Grub missing from boot menu


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hello,

I have one hard drive with 4 partitions. The first one and last one are by Acer, and dont show in My Computer. I made two partitions out of my C:/

One for Xp and one for Ubuntu. The installation of Ubuntu 8.10 went fine, except when I restarted my computer I did not get a choice of which OS I wanted to boot. Instead it went straight to Xp.

With a little bit of researching, I went into my LIVECD and opened up terminal;

sudo grub

find /boot/grub/stage1

After that I get "Error 15: File not found"

Can someone help?

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Did you installed GRUB?

Please open a console and copy>paste the output of the command:

sudo fdisk -l

so we can see how your disk is partitioned.

Also the contents of the GRUB configuration file "/boot/grub/menu.lst" from your ubuntu install (not the one from the LiveCD) would be nice.

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Sorry to change the subject, but I got tired with installing linux on partitions. So what I did was format the whole disk and install Ubuntu 8.10 on it. The installation went flawlessly but when I rebooted I got "Error 21".

th_screenshot--dev-sda_-_gparted-y5nms.jpg

I tried getting the /boot/grub/menu.lst for you guys but there is no "grub" folder inside "boot".

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I tried getting the /boot/grub/menu.lst for you guys but there is no "grub" folder inside "boot".

Sure there is, if GRUB is installed.

Error 21 in GRUB means the selected disk doesn't exist.

Boot with the Ubuntu LiveCD, open a terminal and do the following:

cd /
sudo mkdir ubuntu
sudo mount /dev/sda1 ubuntu
sudo chroot ubuntu
sudo grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda
sudo reboot

This will reinstall GRUB on /dev/sda.

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^ Thanks I will give that a try.

I was wondering, does it matter if the /dev/sda harddrive has no jumper pin on it? On the Maxtor harddrive it says "No Jumper = Slave".

I think this might be the issue. However if I place the jumper so that the HD is MASTER my computer can no longer see the DVD drive, and therefore cannot boot from LIVECD.

Any comments on that?

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If it's an IDE device, one device has to be set to master and the other one to slave. Change the jumper on the DVD drive too, and put the master device always at the end of the cable. The jumper on the drive can also be set to "cable select".

If you motherboard has two channels, put your DVD drive on one and the HDD on the other.

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Boot with the Ubuntu LiveCD, open a terminal and do the following:

cd /
sudo mkdir ubuntu
sudo mount /dev/sda1 ubuntu
sudo chroot ubuntu
sudo grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda
sudo reboot

Okay so I placed the jumper so the IDE drive is now "Cable Select". That made my DVD drive appear, so I booted using the LiveCD.

In the terminal I put what you told me except at the line;

sudo grub-install --no-floppy /dev/s

I got /dev/sda: Not found or not a block device. :cry:

If it's an IDE device, one device has to be set to master and the other one to slave. Change the jumper on the DVD drive too, and put the master device always at the end of the cable. The jumper on the drive can also be set to "cable select".

If you motherboard has two channels, put your DVD drive on one and the HDD on the other.

If the jumper on the drive is set to "Cable Select" what should the DVD drive be set to?

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Okay so I placed the jumper so the IDE drive is now "Cable Select". That made my DVD drive appear, so I booted using the LiveCD.

In the terminal I put what you told me except at the line;

sudo grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda

I got /dev/sda: Not found or not a block device. :cry:

That could mean your HDD is now be recognized with another device name, because you changed the jumper (maybe wrongly)...

sudo fdisk -l

will show you the name of the storage devices.

But wait... Did the partition mount without any error before you tried to install GRUB...?

If the jumper on the drive is set to "Cable Select" what should the DVD drive be set to?

One set to master and another one set to slave is the ideal configuration. But if you wish to have "cable select", both devices should be on "cable select". "cable select" means that the device at the end of the cable is master and the other one is slave.

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ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9ccf9ccf

   Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *		   1	   14570   117033493+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2		   14571	   14946	 3020220	5  Extended
/dev/sda5		   14571	   14946	 3020188+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

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