boothruwindow

GRUB Error, can't find the Recovery Screen!
I know there are lots of posts on this already, but I need more help with the one by Kipper, which should work for if I could just find my way to a Recovery screen! Maybe Xubuntu works different. Anyway, I have GRUB blocking my hard drive after I did an installation just to my Sandisk pen drive! So, I have that error when I try to boot my hard disk, doesn't matter whether my CD is in the drive. There is no opportunity to type in anything like "Recovery" at any prompt, just the error message. When I F12 and select my CD to boot into, I get the following menu:
I checked the F4 and F6 options for each of these, and saw nothing on recovery. So, I need more details on how to actually access that screen with recovery options. I've seen such a screen before with a recovery option when I had a dual-boot system (Ubuntu Ibex and Vista), but I only knew how to access it from the hard disk, and GRUB won't let me near it now. The directions I've seen so far aren't helping me, if it makes any difference I'm using 8.10 - please help!
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boothruwindow

It's been enough of a puzzle to sort out what wasn't doing what, but now I can see that the GRUB error is definitely blocking the hard drive-installed menu which contains the Recovery functions. It is only when I booted, without pressing any bypass keys, and with the same Sandisk which will likely cost me another week of my life, that I was able to access that screen, but never figured that out until I tried the Check and Fix (for my hard drive partitions, which seem to be damaged by the creation of that Sandisk bootable), which failed. When I finally got in, through the DOS screen menu and Recovery, I did a couple of things, including ..Check.., but there were lots of errors, and there were no results.

I can still burn a CD through my laptop, anybody know of a downloadable which is better known to fix these problems?

larryfroot

Try subergrubdisk. Download it, burn it onto CD, reboot with cdrom as primary boot device with the supergrubdisk in. Reading up on the supergrubdisk website I am sure you will find directions on how to use it to repair a screwed up grub. At the very least it will get you into your Ubuntu partition...dont know if GUI tools exist to modify grub from inside a gnome desktop, but a quick google may help on that point.

Sorry I can't be of anymore use than that. But it's never a bad thing to have supergrubdisk at hand anyways. It can even boot you into a windows partition! My own use has barely scratched the surface of its usefulness. Please, let us know how you get on, and good luck!

boothruwindow

Yeah, Supergrub, and Larryfroot's the man - it worked! I've never been so happy to see Ubuntu's ugly brown Rauschalt for an interface (although Xubuntu's file browser is downright scary, compared with Ubuntu's Nautilus, which is easy to look at and work with) Thank you!


The SG website and the text on the disk are making me curious as to what they are trying to "educate" me on. There's the list of options on the menu, but they are options which I may only be able to access from the SG disk, for all they've told me - or do I need to boot it again and look for some sort of tutorial? I couldn't really decide whether anything on the disk menus looked like command syntax, which I might be able to put on my own bootable CD? Have you figured out what they are trying to teach?

larryfroot

Glad to see the tool worked. Sorry to see you having a bit of a baptism of fire re ubuntu. Its amazing that relief can even make ubuntu's brown theme momentarily beautiful.

As far as supergrubs capabilities, I only downloaded it as a failsafe when installing ubuntu for friends, I have used it once but that was to simply get into a partition that I later wiped. It just seems to me that there must be more to it than that, although as I said, I haven't really looked properly. But as you ask I am becoming more curious about what supergrub can do. today is taken up with other stuff, but I will check it out tomorrow. The supergrub lot do have a forum, perhaps that might be a place to start if the documentation is unclear.

But glad you got back in. that bit of software is worth its weight in gold.

boothruwindow

Thanks!

Anyway, there's something which has been adding to my confusion, which I hope, for all who are trying to do what I am, isn't normal. When I let my machine boot without the F12 key, it either gives me the GRUB error, or (after running SuperGrub) it presents, briefly, a boot menu - and this has three sets system entries on it! My pen drive, which has Xubuntu installed on it, is one of them, while the other are duplicate entries of the same hard drive install of Ubuntu. What's really wrong about this is that all three system entries have the same name, so the Xubuntu pen drive is labeled Ubuntu. I do wonder if removeable media should be included on the GRUB list at all, and then SuperGrub has not fixed both so that they share the same computer. I selected the option to fix my hard drive, and it booted as default, but the GRUB menu disappeared. When I tried to boot from the pen drive, the BIOS boot menu listed that drive, but could not boot from it! It's when I selected the pen for SuperGrub fixing that I got the GRUB menu, but the default was the pen drive, and if it wasn't connected than nothing would work. Guess I'll be off to the forum, if I can't make the pen boot in my laptop, which is where it could be useful anyway.

larryfroot

I have no idea why, but grub lists my ubuntu install as an ubuntu installation and a recovery mode three times before xp is listed in my dual boot setup. It has always done that, as if it is attempting to make sure it remembers where things go. As it has never thrown a wobbly over this odd arrangement, I have decided not to tread on a tigers tail by asking it to be a bit more concise. It works and that's all I need know.

Thats slightly off-tangent I know, but it might be reassuring to know that a normal grub screen - at least in my limited experience - throws up three entries for the same ubuntu install. As far as the xubuntu pendrive being listed as ubuntu goes, I'm sure that is an issue with supergrubdisk rather than your pendrive. It *should* boot into xubuntu, no matter what the label may be. And yep, if supergrub spots a bootable partition anywhere, then it will list it as an option. A ll that counts is that there is a bootable partition, it is an equal opportunities employer, offering both usb, sata and ide drives the same rights to boot if they are bootable.

As an aside, pendrivelinux have instructions on how to create a usb bootloader on a cd. If your laptop, like my friends, has no boot ffrom usb option, then create the bootloader on a cd, boot into the cd which will then boot the system on the usb pendrive or usb ext drive et all.

And that represents my current understanding; if I go beyond that point then I can only speculate which may cause more harm than good. But I am deffo going to check out what supergrub can do in more detail.

Anyways, progress made with more education to come.