Home / ubuntu / Questions / 420778
Accepted
kenn
Asked: 2014-02-15 02:33:29 +0800 CST

I need step by step guidence to recover grub [duplicate]

  • 772

Yesterday I removed some two tiny partions from the disk,today it won't boot. I opened my computer from USB now, but I can not install grub from chroot. I run sudo blkidand I noticed that my ubuntu installed partition moved from sda6 to sda5. First I ran sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt then sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda5 but I got the following error.

 /usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: warning: File system `ext2' doesn't support embedding.
 /usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: warning: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be    installed in this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their   use is discouraged..
 /usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: error: will not proceed with blocklists.

Would you please tell me what to do now?

grub2

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    EDIT:My problem stemmed from deleting a partition in my hard drive.

    1) If you rebooted your machine and you stuck in grub menu then you can use a live DVD. After mounting your partition that your Ubuntu OS installed (in my case it switched from sda6 to sda5)

      sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt

  sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

    will fix the grub

    2) If you delete a partition and you haven't rebooted it yet ( it won't boot since partition tables changed) then you can apply below guide to fix it. Prior to breakage of grub it was installed on SDA6 partition, since I deleted partitions, partition table entries got out of order, naturally it won't boot.

    sudo fdisk -l to check out a message like partition table entries are not in disk order if you get that message to fix it; issue commands

    sudo fdisk /dev/sda then enter x , f and finally w

    what they do 

     x (extra functionality - experts only)
 f (fix)
 w (write to disk and exit)

    You may get a warning that devices are in use and the new table will be used at the next boot.

    It should fix failing of grub at boot.

    If you missed above step and you want to reinstall grub check out this link https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Install_to_partition_or_partitionless_disk

    EDIT:

    if you get a message like 

    Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table. The new table will be used at
the next reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8)
Syncing disks.

    no worries, it's just a warning message, just reboot your comp and your grub will be detected in the right partition.

    Every time you alter partitions in your drive before shut down your comp, you must run sudo fdisk /dev/sda to fix partition tables otherwise you end up with missing grub in the next reboot

    • 3

  2. Boot-Repair is a simple tool to repair frequent boot issues you may encounter in Ubuntu like when you can't boot Ubuntu after installing Windows or another Linux distribution, or when you can't boot Windows after installing Ubuntu, or when GRUB is not displayed anymore, some upgrade breaks GRUB, etc.

    This according to Ubuntu community help, you can use the Boot-repair tool to restore your GRUB if you don't like to do it the terminal way.

    Please read more here to learn how to use.

    • 0