[SOLVED] ruined my grub

[th1bill]

I updated and rebooted. Not paying close enough attention I booted into my old HDD and updated again. Now I have a 314 gig file system that does not appear on my Boot Screen. I booted into the 40 gig that contains my old 10.04 and I did an Update Grub but to no avail. I can access the files of course, so it isn't the end of the world but I really want to et the new install on my new 320 gig back as my sd1 drive, any hope?

[yancek]

Since you are in the Ubuntu section I will assume you updated Ubuntu? what did you update? from one version to a newer version?
What about the two different hard drives? 314GB filesystem of what? Do you have a 40GB partition on the drive? Do you have multiple drives? multiple partitions? multiple operating systems?
What exactly would you like to do? as an end result?
Are you able to boot or use a live CD to post your partition information? If so, use command: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) and post the output here.

[th1bill]

Since you are in the Ubuntu section I will assume you updated Ubuntu? what did you update? from one version to a newer version?

I was running Ubuntu 10.04 and I updated 10.04 with the latest updates.

What about the two different hard drives? 314GB filesystem of what? Do you have a 40GB partition on the drive? Do you have multiple drives? multiple partitions? multiple operating systems?

I have a new 320 with Ubuntu 10.04 and a 40 with Ubuntu 10.04 and I have an 80 formatted for storage of ext4 files and two more 40s formatted ext4 for storage but I did not list all the drives for my film work and photo work because that just complicated the matter and they are not the problem, right?

What exactly would you like to do? as an end result?

Boot from the 320 where all my software and virtual drives are for testing systems.

Are you able to boot or use a live CD to post your partition information? If so, use command: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) and post the output here.

I haven't tried the fdisk command in the terminal. I will shut down now and try that on my live CD.

Thanks.

[yancek]

I have a new 320 with Ubuntu 10.04 and a 40 with Ubuntu 10.04

I take that to mean you have Ubuntu 10.04 installed on both the 320GB drive and the 40GB drive? Two separate installations? Which one did you update? Both?

In your first post, you mention that your 314GB filesystem does not appear on the boot menu? Is that right? If you do in fact have two versions of Ubuntu 10.04 and updated both, the second one being last. you may need to run update grub. Do you know if you did a kernel update? I expect you could do it from either drive. Not sure of the exact command as I don't use Grub2 as it is still beta software.

[th1bill]

I take that to mean you have Ubuntu 10.04 installed on both the 320GB drive and the 40GB drive? Two separate installations? Which one did you update? Both?

In your first post, you mention that your 314GB filesystem does not appear on the boot menu? Is that right? If you do in fact have two versions of Ubuntu 10.04 and updated both, the second one being last. you may need to run update grub. Do you know if you did a kernel update? I expect you could do it from either drive. Not sure of the exact command as I don't use Grub2 as it is still beta software.

To be honest I have run update-grub 'til I'm blue in he face from it, to no avail. I tried fdisk but I must have missed a switch somewhere and I gave up and booted my Gparted live CD. In the computer right now I have;
/dev/hda 80 gig (ubuntu 10.04 the old one)
/dev/hdb 40 gig (ubuntu 9.10)
/dev/hdd 40 gig (no OS)
/dev/sda 320 gig (Newest install of 10.04)

[peteh]

Why don't you just add the 320gb to your existing grub? I still use legacy so I haven't got to grips with Grub2 config yet. But I think you would just make the amendments to your grub.cfg file then update grub.

[yancek]

I tried fdisk but I must have missed a switch somewhere

Open a terminal and use the command: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) or you should be able to type "sudo su" and get a prompt to type fdisk -l. The information you posted shows four hard drives but no information on partitions?

Where are you running update-grub from? I mean which Ubuntu on which drive? Which drive is set to first boot priority?

When you updated, did you update to a new kernel?

When you boot Ubuntu from the 40GB drive, are you able to see folders/files on the 320?

[th1bill]

Open a terminal and use the command: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) or you should be able to type "sudo su" and get a prompt to type fdisk -l. The information you posted shows four hard drives but no information on partitions?

Where are you running update-grub from? I mean which Ubuntu on which drive? Which drive is set to first boot priority?

That is probably the one argument I did not try but I will after answering this post.

When you updated, did you update to a new kernel?

Yes, probably both times. This a pure case of me being eat up with stupidity.

When you boot Ubuntu from the 40GB drive, are you able to see folders/files on the 320?

Yes, they are all present and visible.

[th1bill]

Here is the fdisk output:

root@th1bill-desktop:/home/th1bill# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 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: 0x000110bf

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 38162 306534400 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 38163 38914 6034433 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 38163 38914 6034432 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 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: 0xfb82fb82

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 9327 74919096 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 9328 9729 3229034+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 9328 9729 3229033+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdc: 41.2 GB, 41174138880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5005 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: 0x43954394

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 2396 19245838+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 2397 5005 20956792+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 2397 4891 20041056 83 Linux
/dev/sdc6 4892 5005 915673+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdd: 41.2 GB, 41174138880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5005 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: 0x4ecf4ece

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 4974 39953623+ 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sdd2 4975 5005 248977 5 Extended
/dev/sdd5 4975 5005 248976 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sde: 4063 MB, 4063232000 bytes
125 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1024 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7750 * 512 = 3968000 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d85a1

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 * 1 1024 3967969 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

[yancek]

Just for your information, I see from your fdisk output that you have swap partitions on three separate drives. This is unnecessary as one swap is sufficient regardless of the number of drives or the number of operating systems (Linux) you have.

Your 320GB is shown in fdisk as sda with your OS files on sda1. Looking back to your original post, you indicate you can access these files but this OS does not show up on the boot menu of Grub. Is this what the problem is? That you do not see this as an option on the boot menu?

If that's the problem, I would expect the update grub to fix it. I have practically no knowledge of Grub2 as I indicated previously as it is still test software and I believe only Ubuntu and some of its derivaties use it. If you don't get any resolution soon, you might try a new post and assure you mention Grub 2 in the title.

Here's a link to a very good Grub2 tutorial. Best I can do.

GRUB 2 bootloader - Full tutorial

Good Luck!