Mint 6 XFCE installed, loading problems... (solved)

[cwoolbright]

Hello all, complete newbie here. I've done ubuntu before, but new to mint...
So I had Vista, created a Mint 6 XFCE liveboot USB... worked great... went ahead to install, did partition and everything...

Now, turning on computer to access Mint for first time, and I get:

Starting up...
[0.349402] ACPI: Aborted because junk in gzipped archive.
[2.972023] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)

This is on my laptop, Acer Aspire 4530.
What do these errors mean? More importantly... how do I fix it?

Thanks all, I really appreciate the help.

I've found http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... annot_boot and thoroughly read through, but very confused! I see that since I cannot boot (well I can in Vista but that's no help) then I need to run the live usb and edit something to do with UUID's... according to this wiki. Well, I want to be very careful so any suggestions? Can you translate this wiki solution into newbie terms?

[viking777]

More info needed.
Boot from live USB key enter terminal run the following commands and copy and paste the output into the forum.

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sudo fdisk -l

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sudo cat /etc/fstab 

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 sudo blkid -c /dev/null

[cwoolbright]

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sudo fdisk -l
fdisk: invalid option -- '1'

Usage: fdisk [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK         Change partition table
           fdisk -l [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK  List partition table(s)
           fdisk -s PARTITION           Give partition size(s) in blocks
           fdisk -v                     Give fdisk version
Here DISK is something like /dev/hdb or /dev/sda
and PARTITION is something like /dev/hda7
-u: give Start and End in sector (instead of cylinder) units
-b 2048: (for certain MO disks) use 2048-byte sectors

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sudo cat /etc/fstab
aufs / aufs rw 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/sdc6 swap swap defaults 0 0

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sudo blkid -c /dev/null
/dev/sda1: LABEL="USB Disk" UUID="878C-D41D" Type="vfat"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="D046FC3D46FC263E" LABEL="PQSERVICE" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdc2: UUID="324A64914A64541F" LABEL="ACER" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdc3: UUID="28FAF759FAF7222C" LABEL="DATA" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdc5: UUID="39b15fe3-7c59-4350-8c0d-e894bd7b6bab" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdc6: UUID="14eef639-248c-4191-ac4f-2d851ee4993e" TYPE="swap"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"

...I'm guessing the UUID I'll need is /dev/sdc5 maybe??

[cwoolbright]

Hahaha, that's an "L" not a 1. Info coming right up...

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sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 16.0GB, 16039018496 bytes
75 heads, 40 sectors/track, 10442 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3000 * 512 = 1536000 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

Device Boot        Start        End         Blocks        ID        System
/dev/sda1   *            1      10443     15663084      c         W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdc: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot                  Start                    End                Blocks              Id               System
/dev/sdc1                          1                  1306            10485760             27             Unknown
/dev/sdc2   *                 1306                10382            72900608              7              HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc3                    10382                18135            62279293             7              HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc4                    18136                19457            10618965             5             Extended
/dev/sdc5                    18136                19395           10120918+           83             Linux
/dev/sdc6                    19396                19457              497983+            82             Linux swap / Solaris

There we go, sorry about that.

[viking777]

My turn to be sorry. I am losing my mind. I asked you for fstab output and I meant menu.lst.

So I need you to go into a terminal again and do the following:

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sudo mkdir /tmp/mint

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sudo  mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc5 /tmp/mint

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sudo gedit /tmp/mint/boot/grub/menu.lst

Copy and paste the output of that and I will have a look and see if I can figure anything out.

[cwoolbright]

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sudo mkdir /tmp/mint
(no output, it just went to the next cmd)

sudo  mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc5 /tmp/mint
(no output here either)

sudo gedit /tmp/mint/boot/grub/menu.lst
sudo: gedit: command not found

[viking777]

That fact that there is no output often means that the command has completed sucessfully (sometimes!).

If you haven't changed anything you can probably just do

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sudo cat /tmp/mint/boot/grub/menu.lst

If you have changed something then run the mkdir and mount commands again followed by the one above.

or if you can open /boot/grub/menu.lst any other way (like with your file manager - thunar) that would be just as good. Click on the 'Computer' icon on your desktop and see.

[cwoolbright]

okay...

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sudo cat /tmp/mint/boot/grub/menu.lst
cat: /tmp/mint/boot/grub/menu.lst: No such file or directory

...so I go to the file manager (in my case Thunar) and go to tmp/mint and there's nothing there...

now there is a boot folder just on the mail file system and inside that theres a gfxmenu folder and 6 or so files... don't know if that's even relevant...

[viking777]

Apologies again. It is Thunar of course. I should know I use Xfce as well. My mistake comes from so often dealing with people who use Gnome.

Anyway, in Thunar in the left hand pane click on 'File System' then you might/should see 'boot' folder open that and you might/should see a 'grub' folder and in there should be 'menu.lst'.

On a totally different line of thought, do you have a live cd available for Mint6 Xfce or is it only the usb key? I have this feeling that when your usb key is inserted it is detected as sda, and your hard disk is detected as sdc but when you remove it to boot from your hard drive I think that the hard drive might be detected as sda which means that all the references to sdc are completely wrong. This won't happen if you have a live cd to boot from since it will never be detected as a drive. It is only a theory, I could be well wide of the mark with it.

BTW if anyone else wants to join in on this problem please feel free, I won't be offended

[cwoolbright]

I open the boot folder and there's only a "gfxmenu" folder and some files...

Yeah, I used fedora live usb creator to make the usb, I suppose I could just burn a cd... but I just left the usb in and went to BIOS, it recognized the usb (4th on the list) but I still selected IDE and it took me to the linux or vista screen, chose linux, and I'm getting the same errors as before...

Where else could the grub folder be located??

