PCLinuxOS Won't Boot

[gdawg]

Hi everyone, after a recent install of Pinguy_OS_10.10.1 I have been unable to boot PCLinuxOS. Presently, I have Ubuntu, Pinguy, and Win 7 booted on a Dell Inspiron 530S. Right now Pinguy shows as 1st on the boot menu as an Ubuntu distro. PCLinux shows as a linux distro on the correct partition but when selected, it won"t boot. Any help will be appreciated.

[yancek]

Were you able to successfully boot PCLinux prior to the install of PinGuy?
Do you have the most recent version (2010) of PCLinux?
You installed PinGuy Grub to the master boot record? If so, post the relevant PCLinux entry from the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file. Do you get any error message when you select PCLinux? If so, what is it? If not, exactly what does happen?

[gdawg]

After I posted the above thread I re-installed PCLinuxOS 2010 and now PinGuy has disappeared from the boot menu. When I installed PinGuy originally, I was given an option to split a partition with PCLinux 2010.7 KDE4. That partition (sda5) had approximately 91GB on it. I chose to divide it approx. equally. I am not able to CD to "/boot/grub/grub.cfg". I tried as sudo and as root with no success. Thanks for helping.

[yancek]

So you installed PCLinuxOS grub to the master boot record. PCLinuxOS 2010 uses Grub Legacy and if PinGuy is an Ubuntu derivative, it probably uses Grub2. It's easier to boot a system with Grub Legacy from Grub2 but the reverse can be done. See the tutorial in the link below, Section 5.B:

GRUB 2 bootloader - Full tutorial

You could also reinstall Grub2 and update it to get the PCLinux and other operating systems entries on the boot menu. Log in to PCLinux and open a terminal and as root user, run the following command to get partition information: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L in the command)
Post that information here indicating which partition you believe PinGuy to be on. The tutorial above also indicates how to update Grub2 and reinstall Grub2.

[gdawg]

Thank you yancek. I'll give your instructions a try and will get back to you>

[gdawg]

Hi, this is the fdisk -l info:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x28000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1           6       48163+  de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2               7        1312    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *        1312       17089   126726657+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4           17089       38913   175306593+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           26450       32737    50501495   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           38401       38913     4120641   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7           17089       26062    72080384   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           26063       26449     3107840   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9           32737       38163    43584512   83  Linux
/dev/sda10          38163       38400     1907712   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I think PinGuy is on /sda9. Hope this helps. Thanks.

[masinick]

The only reason I can think of why you may not be able to boot both systems, regardless of which boot manager you use is if one of the systems was somehow destroyed during the installation process or during some other activity.

Not seeing both systems in the boot manager does not necessarily mean that they are not still accessible, but if one system uses GRUB Legacy (I know that PCLinuxOS does) and the other system uses GRUB 2 (I believe that Pinguy OS does), it may present some boot manager editing issues.

Show us what the boot manager entries now look like in whatever boot manager you are using (/boot/grub/menu.list if GRUB Legacy, and /boot/grub/grub.cfg if GRUB 2) and I will be glad to help you modify them.

[oldtravelere]

My experience with several Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS has been that Grub Legacy (not Grub 2) always seems to find all of my then installed OS and allows me to boot to them. Thus when something screws up my ability to boot wherever I just re-install Ubuntu 9.04 (the last Ubuntu to use Grub Legacy) on the last partition of my drive which I keep just for that purpose. In 15 or 20 minutes I am back in business.

[gdawg]

I've re-installed PinguyOS and now can't boot PCLinux. Here is the /boot/grub/grub.cfg info:
glen@glen-Inspiron-530s:/boot/grub$ cat grub.cfg

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
  set have_grubenv=true
  load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
  set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
  save_env saved_entry
  set prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
  set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
  if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
    saved_entry="${chosen}"
    save_env saved_entry
  fi
}

function recordfail {
  set recordfail=1
  if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi
}

function load_video {
  insmod vbe
  insmod vga
}

insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos11)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm
fi
terminal_output gfxterm
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos11)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087
set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale
set lang=en
insmod gettext
if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then
  set timeout=-1
else
  set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-23-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	recordfail
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos11)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-23-generic root=UUID=4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087 ro   quiet splash
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-23-generic
}
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-23-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	recordfail
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos11)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087
	echo	'Loading Linux 2.6.35-23-generic ...'
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-23-generic root=UUID=4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087 ro single 
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-23-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos11)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087
	linux16	/boot/memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos11)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4390dafa-1785-428a-bbff-617b6882a087
	linux16	/boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda3)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ntfs
	set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 128a33478a33269f
	chainloader +1
}
menuentry "linux (on /dev/sda5)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 6dfd1df8-95e9-4769-83e0-755984ed4aad
	linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=6dfd1df8-95e9-4769-83e0-755984ed4aad vmalloc=256M resume=UUID=e3b2a6ec-ae10-462e-b967-5d926420663b splash=silent vga=788
	initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "linux-nonfb (on /dev/sda5)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 6dfd1df8-95e9-4769-83e0-755984ed4aad
	linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=6dfd1df8-95e9-4769-83e0-755984ed4aad vmalloc=256M resume=UUID=e3b2a6ec-ae10-462e-b967-5d926420663b
	initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "failsafe (on /dev/sda5)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 6dfd1df8-95e9-4769-83e0-755984ed4aad
	linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=6dfd1df8-95e9-4769-83e0-755984ed4aad failsafe vmalloc=256M
	initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "linux-0 (on /dev/sda5)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 6dfd1df8-95e9-4769-83e0-755984ed4aad
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.33.5-pclos1.bfs BOOT_IMAGE=linux-0 root=/dev/sda5
	initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-24-generic (on /dev/sda7)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos7)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 84c3195d-b758-49d4-985c-ece79f2f8c05
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=UUID=84c3195d-b758-49d4-985c-ece79f2f8c05 ro quiet splash
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-24-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-24-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda7)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos7)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 84c3195d-b758-49d4-985c-ece79f2f8c05
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=UUID=84c3195d-b758-49d4-985c-ece79f2f8c05 ro single
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-24-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS, memtest86+ (on /dev/sda7)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos7)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 84c3195d-b758-49d4-985c-ece79f2f8c05
	linux /boot/memtest86+.bin 
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-23-generic (on /dev/sda9)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos9)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 16353fbb-0739-4fd7-bcae-9d4580d68048
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-23-generic root=UUID=16353fbb-0739-4fd7-bcae-9d4580d68048 ro quiet splash
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-23-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.35-23-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda9)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos9)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 16353fbb-0739-4fd7-bcae-9d4580d68048
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-23-generic root=UUID=16353fbb-0739-4fd7-bcae-9d4580d68048 ro single
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-23-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
if [ -f  $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then
  source $prefix/custom.cfg;
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###

Thanks to you all for helping.

[Xheralt]

The fdisk info below brings an unrelated question to my mind -- why have three different swap partitions? As far is Linux is concerned AFAIK, swap is swap. It all gets aggregated, and it all gets used, regardless of which distro is booted (including livecds!), it's not used for any sort of persistant storage. I'm only saying this so that you might simplfy your partition structure a little? If there's a real need for separate swaps, *I'd* like to know!

Hi, this is the fdisk -l info:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x28000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1           6       48163+  de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2               7        1312    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *        1312       17089   126726657+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4           17089       38913   175306593+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           26450       32737    50501495   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           38401       38913     4120641   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7           17089       26062    72080384   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           26063       26449     3107840   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9           32737       38163    43584512   83  Linux
/dev/sda10          38163       38400     1907712   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I think PinGuy is on /sda9. Hope this helps. Thanks.