Reboots after update

Asked by J

Dual boot Win7 / Ubuntu. Updated Ubuntu 11/17. After update, select Ubuntu from boot loader, screen flashes drive partitions (sda etc) then reboots.

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Theodotos Andreou (theodotos) said :
#1

Can you boot on recovery mode

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J (barberjd) said :
#2

Unfortunately, I can not get to the screen to select recovery mode.

When I start the computer I get the screen to select Win7 or Ubuntu as usual. Normally if I select Ubuntu I then get a screen to select which kernel, recovery, etc.

After I updated last weekend, I can select to boot Win or Ubuntu as usual, but after that instead of getting the screen to select which kernel the screen goes black, and flashes the following:

Try (hd0,0): NTFS5: No wubildr
Try (hd0,1): NTFS5: No wubildr
Try (hd0,2): NTFS5:

The computer then reboots and we get to start all over again. Win7 still works fine. I can also boot to a shell with a boot disk.

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bcbc (bcbc) said :
#3

This is a result of a recent grub-update affecting 10.04(.1) installs. The only fix I am aware of is to boot an Ubuntu CD in 'live CD' mode (Try without installing), and manually edit the grub.cfg file.

To do this... identify your windows partition that contains the root.disk (this example assumes /dev/sda1), and then edit grub.cfg as follows:
sudo mkdir /media/win
sudo mount /dev/sd[B]a1[/B] /media/win
sudo mount -o loop /media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /mnt
sudo cp /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg.copy
sudo chmod +w /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg
gksu gedit /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg

Delete all lines up to (not including) the first line that starts with "menuentry"
Save, reboot.

If you have difficulty and need to recover important data, use ext2read (http://ext2read.blogspot.com/) and point it at the Ubuntu root.disk (c:\ubuntu\disks\root.disk)

PS since grub2 is very unstable at this time, I recommend not updating the packages grub-pc and grub-common when running wubi installs. (You can lock the current version in synaptic).

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bcbc (bcbc) said :
#4

Note, I left some extraneous [B] [/B]'s in my previous comment. Please remove them so the line looks like this:
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/win

(Of course you may have to change /dev/sda1 depending on what your windows partition is)

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Anne Ogborn (annie66us) said :
#5

Where is this grub.cfg file we're supposed to edit?

I'm having the same problem.

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Anne Ogborn (annie66us) said :
#6

Where is this grub.cfg file we're supposed to edit?

I'm having the same problem.

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bcbc (bcbc) said :
#7

grub.cfg is within the virtual disk wubi uses, called the root.disk and usually is in the c:\ubuntu\disks\ folder. However, you can't load the virtual disk from windows, you have to "loop" mount it from an Ubuntu live cd environment. The instructions I gave above will allow you to edit it.

The only thing you need to figure out is which physical partition your root.disk is on. You can just mount each partition one by one and look for it:
"sudo fdisk -l" (that's a small L) will give you the partition list
For each /dev/sdaY (replacing Y with the listed partition number) do:
sudo mount /dev/sdaY /mnt
ls /mnt/ubuntu/disks/root.disk
sudo umount /mnt

When you find the root.disk, remember the partition and substitute it in the instructions I gave above.

I don't believe there is a simpler way to do this. That's why I mentioned the ext2read tool as well, so you can recover your data from within Windows and just reinstall if this is too much effort.

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Anne Ogborn (annie66us) said :
#8

OK, I just followed your directions, didn't encounter any suspicious problems, but I'm still getting exactly the same message.

my root.disk was on /dev/sda2

didn't notice anything particularly odd

rebooted, after removing the livecd, and chose ubuntu. got the same message

try(hd0,0) FAT16: No WUBILDR
try(hd0,1):NTFS5: No wubildr
try(hd0,2): invalid or null
try(hd0,3): invalid or null
try(fd0): invalid or null
error: cannot find GRLDR in all devices

So, I'm still stumped.

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bcbc (bcbc) said :
#9

@Anne, I'm not sure your problem is the same as "J". Maybe you should create a separate question and include the results of the bootinfoscript (http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net) using http://pastebin.ubuntu.com

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Anne Ogborn (annie66us) said :
#10

OK, I have created new bug 135524

https://answers.launchpad.net/wubi/+question/135524

after running bootinfoscript

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J. Logan (jllogan+launchpad) said :
#11

I am also having this problem, on two separate machines. The first machine worked for a few weeks and stopped working after an update. A few weeks later, I installed wubi on the second machine, but it never started Ubuntu. Both cases have the same messages as Anne, above. I did edit the grub.cfg file, but it made no difference. I don't think it's even getting that far.

Please help--my wife is about to give up on Ubuntu, after an otherwise pleasant experience!

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Anne Ogborn (annie66us) said :
#12

J Logan- I understand your wife's frustration.

8c( This really isn't ready for prime time. I've blown a week's work.
From now on I turn off all updates, assuming some day I manage to get ubuntu reinstalled.
I'm coding in Prolog - I can do it on either XP or ubuntu - guess which one I moved my development to?
guess which one it'll probably stay on?

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