Ubuntu
grub2 package

Grub menu has disappeared

Asked by ChrisRoe

Help!! Bit of a newbie with grub/command line stuff, so please bear with me!

3 HDD - 1 data, 1 Win XP Home, 1 Ubuntu (recently updated to 11.04)
Normally, everything runs fine - even after the distro upgrade.

BUT

Today I booted up the system, and instead of GRUB giving me the option of which OS to boot, the screen stayed blank - no visual output at all, for approx 30 secs, before booting into Ubuntu 11.04.

Periodically I need to use Win XP for work stuff - so need it to be running. Any ideas?

After looking at:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=56927

I tried :

sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc

but this makes no difference.

I really don't know what has happened...I guess that some configuration command or something has been reset somewhere, but have no idea where to start to look.

What I want, is to be able to choose (at boot) which OS I'm running, as per normal(!)

Hardware info:

P4 2.66GHz
512MB DDR RAM
Radeon 9200 AGP video card
3 HDD: 1 x 120 GB - WinXP, 1 x 320 GB - data for both Win XP & Linux (NTFS), 1 x 250 GB Linux, partitioned into /home, swap, and filesystem.
All drives run on PATA.

Also, from the file manager I can see and access data on all drives, including the Windows filesystem, so I don't think that there has been a hard disk failure anywhere.

With anticipation of help to put me out of my misery(!)

chrisroeuk

Question information

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Ubuntu grub2 Edit question
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Solved by:
delance
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Revision history for this message
Tiago Carrondo (tcarrondo) said : 		#1

run the following command:

sudo fdisk -l

then publish the output here

Revision history for this message
ChrisRoe (chrisroeuk) said : 		#2

Hi there Tiago

I've run the command and obtained the following output:

superman@chris-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for superman:

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15505 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0d46b3aa

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 515 3893368+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2 * 516 15504 113316840 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000528e4

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 15261 122583951 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 15262 30401 121612050 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 30215 30401 1502046 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6 15262 30214 120109909+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdc: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf264912e

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 38913 312568641 7 HPFS/NTFS
superman@chris-desktop:~$

I hope that this helps.

The XP drive also holds a restore partition.

Looking forward to any advice or help.

Many thanks.

ChrisRoe

Revision history for this message
Best delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#3

"Today I booted up the system, and instead of GRUB giving me the option of which OS to boot, the screen stayed blank - no visual output at all, for approx 30 secs, before booting into Ubuntu 11.04."
I propose you firstly to reinstall Grub2: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD
   sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
   sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sda
But I'm afraid that in your case, you have an issue with Grub2 video driver (which is not one of Linux).
You could have to edit later in file /etc/default/grub.d the parameter "#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480"
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Configuring%20GRUB%202

Revision history for this message
ChrisRoe (chrisroeuk) said : 		#4

Hi There Delance & Tiago

Many thanks for your help with the above problem. After a little fiddling using the info you pointed me towards, I now have a restored GRUB menu, so can switch at will between XP and Ubuntu.

Once I got into it, it wasn't as difficult as I feared...just was a little nervous about rendering my system unbootable.

Thanks again guys

ChrisRoe

Revision history for this message
ChrisRoe (chrisroeuk) said : 		#5

Thanks delance, that solved my question.

Revision history for this message
Tiago Carrondo (tcarrondo) said : 		#6

Sorry about my lack of time to help you more.

Happy to know that the problem is solved :)