"grub> find /boot/grub/stage1" not working!

**Nanthiel** · September 17th, 2008

Hello there!

I've the following problem: My GRUB's not there anymore.

After reinstalling Ubuntu, it showed Error 22 (didn't even show a menu) and I was unable to start any OS. I also have Windows XP installed. After using the 'Super Grub Disk', I managed to revive XP, but now it automatically starts XP and ignores Ubuntu. All the auto options (for Linux) in Super Grub Disk don't work due to Error 15: File Not Found.

I have searched these forums, but most (if not all?) of them use a solution where "grub> find /boot/grub/stage1" is involved. The problem is, this command does not work for me, it shows the above mentioned error, Error 15.

Please help! What must I do?

(NOTE: I have tried reinstalling Ubuntu, and with no effect.)

**bodhi.zazen** · September 17th, 2008

Boot a live CD and show us the output of :

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Which is your Ubuntu partition ?
Which is your boot partition ?

lets mount your /boot partition and take a look-see

**Nanthiel** · September 18th, 2008

Originally Posted by bodhi.zazen

Boot a live CD and show us the output of :

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Which is your Ubuntu partition ?
Which is your boot partition ?

lets mount your /boot partition and take a look-see

So, the output is:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 164.6 GB, 164696555520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x367c367b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        5100    40965718+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            5101       20023   119868997+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            5101       15192    81063958+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6           15193       19819    37166346   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           19820       20023     1638598+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

I knew already, that my Ubuntu partition was sda6. But I don't know which my boot partition is. The last time I installed Ubuntu, GRUB was set to install on "/dev/sda" - I presume that means it's on, in GRUB's lingo, "(hd0)", but that's the actual disk, not a partition.

So is my "/boot" not an actual partition? And if it is, how do I mount it?

EDIT: never mind... yes, silly me. There's actually a "*" at the boot... so, "/dev/sda1" it is. (Or GRUB's (hd0,0), right?)

EDIT2: As far as I can tell, "mounting" a partition means "opening" it in Places? There's a boot.ini in there, is it of importance? What do I do?

ADD: The "boot.ini" file contains:

Code:

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

**bodhi.zazen** · September 18th, 2008

I see you are getting a little confused re: boot partition.

Your bios must have at least 1 partition marked as bootable, this is the * in your fdisk table.

You do not appear to have a /boot partition for Linux, so /boot is on / which is /dev/sda6

so , on the live CD,

Code:

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt

Now ls /mnt => you should see a boot directory. list that :

Code:

sudo ls /mnt/boot

From the live CD you can install grub :

Code:

sudo grub

you will get a grub prompt:

grub>

At the grub prompt enter :

Code:

root (hd0,5)
setup (hd0)
exit #or it may be quit

Assuming you have no error messages you can now reboot.

**Nanthiel** · September 18th, 2008

Originally Posted by bodhi.zazen

Now ls /mnt => you should see a boot directory. list that :

Code:

sudo ls /mnt/boot

Thanks for the quick reply, but I'm not quite sure what I must do here?

When I enter "sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt", nothing "really" happens (I guess it invisibly mounts the partition?).
When I try, plainly, "sudo ls /mnt/boot", it shows a couple of files (the ones under the 'boot' dir on sda6 =EDIT!= Seems there's more sets of these; /boot and /mnt/boot. Duh... sorry)
Then, once I tried installing GRUB, right after the stuff above, I got the error:

Code:

grub> setup (hd0)
setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no

Error 15: File not found

Sorry for being annoying, but I just moved from Windows to Linux, like, yesterday... and I guess I'm pretty persistent that I haven't given up yet as a newbie. >.<

**bodhi.zazen** · September 18th, 2008

In Linux if a command is successful you see nothing.

Can you post the output of :

Code:

sudo ls /mnt/boot

And your grub commands are off.

Code:

root (hd0,5)
setup (hd0)

**caljohnsmith** · September 18th, 2008

Unfortunately, doing the "root" and "setup" commands in the Grub CLI will not create Grub's system files like stage1, stage1_5, stage2, device.map, etc. if those files don't exist (I sure wish they would have designed it that way though

). I think what you are after is the "grub-install" command, which will create those files, and also install Grub to the MBR at the same time. Nanthiel, do the following while sda6 is still mounted on /mnt:

Code:

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

That should create all of Grub's system files in /mnt/boot/grub (your Ubuntu partition) except for menu.lst. To create a menu.lst, first you will probably need an internet connection from your Live CD, because most likely you will have to install the "grub" package (I doubt it is all ready installed in your Ubuntu partition, but it might be). Here's the steps:

Code:

sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
sudo chroot /mnt
apt-get install grub
update-grub
exit

That should create a menu.lst in your sda6 /boot/grub directory. Reboot, and tell us what happens on start up.

EDIT: Many thanks to forum member meierfra for pointing out that you also need to bind the /dev directory and also mount the proc directory in order to allow update-grub to correctly determine the partitions. I've included the changes above in case anyone stumbles on this thread in the future.