up the logical volumes), I will do what I have to do. However, I am not sure, even then, I can accomplish what I want. Is my only choice to dedicate one hard drive to GRUB2 installations?

[darkod]

Grub2 doesn't fit on a Partition Boot Sector (PBR). That's why it's not recommended to install it there. I think you can still do it, but you have to force it with the -f option.

I personally see no problem editing your grub1 once in a while when new kernel is installed. You want to keep grub1 but yet not to deal with the way it works.

Note that even if you install grub2 on a PBR it might break during some updates. This is because it doesn't fit on the PBR so it saves part of it at some location. This can change during updates so it can't find it later.

But if you are prepared for all that, you should be able to boot into 12.04 live mode, activate the LVM, mount /boot and root and install grub2 to sdc3 with -f.

If you need help with any of that, feel free to ask.

[pchokola]

Grub2 doesn't fit on a Partition Boot Sector (PBR). That's why it's not recommended to install it there. I think you can still do it, but you have to force it with the -f option.

I personally see no problem editing your grub1 once in a while when new kernel is installed. You want to keep grub1 but yet not to deal with the way it works.

Note that even if you install grub2 on a PBR it might break during some updates. This is because it doesn't fit on the PBR so it saves part of it at some location. This can change during updates so it can't find it later.

But if you are prepared for all that, you should be able to boot into 12.04 live mode, activate the LVM, mount /boot and root and install grub2 to sdc3 with -f.

If you need help with any of that, feel free to ask.

I think I will wait until the first point releases of Ubuntu 12.04 and the soon to be released Fedora 17 so that the main bugs will be worked out, and then wipe out my other drive that has older GRUB based linux installations or convert my Windows drive to an SSD drive to free up a drive, and then use the drive going forward for GRUB2 clean install installations.

For the time being, I was at least able to load and start Ubuntu by directly specifying the kernel, so other than GRUB 1.99 failing to install, the remaining installation might have went OK. I used:

title Ubuntu Server LTS 12.04 on (hd0,2) directly into kernel
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic ro root=/dev/mapper/Volume00-root
initrd /initrd.img-3.2.0-24-generic