[SOLVED]Unable to move beyond GNU GRUB 1.97~beta4 problem...

[timindaburgh]

I have read and attempted many suggestions to get beyond my boot problem, but nothing seems to work. Perhaps I'm missing something basic, but just don't see it.

I've loaded LM8 onto a DELL D-800 Latitude (which has worked in the past with an earlier version of LM).

[HughT]

hi timindaburgh, you don't say what you've tried, so apologies if you've already done it, but did you try

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sudo update-grub

[timindaburgh]

When I enter that after booting with live cd, I get grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /.

[mintybits]

the belt and braces method is to boot the lm8 cd and reinstall grub, see: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... the_LiveCD

The problem is that grub cannot find the partition with the uuid of 5178...
An alternative method is to edit the grub entry and replace the uuid references with the partition name where the /boot directory for lm8 is, for example /dev/sda1. If it boots, run "sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc".

[timindaburgh]

I tried replacing occurances of uuid with /dev/sda1. Now, I get

Error: no such device: /dev/sda1

Not sure what to do next.

[HughT]

Use

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sudo blkid

to find the details of your partitions. Perhaps something changed and your root is no longer (hd0,1) aka dev/sda1 aka 51781....
I think your output

grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /.

must be very significant, but not sure how to respond. GParted will give you some further details of root and mount points, or

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sudo sfdisk -l

I hope this will give you some more information which will aid diagnosis.

[AlbertP]

Mint 8 is not supported anymore. Please use a newer version instead. (10 was obsoleted as well a month ago but 9, 11 and 12 are still valid)

[timindaburgh]

HughT: when entering sudo blkid, I get the following output:

/dev/loop0: TYPE-"squashfs"
/dev/sda1: UUID="51781c8f-d328-4e41-b334-478be5aff4a6" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="518cd908-519d-42e8-928f-47854890907f" TYPE="swap"

AlbertP: I would like to have a more current version of LM installed. However, when I try to load any version greater than 8 the graphics don't look right when running the Live CD or when going through the install process. AND, when trying to load 10 and 12, I still have the GRUB problems.

BTW: thanks for the replies and any future suggestions. I've not had these types of issues when loading LM (any version) on other laptops. This one has just got me stymied.

[HughT]

Well, I can't understand why you get a report 'error: no such device' when blkid clearly shows it. But of more concern is the entry

/dev/loop0: TYPE-"squashfs"

To the best of my knowledge, that's only used by a liveCD, not by an installed operating system - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squashfs. So it looks like there's been a failure during the installation process and the squashed files haven't been un-wrapped. Can you see what, if any, folders / files you have on sda1? Have you got the usual bin boot dev etc home lib ...?
If they exist on sda1, you could try re-installing grub from a live CD

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sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

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

note - there's a gap between =/mnt and /dev, and no partition number after sda
re-boot into Mint then

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sudo update-grub

But otherwise, I'd re-partition the drive from gparted on a live CD, and re-install.
hope this helps

[timindaburgh]

Thanks for the suggestion. However, I seem to be right back at square one (IMG_1225.jpg). I'll look into re-partitioning tomorrow.

[timindaburgh]

By the way, I have no data of any concern on the hard drive whatsoever if it makes a difference.

[timindaburgh]

AlbertP: Could LM12 work on such an old laptop, or is it not even worth trying to make it work? The specs are:

Display
Screen resolution - 1920 x 1200

Processor
Processor make - Intel
CPU family - Pentium M
Processor speed - 1.7 GHz
Number of cores - Single-core

[HughT]

Yes, I think the best bet is to start again with a fresh install of a newer version. My laptop runs Mint 11 Katya perfectly well, but struggles with Mint 12 Lisa. My specs are
Compaq Evo N610c
Pentium 4 Mobile 1.8 GHz
512 cache KB
Graphics card: ATI Radeon Mobility M7 LW
I think the availability of graphics drivers will determine your choice, the ATI / Radeon being poorly supported.
regards

[timindaburgh]

I thought I would try to replace the hard drive to see if the LM8 install would work - no dice.

[mintybits]

I thought I would try to replace the hard drive to see if the LM8 install would work - no dice.

i guess when you upgraded to LM8 you also upgraded from Grub1 to Grub2. So it may be worth reverting to Grub1.

[timindaburgh]

Mintybits: when installing LM8 if grub changed from 1 to 2, it did so unbeknownst to me. I can enter commands that are suggested by you or others, but I wouldn't know how to revert to grub 1. If you or someone else could "show me the way" I would be happy to give that a try - and grateful at the same time.

I seem to be right back to where I can select to run LM8 regularly or in the recovery mode, or complete the memory tests. And, I can edit Grub by striking the letter e. by hitting e, I do see the lines of code, including the uuid numbers (different than the ones shown above, due to replacing the HD). Also, the distro is still showing on sda1, but the ext partition is now sda5.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[HughT]

I think you need to do a fresh install. I believe the

/dev/loop0: TYPE-"squashfs"

is the source of all the problems. It's a compressed file, so isn't recognised for mounting/booting. Try the long term support version Isadora.

[mintybits]

I think you need to do a fresh install. I believe the

/dev/loop0: TYPE-"squashfs"

is the source of all the problems. It's a compressed file, so isn't recognised for mounting/booting. Try the long term support version Isadora.

I think the squashfs entry is a red herring. If I boot a live Mint CD and run sudo blkid I also get a squashfs entry as well as the HD partitions. blkid is picking up the CD device. It's confusing but I don't think it has anything to do with whats on the HD.

[mintybits]

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

The exact problem is unclear. It is an old PC so it could be something quite unusual that is going wrong. What we do know is that in your previous version of Mint it booted fine (what was the previous version?). I think LM8 is based on Ubuntu 9.10 and if memory serves that is when Ubuntu started using Grub2. You have a very early version of Grub 2: 1.97-beta...the lastest is 1.99. When they changed Grub they really changed it; it deserved a new name to avoid confusing the two. Generally, Grub 2 (aka grub-pc) works better than Grub1 (aka grub or grub-legacy) so it is odd that your system no longer boots.

The first thing I would do is boot live CD and download and run bootinfoscript (http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/) and publish the results.txt file here. That may reveal exactly what is going on and why Grub2 cannot boot. Based on your first post I gather you may not be able to post the results here. The file is large so a photo won't do.

I would remove any other HDs from the Dell. This is to prevent Grub and the bios disagreeing about the naming of the disks, which used to happen in olden days.

Otherwise, based on the info you have given so far, I would be inclinded to try to reinstall Grub using the chroot process first: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... ing#ChRoot. After it has booted, if it does, open a terminal and run "sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc" to make sure all is in order.

If that did not work I would try to boot it from another installation of Mint. Say a usb stick. I don't know whether the Dell can boot a USB device. If it can I would install Mint to USB and boot the USB and run "sudo update-grub" to add LM8 to the boot menu and then reboot the USB and select LM8 and see if it boots. After it has booted open a terminal and run "sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc" to make sure all is in order.

If none of those two worked or are possible, I would try to revert to grub-legacy. I googled and found this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1298932.
I think this guide assumes you are already booted. Instead, you would need to boot off the LM8 CD and use chroot to get into the LM8 before running the commands in the guide. Chroot is a little like being logged in to an OS. I have never tried to revert to grub-legacy myself.

If that fails I would try a different Mint version or distro. Perhaps LM9 which is based on Ubuntu 10.04 and has a newer Grub2 version.

Hope this helps a little.

[HughT]

I think the squashfs entry is a red herring.

Yes, you're right - I wasn't thinking it through.