error: file '/boot/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod' not found.

[remarkub]

I had been running Kubuntu 22.04 LTS on some older hardware, no dual-boot. After doing updates I'm getting this error and stuck in grub rescue mode.

error: file '/boot/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod' not found.
grub rescue> ls
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos1) (hd1) (hd1,msdos1) (hd2)

Filesystem is unknown for each one of those except (hd0,msdos5), which contains my normal root directory.

I found the boot-repair tool and it suggests to ask in the forum to be sure that its recommended actions won't make the problem worse before I just go for it: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/fXSnRHyq6f/

sdb is a media drive from when I was running a mythtv recorder, sdc is the live usb.

I tried mounting sda1 in the live usb, and it appeared to be empty? Not sure if I should've expected anything to show up.

I don't remember seeing an option for UEFI in my bios.

Can anyone confirm that the boot-repair recommendation is the correct course of action? Thank you!

[oldfred]

Was system UEFI?
You have an ESP - efi system partition mounted in fstab for UEFI boot.
But since report run in BIOS mode, it does not show if you have UEFI entry for boot or boot files in ESP partition.
You also have grub in MBR.

After update only one grub will work, which every was updated last. Or maybe grub in MBR is correct & system should boot in BIOS mode or you have UEFI boot files in ESP and UEFI boot should work. But HP may need you to change settings, both default boot mode and UEFI boot setting.

[remarkub]

The system likely was UEFI, I do think I had first installed with a different motherboard and after the power supply caught fire, moved the hard drive to another case which had an older motherboard inside. It booted again, and since I had considered the services I had running too important, I left it up and forgot about any differences until now.

It's now in an HP Compaq 6005 Pro MT PC. As far as I can tell, it is not capable of UEFI, though I would love to find out I'm wrong.

[oldfred]

Specs say its from about 2005.
If that is correct, then it is BIOS only.

I used Kubutu on my old 2006 Toshiba. It was slow and had limited memory. Ubuntu would not install, but Kubuntu did.
But found my external SSD with full install configured for UEFI boot would work on that old BIOS only system, if I added a BIOS boot stanza to directly boot the install on the SSD. Became very functional as long as I did not try to load too much at once.

[remarkub]

I can certainly relate to not being able to load too much on it, but I don't think the original UEFI motherboard was so much newer than this one. When I first moved it over, I didn't even notice any huge decline in function, and this is while it was serving as a dual-tuner PVR and media player.

Anyways, I'm no expert on boot configurations, which is why I'm using the repair tool. Will boot-repair do this for me, with either the suggested or custom settings?

[yancek]

Your boot repair output does not show any files for Ubuntu on the EFI partition (sda1). If you can access that partition from a 'live' Ubuntu or other Linux, mount it and check to see if there is an ubuntu directory there.

sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
sudo ls /mnt/sda1/boot/efi/EFI

The normal.mod file in your case should be in the /boot/grub/i386-pc directory. Mount sda5 and check to see if that file is there. If you do not have it or do not have the i386-pc directory, you can copy it there from /lib/grub/.

[remarkub]

sda1 had been completely empty until I misunderstood your reply and copied normal.mod there.

Copying it to /boot/grub/i386-pc/ has resulted in a new error for grub rescue:

error: file '/boot/grub/i386-pc/extcmd.mod' not found.

Is it fair to assume that everything it's going to need, I can copy from /lib/grub/? Since I'm not sure what else is missing (or what happened to it), would I be well-served to just rename /boot/grub/i386-pc/ and copy the entire i386-pc directory over from /lib/grub/?

Thank you.

[remarkub]

Actually, I think I found them. https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/S5q2zWwWsB/

As I was about to attempt copy the whole /lib/grub/i386-pc/ directory over, I wanted to make sure there were no symlinks I'd be missing, and saw that much of my /boot/grub/i386-pc/ contents had a ~ appended. What might have done this?

[oldfred]

If it is BIOS boot, I might use Boot-Repair in BIOS boot mode from live installer and use its advanced mode to totally reinstall grub and latest kernel.
I would expect that to remove the mount of the ESP in fstab, so then just BIOS boot.

[yancek]

The recommendation in post 9 would probably be the simplest.

In my earlier post, I meant for you to check /boot/grub to see if you had an i386-pc directory. If you have a Legacy install that directory should be there with all the correct/needed files. If that directory did not exist, it could simply be copied (the entire directory) from /lib/grub.

saw that much of my /boot/grub/i386-pc/ contents had a ~ appended.

That often is used to indicate a backup file and the original should also be there. Brief discussion/explanation at the site at the link below. If you have a file with a tilde (~) at the end of the name, there should be another file of the same name without the tilde. If there isn't, that is a pretty good explanation of your problems but I have no idea how that would happen.

https://security.stackexchange.com/q...file-extension

I would expect that to remove the mount of the ESP in fstab, so then just BIOS boot.

Yes or simply comment it out in fstab by putting a # character at the beginning of the line although if your computer isn't EFI compatible, no reason not to delete the line.