Re: GRUB failure
On Fri, 1 Jul 2011, teddieeb@tmo.blackberry.net wrote:
Bret Busby Ask:
Hello.
I have a "laptop" computer with winXP Pro, Unbuntu 8.04 and Debian 5 (I think it is 5), installed.
With a recent electricity supply failure, I ran an orderly shutdown on
the computer.
Since that shutown, each time that I reboot the computer, it takes me to
the GRUB prompt (rather than the GRUB boot menu), and
I cannot boot the computer into any operating system.
How do I get GRUB to configure itself, to detect the installed operating systems so the computer is usable once again?
Or, has GRUB destroyed the software build of the computer, and all of the data, requiring a complete reinstallation of all of
the operating systems installed on the computer?
-----
Bret;
Most likely your system is fine, just Grub is having issues finding you OS's. I have had this issue a couple times recently on my Testing install after upgrades, I figure in my case it's due to having 5 h.d.d's
But more to the point. You boot and get
grub>
Prompt, right?
Yes.
And now I wish for the return of lilo.
I had not wanted to change from lilo to GRUB, when the change came. From
memory, it was a forced change ("If you want to be able to have multiple
boot choices, you now have to abandon the reliable lilo, and use GRUB
from now" - "Abandon hope, all who enter").
It think that lilo was fairly stable. I do not remember having had
problems with it.
I had assumed with getting the GRUB command prompt, it would have had
some command that could be entered at the GRUB command prompt, and that
would detect the installed operating systems, and create a new boot
menu, as (I believe) GRUB does when it is installed. I could not find
any such command, in my online searches
With the response so far, it seems much more complicated, and so will
have to wait until I have a few hours to spend with it.
My experience with such system tasks, is that what appears to be
something that should take about 5 minutes, usually ends up taking hours
or days.
--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............
"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992
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