topic title: re install grub (SOLVED)
Posts: 150
rjm65
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
#1
Ok I got another hard drive for my old toshiba, it was a 6 gig drive all set up and working with antix 13.2 full...
I used power quest drive image and imaged the 6 gig drive then restored the image to a 40 gig drive...
The grub was not transferred when it did the image so it will not boot, I installed plop to the mbr of the new drive so I could boot antix 13.2 full off of my usb drive and attempt repairs.. I have mounted the drive using the live usb and found the grub repair and I have done the grub repair 4 times now and it goes through the motions and says it is done but when it reboots plop boot manager is still there and antix will not boot, anybody have any suggestions or can you tell me what I am doing wrong??? __{{emoticon}}__
Last edited by rjm65 on 04 Mar 2014, 01:36, edited 1 time in total.
Posts: 4,164
rokytnji
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
#2
You gotta unistall plop from your mbr.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/mbrinstall.html#uninstall"
linktext was:"http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/mbrin ... #uninstall"
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Then install AntiX grub to the mbr instead. That is why
it is done but when it reboots plop boot manager is still there

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/legacy/grub.html"
linktext was:"https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manua ... /grub.html"
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Posts: 150
rjm65
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
#3
rokytnji wrote:You gotta unistall plop from your mbr.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/mbrinstall.html#uninstall"
linktext was:"http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/mbrin ... #uninstall"
====================================


Then install AntiX grub to the mbr instead. That is why
it is done but when it reboots plop boot manager is still there

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/legacy/grub.html"
linktext was:"https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manua ... /grub.html"
====================================
Well without plop I can't get the usb drive to boot....
So i guess this is called a catch 22... __{{emoticon}}__

The toshiba will only boot from floppy disk and or hard drive, to boot your live usb I need plop to boot the usb device... Unless you know of another boot manager I can install via a floppy drive, that will boot my usb stick and not get in the way when grub tries to install it just overwrites it....

Ok I figured out a way, I used my old gateway laptop with built in floppy, and made a floppy drive image with plop on it... Now i can boot from the floppy disc into plop, and run the usb stick....
I removed plop from the MBR of the hard drive, and grub tried to load but failed with error 17... I am booting the usb via the floppy now to run the grub repair once more....
Posts: 150
rjm65
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
#4
well that did not work, floppy boots to usb and I ran grub repair and i am not getting anything but the same error when hard drive boots it says: grub loading stage 1.5.
grub loading, please wait...
Error 17
i tried to do an update-grub from terminal but that errors also when booting from live usb....
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#5
unfortunately grub-repair is broken in antiX 13.

I've used system-rescue-cd for this in the past. You can also use super-grub-disk I believe. (those are two different specialty distros)


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url was:"http://www.sysresccd.org/"
linktext was:"http://www.sysresccd.org/"
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========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.supergrubdisk.org/"
linktext was:"http://www.supergrubdisk.org/"
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Last edited by dolphin_oracle on 01 Mar 2014, 00:41, edited 1 time in total.
Posts: 150
rjm65
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
#6
dolphin_oracle wrote:unfortunately grub-repair is broken in antiX 13.
well that just sucks huh, any way around this problem?
can i get an older or newer version of antix where the grub repair works???
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#7
I just made a couple of edits to my post that may help you.
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#8
looking at the instructions, super grub disk may be the ticket for you.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wizard-restore-grub-with-super-grub2-disk/"
linktext was:"http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wizard-res ... rub2-disk/"
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Posts: 150
rjm65
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
#9
dolphin_oracle wrote:looking at the instructions, super grub disk may be the ticket for you.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wizard-restore-grub-with-super-grub2-disk/"
linktext was:"http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wizard-res ... rub2-disk/"
====================================
tried both rescatux and supergrub 2 and their methods they use to make a pen drive, and neither method works, so neither one can be used on a pendrive.....
Any other suggestions???
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#10
if you can find an antix 8 installation somewhere, that would have a working grub-repair utility.
Posts: 150
rjm65
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
#11
dolphin_oracle wrote:if you can find an antix 8 installation somewhere, that would have a working grub-repair utility.
hmmm if this is it then I found it... LOL __{{emoticon}}__
mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/MEPIS/antix/antiX-M8.iso

Might I ask a silly question? Why hasn't grub repair worked since version 8???
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#12
not a silly question. I wish I knew the answer. I had a similar problem to yours last year.
Posts: 1,308
BitJam
Joined: 31 Aug 2009
#13
Here is a description of
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://stringofthoughts.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/grub-error-17-debianubuntu/"
linktext was:"Grub error 17"
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, You will need to fix that before grub will work.