[viking777]

We could probably spend half a lifetime trying to troubleshoot this, the best advice I could give is to burn a CD and install from that and I am sure this problem will just melt away

[cwoolbright]

alright, I'll give it a try and let you know, thanks for helping!!
Question... will I have to re-partition and stuff?

[viking777]

The partitions that you have created on what is 'now' called /dev/sdc will still be there so if you want to reuse them you can. You only have 2 that is sdc5 and sdc6 that relate to Linux so by all means reuse them if you want. However two things to say. First do NOT have your USB key plugged in when you reinstall, and second I doubt very much if sdc will even exist when you try this it will probably be called sda now (unless you have some other disk lurking around in that machine that you haven't told us about ). But the partitions will still be there.

Good luck.

[cwoolbright]

OK....

made live cd, install.... used sda5 (which was the old one...) and told it ext3 and the mount point "/" (hope that was right...)
installed it, all went ok, but now that I'm trying to open it, it's stuck in this eternal loop thing...
It loads the select screen, I choose linux mint, all clears and it goes to the linux mint loading screen, it all loads, then black with the circular loading cursor in the center... I watch the cursor for about 20 seconds then it disappears and a few lines of text flash, then it goes back to the cursor... It's been doing that for awhile now, I think it's safe to say nothings going to change.
The text that flashes by says:

Starting System Tools Backends system-tools-backends
Starting anac(h)ronistic cron anacron
Starting deferred execution command scheduler atd
Starting periodic command scheduler cond
Starting additional execution binary formats binfmt-support
Checking Battery State...

or something like that.

Any clue???


My next step is to download another iso file (just incase it was corrupt or something) and do it all over again with another cd.

[viking777]

Sorry but that gives me no clue whatsoever. I think your idea about another download/burn would be the way to go.

You can check the md5 sum of your existing download with whatever tool you are using to burn the CD's and compare it to the published one. (If your burn program doesn't give such an opton read this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM)
If the md5 is correct then there is no need to download again. Then try to burn again. Maybe a lower burn speed would help.

BTW. Your partitioning choices were correct / on sda5

[cwoolbright]

Oh my goodness...

So I burned another .iso at a slower speed... went to install, and part way through there was an install error (wrote it down but don't have it on me...)
So I restarted and now there's grub error 21.

Super grub disk won't work, it gets an error of itself (downloaded right from their site, the usb one) ... so now I can only open live cds or usbs.

Do I need to do something with MBR??

sudoapt-get install grub runs ok but it doesn't change anything about the boot error (something tells me I'm not doing this all the way through...)

[viking777]

Grub error 21 means the selected disk does not exist.

Quite how that relates to your problem I am not sure.To start the install did you remove your USB device before booting the live cd? You must as it seems to be screwing everything for you.Unplug it, hide it somewhere and don't touch it again until this problem is solved!

If you want to reinstall grub then this is probably the easiest way to do it. Boot from the live cd with your usb device unplugged. Enter a terminal and type:

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sudo grub

followed by

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find /boot/grub/stage1

based on your previous post you should see something like:

(hd0,4)

If it says file not found then we will have to try something else.

Assuming it says the above then the next command is

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root (hd0,4)

which should return something like:

Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

NB If the 'find' command returns something other than (0,4) eg (0,3) then (0,3) is what you type into the 'root' command.

Then type

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setup (hd0)

Which should return something like:

Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 15 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) (hd0)1+15 p (hd0,1)/boot/grub/stage
2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.

type

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quit

to exit the grub prompt then reboot, removing the disk - and if you plug in that USB device I'll chop your hands off

[cwoolbright]

Hahah, NO, I swear I didn't have the USB plugged in! I followed everything to a T!

And I tried that, that was before I did super grub disk but stage1 is not found. Nor stage 2.... etc.

I can try it again in a bit and get you the exact message.


Now I have access to the internet though, so I did sudo apt-get install grub and nothing changes.

You might as well chop my hands off anyways, looks like it's really messed up >.<

[viking777]

cwoolbright,

I am getting a bit out of my 'comfort zone' now. Normally I would only post solutions that I have used myself or know to have been successful for someone else, but this topic is so involved that I can't try solutions myself (because I might break a perfectly working system) and reading around it produces so much conflict of opinion that I cannot be sure exactly what to expect (I just saw a post on this topic that was 80 pages long!).

What I can tell you is this. The correct commands to install (as opposed to update) grub are:

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sudo grub

then

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grub-install /dev/sda

By all means try this, but I don't think it is going to work from a live CD. Please prove me wrong if you can - it will really add to my knowledge!

Super grub disc is usually the best method to solve this sort of problem but you seem to have some problems with that as well which also worries me.

If those methods don't work then the next step is to try a chroot environment which adds even more complication, but this is how you would do it:

Boot from live cd, open terminal,

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sudo mkdir /tmp/mint 

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sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sda5 /tmp/mint

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sudo chroot /tmp/mint

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sudo grub

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grub-install /dev/sda

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quit

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sudo umount /tmp/mint

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sudo rmdir /tmp/mint

Reboot.

If that doesn't work (and you haven't given up by now) go back into the chroot environment and try the 'find' 'root' 'setup' commands I gave a few posts back.

[cwoolbright]

Me? Give up? Paah...

Now... I followed all steps exactly, but when I do sudo chroot /tmp/mint I get:

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = (unset),
LC_ALL = (unset),
LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to standard locale ("C").
No fortunes found.
Can't locate Text/Tabs.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0 /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.10 /usr/share/perl/5.10 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at /usr/games/cowsay line 9.
BEGIN failed - - compilation aborted at /usr/games/cowsay line 9.


Interesting...
Is there just a way I can undo all the partitions and completely remove it then redo with a fresh install all from the liveCD?

Thanks for helping out, I'm about to try another download of super grub (not the USB version).