as1_sp Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 (edited) When I try to boot Ubuntu it hangs on the boot splash screen. I previously mounted some NTFS hard drives and which one of them is no longer in my PC, is this the reason why it hangs? Also since the last time I had the Ubuntu HDD in my system i have removed one HDD installed another HDD, removed a 3.5" card reader for a 5.25" card reader and installed a new DVD rewriter. Edited April 11, 2007 by as1_sp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaKeY Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 Must be... *spins magic wheel* a bad power supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 11, 2007 Author Share Posted April 11, 2007 My power supply is only six months old and works perfectly with my Windows XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney T. Administrators Posted April 11, 2007 Administrators Share Posted April 11, 2007 Any of your hardware USB devices? Sometimes you have to unplug them to get the boot-up to complete. If not, my next item would be to unplug the card reader.... I bet Ubuntu is having a hard time figuring that one out...... Barney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Budious Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 Try booting in recovery mode. sudo apt-get install nano sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst put a # (lb) sign in front quiet splash on the line in front of your booting kernel. this will disable the boot splash so that you can see the specific process which is hanging. you can remove the # to enable splash again later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 I'll try unplugging the card reader in the morning. Going to slepp now. thanks for the tip. How do i access the recovery mode? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yochanan Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 GRUB should have a recovery mode entry right underneath the default kernel, like this: Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.17-11-generic Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.17-11-generic (recovery mode) Ubuntu, memtest86+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 I disconnected the card reader and Ubuntu still hangs at the splash screen. When i went to recovery mode; some bunch of lines start scrolling and then it says: Begin: Waiting for root file system... ... and just hangs there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 I disconnected the card reader and Ubuntu still hangs at the splash screen. When i went to recovery mode; some bunch of lines start scrolling and then it says:Begin: Waiting for root file system... ... and just hangs there. then it's not finding the root partition. This can be caused by the hrd drive being in a physically different location (cable-wise of course), or the root partition itself actually being dead. this is a quick easy fix assuming your root partition's intact and just somewhere else: 1. Boot from a LiveCD like Knoppix, Mepis, or Ubuntu. 2. Open a terminal. Login as root. (Ubuntu users 'sudo') 3. Type 'grub' which makes a GRUB prompt appear. grub> 4. Type 'find /boot/grub/stage1'. Your output should look something like this (hd1,3). That’s your hard drive/partition. Once you have that info, you can tell grub where your root directory is, and where the MBR should be. 5. Type 'root (hd1,3)' (this is where the last command told you where your root directory is 6. Type 'setup (hd0)' (this sets it back up in the mbr properly) 7. Type 'quit' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 thanks MR_Candyman. I tried what you said but Ubuntu still hangs at the splash screen. So I used the recovery mode and this time it says: ALERT! /dev/hdb1 does not exist. Droping to shell! BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 1:1.1.3-2ubuntu3) Built-in shell (ash) Enter help for list of commands. /bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off (initramfs) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted April 12, 2007 Veteran Share Posted April 12, 2007 Boot Ubuntu as a "LiveCD", and then open a terminal and do a sudo fdisk -l (that is a lowercase letter "L", not the number one). That will list out all of your drives and partitions. When you changed your drive configuration, the partition that it used to point to no longer exists, or you moved it when you swapped drives around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 (edited) When i did the sudo fdisk it says that my hard drive is: /dev/hdc /dev/hdc1 When i did the sudo fdisk it says that my hard drive is: /dev/hdc /dev/hdc1 ext3 /dev/hdc2 extended /dev/hdc5 swap then when i do the find /boot/grub/stage1 it displays (hd0,0) is this right? Also i tried doing what MR_Candyman with just my linux hdd in my system and it still hangs. And in the recovery mode the part where it says /dev/hdb1 does not exist; is this referring to the hdd that i mounted into linux? Edited April 12, 2007 by as1_sp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted April 12, 2007 Veteran Share Posted April 12, 2007 Well, it looks to me that your Linux hard drive used to be the slave drive on the primary IDE. During your drive swapping, it is quite possible that you moved it to be the master drive on the secondary IDE. This would explain why it is looking for /dev/hdb1 (when it was installed), but seems to be currently located on /dev/hdc1 (where your fdisk showed it to be). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 what does it say after step 4 in the directions I listed. Mark's right in saying you switched to to be master on the secondary IDE channel and it was slave before. It should be saying that your root is at (hd2,0) (though I don't know what that extended you have is for...possibly /home) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 After step 4 it displays (hd0,0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 odd...that should be hda1 then... well, try step 5 typing 'root (hd0,0)' then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 Thats what I did i entered: root (hd0,0) and then I entered setup (hd0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 and then you quit, rebooted without the cd, and it still says the error you posted above? that would make no sense at allbecause you'd be directing it to hda1 partition 1, not hdb1 anywhere hmm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 Yeh, that's exactly what I did. It's not because of the mounted NTFS HDD is it? And how do I remove mounted HDD from the terminal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 it won't be because of that at all. to unmount it though just go "umount /dev/whatever" EDIT: damn, that just reminded me of something...you need to mount your linux partition before doing the steps I told you, that way it will actually save the configuration...that would definitely explain why it was still pointing to the wrong place Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 13, 2007 Author Share Posted April 13, 2007 How do i mount? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 actually, what SHOULD work, and you'll probably find easiest (as long as it does work) is to type in terminal: mkdir /mnt/root mount /dev/hdc1 /mnt/root chroot /mnt/root /bin/bash grub-install /dev/hdc1 now this should re-install grub onto hdc1 and hopefully work (I can't remember if this way re-installs to the mbr or not, if it doesn' then it won't work, if it does then it will) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 13, 2007 Author Share Posted April 13, 2007 This is what i typed in from the livecd: sudo mkdir /mnt/root sudo mount /dev/hdd1 /mnt/root sudo chroot /mnt/root /bin/bash root@ubuntu:/# grub-install /dev/hdd1 then it says: /dev/hdd1: Not found or not a block device. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 hdc1, not hdd1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
as1_sp Posted April 13, 2007 Author Share Posted April 13, 2007 hdd1 is my ubuntu ext3 HDD and when i use hdc1 it says: mount: special device /dev/hdc1 does not exist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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