[PLUG] Grub fails. Grrrr.

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Fri Nov 27 02:40:38 UTC 2009


I just spent the past hour and a half installing Debian Unstable. I
used the minimal CD image, then Expert Mode.

When I got completely to the end it wanted to install the boot loader.
The first option was Grub 2. Although I am unfamiliar with Grub 2, I
decided to let it go ahead. And then it announced that grub-update had
failed.

I went back and told it to use Grub 1.5, but that failed also.

The next choice was LILO. I know nothing of LILO, but I figured I could
change it to Grub later. I answered all the questions and it appeared
to install without error.

When I rebooted I got a screen that says:

Gnu Grub version 1.97
[Minimal bash-like line editing is supported ... <more> }
grub >

My guess is that Grub 2 did install, but incompletely. Grub 1.5 failed
because it detected Grub 2.0 already installed. I installed LILO to
sda1, not sda, think that doing so would make it easier to install Grub
later. But LILO doesn't start if there is something in the MBR. That is
just my WAG.

As for why Grub failed initially, the hard disk had Squeeze installed
originally. Perhaps the reformatting failed to erase the MBR containing
parts of Grub pointing to Squeeze.

So I guess I get to wipe it out and spend another hour and a half
reinstalling. And when I finish Grub will fail again, and I'll have to
go to Fry's and buy a new hard disk.



More information about the PLUG mailing list