Next, it is very easy to install grub to let it boot your hard drive and your usb drive.

One you get your partition table on the hard drive fixed, you can use the following tricks to get grub do to everything you want. To use grub, the only difficulty is being sure which drive is which, but they give you the"find" command to make this trivial. For example, in the root directory of the LiveUSB, as root, touch a file called"usb". If you booted from our LiveUSB this command would be:

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sudo touch /live/boot-dev/usb
On the root partition of the hard drive install you can touch the file"/boot/hd" the same way.

Then fire up grub as root and find those files:

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sudo grub
grub> find /usb
...
grub> find /boot/hd
...
If all the files are in place then you just need 2 commands to install grub. If you used our program to create the LiveUSB then either grub or syslinux was installed as the bootloader. I know we can chainload to grub but I'm not certain we can chainload to syslinux.

So let's say your installed partition is (hd0,0) and your LiveUSB is (hd1,0) (you get these via the find commands above). Then you install grub on the hd with the grub commands:

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grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup(hd0)
That's it! If files need to boot are missing then it will tell you. I could attach a tarball of all the files you need if you would like. The root command tells grub which partition you want to boot and the setup command says to install grub on the mbr of the hard drive. IOW you can think of those two commands as saying:

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  hard drive mbr --> installed partition
But there is one more trick you should always do. Run:

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grub> setup(hd0,0)
For each root command you can have multiple setup commands because the setup justs points to the root. This installs grub on the partition you are booting (in addition to the mbr). This can be used to chainload from another grub menu on another device (you can't chainload to the mbr of a device, only to a partition).

Now with just those 3 grub commands (and possibly copying some files), you have grub installed on the hard drive *and* you can boot the hard drive from the LiveUSB using chainloading. If the LiveUSB was made with the syslinux bootloader then there should already be a boot entry called:"Boot from Hard Disk". If the LiveUSB was made with with grub bootloader then you will need to add a chainloader entry yourself. If you've booted from the LiveUSB then edit the file: /live/boot-dev/boot/grub/menu.lst and add this entry:

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title Boot from Hard Drive
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
Note: You need to have run"setup (hd0,0) from within grub for this trick to work. Running the"setup (hd0)" installs grub on the mbr and lets it boot via BIOS when you boot your computer. Running"setup (hd0,0)" allows you to boot via chainloading from another grub menu, like the menu on the LiveUSB.

You can also use these tricks to boot the LiveUSB from the Grub menu on the hard drive but I will leave that for another post since this one is probably too long already.

I aways forget the names for the root and setup commands so I always look them up with"info grub". Then arrow down (or use the <Tab> key) to get to where it says"* Installation::" and press <Enter> when the cursor is over any of the text"* Installation" then go to"Installing GRUB natively" and press <Enter>. This will get you to the page that describes the three commands: find, root, and setup. If you go to the wrong page, use <BackSpace> to get to the page you were on before.

BTW, perhaps the grub repair stuff didn't work because grub was not installed on the mbr. I've never used that repair stuff myself. I always fix it (when needed) by doing an install like I describe above.
Posts: 150
rjm65
Joined: 20 Jan 2014
#14
dolphin_oracle wrote:not a silly question. I wish I knew the answer. I had a similar problem to yours last year.
I tried every option on 8 and I can't get it to boot it keeps saying can't find mepis files dropping me to a shell...
now another silly question I have probably about 45 different distros here can another distro boot me up and get me to a terminal where i can manually type reinstall grub commands....
would the distro have to be similiar to antix say a debian based distro....
Posts: 2,238
dolphin_oracle
Joined: 16 Dec 2007
#15
check out bitjams comments above.