Boot Loader - Low Memory Problem solved

[belovedmonster]

From time to time when I boot up my computer I get an error message in between the bios stuff and the boot loader coming up. It says something about there being low memory and to press a key to continue. You hit the key and then it gives you a bunch of technical stuff and asks you to hit a key again. This repeats until you have hit the key maybe 5 times then it finally loads up the boot select screen, except it doesn't seem to do anything, it just sits there. Restarting the computer at this point then loads up fine.

I'm tempted to say in general the problem only occurs when I am starting up my computer not restarting, but I'd have to use Mint longer to be certain.

This same computer has been dual booted with Xubuntu for months so I know the hardware works. It certainly doesn't have a low enough number of memory to give a low memory message.

[Husse]

I've not heard of this before
Can you give the exact error messages, maybe it's possible to find something from them.
As of now I think it's too little info to figure something out

[belovedmonster]

Here is each stage of the techno babble.

http://s336.photobucket.com/albums/n341 ... omocculta/

[belovedmonster]

Anyone?

[Husse]

I could not bring up the images at first - I have NoScript and it may have blocked
At first I thought something was wrong with message.mint but you have other problems too
Run a memtest
I have to ask for help and you are not forgotten

[belovedmonster]

Last time I left it running a memtest on something it went on for hours and hours and hours. I guess I'll have to do it over night.

[Husse]

A memtest just runs - you have to stop it manually if my memory serves me right

[exploder]

Memrest will show red entries within a minute or two if there is a problem with the RAM. There is no need to have it just run and run.

Please run memtest and post back your findings.

[belovedmonster]

I left it running over night. Did 9 passes in 9 hours. No errors found.

TBH I don't think it can be a problem with the hardware because when I installed Mint 5 I did it over the top of a Xubuntu installation that has dual booted fine for several months.

[Husse]

It is puzzling - first it looks as there is a problem with message.mint - no memory for that
If that was all it could be something that has been corrupted
But then you get strange messages with the word professional in XP professional cut in half....
Both appear early on - I fear grub may be damaged
Open Synaptic and search for GRUB-gfxboot - reinstall
message.mint (in /etc/grub) should be 150 kB (153600 bytes) Check that in case something has happened to it

[belovedmonster]

I tried reinstalling it but it made no difference.

message.mint is 150kb though.

[clem]

Hi,

It looks like the problem is linked to grub-gfx or to message.mint. Whatever the reason is I would recommend to do without the graphical grub and to default back to a text-mode menu. First you can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and get rid of the line which mentions message.mint. If that doesn't solve the problem, then you can reinstall grub and that will replace grub-gfx: "apt install grub".

Good luck,
Clem.

[belovedmonster]

I went into menu.lst but there is no mention of message.mint, the nearest thing it finds is gfxmenu=/etc/grub/message.elyssa should i be deleting that?

Failing that I went ahead and did the apt install grub. Upon booting up not only was the error messages still there but the boot menu was still graphical, which I presumed would not be the case anymore. Have I misunderstood?

[Husse]

gfxmenu=/etc/grub/message.elyssa

That's message.mint - this is a good reminder to be exact
I have noticed that in the team we refer to it as message.mint
Yes put ## in the beginning of that line
Perhaps you need to first uninstall grub-gfxboot and then install grub
It's not particularly dangerous to do this but do take a bit extra care
Download super-grub - only a few MB - (google for the address) and use it to restore a normal grub
I think this is the best option

[belovedmonster]

I put ## at the start and booted up my machine again, no error messages! Yey! The new text only boot loader is fugly, but I guess I'll have to put up with until Mint 6.