Please help - System won't boot

[oldfred]

I do not know RAID nor LVM. Did you encrypt system as I think that is the only time it uses LVM as default.

Boot-Repair has trouble telling RAID from LVM as both use /mapper. Not sure it it has a setting you manually have to make so it knows it is not RAID?

If Boot-Repair does not work.
chroot & reinstall grub encrypted LVM
http://stephentanner.com/index.php/2...encrypted-lvm/


Advantages/Disadvantages LVM Post #9
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1586328
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lvm
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuDesktopLVM
lvm How-To info older:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=141900
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/index.html
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/benefitsoflvmsmall.html
sudo apt-get install lvm2
sudo vgchange -ay

[KieranFitzgerald]

My version of rescuecd (3.7.0) only has "default" and "boot an existing linux system installed on the disk"

Report Could not find kernel image initrd=/ubninit

[oldfred]

Do not know about the RescueCD. It may not be mounting the LVM and that is why it cannot then find the kernel.

Try Boot-Repair again?

Or run the manual commands from a Ubuntu liveCD. But you will probably have to manually add the lvm2 driver as the live installer may not have it.
sudo apt-get install lvm2

[YannBuntu]

hi Kieran

The first of these commands fails as it can not find the specified directory.

please redo the Recommended Repair, follow instructions, then take 2 screenshots :
1) one screenshot of the Boot-Repair window showing the 3 commands
2) one screenshot of the terminal output showing when the command fails

then please show us the 2 screenshots. (you can upload them on http://imageshack.us for example).

[KieranFitzgerald]

Booted from live cd
The lvm2 sector appears to be intact (phew!).

Using showthread.php?t=1984459

Did the following (sudo with all)
apt-get install lvm2
vgchange -a y
2 logical volumes(s) in volume group "ubuntu" now active

lvscan
ACTIVE '/dev/ubuntu/root'
ACTIVE '/dev/ubuntu/swap-1'

mount /dev/mapper/cds-root /mnt edit is there a space before /mnt
/dev/mapper/cds-root does not exist

So can't proceed to grub reinstall

[steeldriver]

Based on the boot-repair output, your LV is not called cds-root, it's called ubuntu-root - so the command probably needs to be

mount /dev/mapper/ubuntu-root /mnt

[KieranFitzgerald]

YannBuntu
I am trying the manual route at present using live usb without boot-repair.
The cut and paste messages were presented just after pressing recommended repair and related to grub removal.
There was a picture of a screen about confirming grub removal below it.
Hope this helps
Nearly a week at this, I am heading towards re-installation of Ubuntu sorry about the sceen shots!
Kieran

[KieranFitzgerald]

Thanks steeldriver
One step further on
next sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot
unknown file system type 'LVM2_member'


aaarg - this is so frustrating! I'm no expert with this system related stuff.

re-installation looms.

[steeldriver]

What instructions are you following exactly? afaik your boot partition is sda1 - from your boot-repair pastebin

Model: ATA WDC WD10EZRX-00A (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
1      1049kB  302MB   301MB   primary   ext2         boot
2      302MB   1000GB  1000GB  extended
5      303MB   1000GB  1000GB  logical                lvm

I agree with the earlier poster - re-running the recommended boot-repair and posting back with any errors / messages is how I'd proceed at this point - I'm not familiar enough with boot-repair to understand everything it reports, but it seems to be correctly detecting (and even mounting) your LVM volumes so it appears to be 'LVM2 aware', I'm not sure you'll gain anything by doing it manually (unless it fails). I have a 12.04 server box with an LVM root setup and my boot-repair report looks very similar.

[KieranFitzgerald]

Ok
Installed boot-repair on live session.

Running it, getting further

Get as far as
configuring grub-pc see shot 2 attached
Whatever the position of the red box pressing enter gives an new screen saying
Continue without installing GUB see shot 3 attached

What should I do here?
Kieran