Ubuntu

Booting problems: MBR corrupting (hangs at "Grub Loading...")

Asked by GrubbySeismic

I have been tryin to recreate this problem in as much detail as possible for a good 12 hours, so if I seem incoherent I apologise in advance!

I have an HP Compag with a Athlon 64 X2 and a single Hitachi 160GB platter in it, so I am taking the opportunity this affords me to try an OS that will use it to it's full potential.

Havin been through a Live USB of Xubuntu and a Live CD of Kubuntu, doing updates each time, and still coming across the same problem means I am completely baffled why it should occur. What is more intriguing is that the same problem is completely avoided by the AMD64 version of Debian-Lenny, I presume because it has no way of interfacing with the Win XP Pro SP3 that came in the box (as I cannot get Deb' to 'face with NTFS by heavy use of Synaptic and Fuse).

Basically, I setup my Tux-branded OS, and all is well, GRUB setup, updates, Internet-surfage, etc.

Until I enter my Win-doze, run something, and leave.

I get back to: "Grub Loading", and look at for a few minutes while I curse repeatedly (in my head so as to avoid disturbing my wife)...
This particular load screen shouldn't take more than three seconds to do its thing, even on my i386 install on a separate (ancient) box. I have tested this also. Again, anger ensues...

I'd like very much for someone to say this is easy to fix, I assume I should get into the guts of the GRUB boot-listing and/or lock that partition, I assume it is Win-doze sticking it's f'@&^$ kludgey fingers in there that's causing this dizzy headache.

Thanks to meierfra on the Ubuntu Forums domain (I haven't written to those good people yet) I have run the marvellous BootInfoScript a couple of times and plan to run it again, once I'm awake and formatted my root partition. Again.

Yours confusedly...

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Pétur Ingi Egilsson (petur) said : 		#1

You install ubuntu and then you reboot your computer and ubuntu works well.
You update ubuntu and you reboot once again.
You enter windows and browse microsoft.com and then you Bing the internet for a while.. then you reboot.
Now grub is evil and refuses to boot ubuntu.

Did i understood this right?

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GrubbySeismic (grubbyseismic) said : 		#2

Very nearly: GRUB won't load anything, not even itself! If I could make smilies, colon / closed-bracket would be all over this...

Basically, I am stumped. I thought even Win-lose wouldn't stoop so low as to fudge the MBR, or to fudge whatever *buntu does to the boot record.

I have had a look at two security-based app's I have installed in my 'doze: Spybot and Comodo's Internet Security. These are the only two installed that could be providing the 'doze with these new Powers of Kludgement. In both cases I have attempted to remove, stop or obliterate any involvement these have with the registry *and* booting. Still no dice.

As said previously, this problem only affects *buntu installs, not Debian's...

The game is indeed afoot.

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Pétur Ingi Egilsson (petur) said : 		#3

Recover Grub 2 via LiveCD
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2

Maby this works?

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GrubbySeismic (grubbyseismic) said : 		#4

It's strange that the kludgement only commences when I come out of Win-lose, but there you go...

GRUB not properly updating may be the answer. Watch this space...

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GrubbySeismic (grubbyseismic) said : 		#5

My tests are not yet completed, but I have noticed that nowhere in the installer does it give the option to include the (now outdated Grub 0.97) instead of the still-very-much-in-Beta Grub 2 (i.e. 1.0+).

I believe the update from Grub2~beta4-1ubuntu3 to ~beta4-1ubuntu4.1 is the problem package (IMHO and on my distro)...

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GrubbySeismic (grubbyseismic) said : 		#6

Sadly, that is not the case. I even managed to change the theme of the menu, and was going to add an image to the background would it load...

I have updated the entire kernel twice in the course of the continual downloads and reboots and still when I reboot from Win-lose I have no Boot Loader inside the Master Boot Record.
I have followed the instructions twice, to the letter, found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2#Recover Grub 2 via LiveCD

This does not fix the problem; nor does leaving the Grub update out of the list to install and carrying on a cycle of updates and reboots without it.

I have also carried on a handful of reboots with no updates carried out at all, and still Microsoft's product makes a ham-fist of my MBR! Help.

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GrubbySeismic (grubbyseismic) said : 		#7

I have found the peeps at Super Grub Disk HQ to be very helpful, in that their wares states sometimes Win-doze will "delete stage 1_5" during the startup process, which my machine is still doing BTW...

However they haven't been very helpful in that it's site has been unexpectedly offline for a few days. The index was back up 5 minutes ago (approx 02:53 GMT) but the Wiki (the important bit) was down.

Fortunately all the DLs are still available at their host - http://developer.Berlios.de/projects/supergrub/ - but the Illustrated Dual Boot Site by "Herman" (his alias on http://ubuntuforums.org ) has proved much more straight forward. I'm goin to try reinstallation of root with one of his non-boot sector-moving Grub-Legacy biased walkthroughs to see if I can get a better result.

I've removed the security freeware that I believed (erroneously) was not helping the problem too. Still I can boot and reboot and reboot again and all's well until I reboot from Win-lose. Epic lose...

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#8

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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GrubbySeismic (grubbyseismic) said : 		#9

Having installed openSUSE 11.2 (Emerald) days ago I still have no problem getting in and out of Win-doze.

I can only assume that the Windows Loader needs editing (in order to point to a boot partition or the Grub installation) or all users of distro's using Grub 2 (while it's still in Beta at least) should revert once the kernel is established.

Better yet, recompile their setup-media...