Ubuntu
grub2 package

GRUB doesn't load after I installed Lenovo Rescue & Recovery

Asked by Miriam

I have a Thinkpad R61i. I have WinXP Professional and Karmic Koala 9.10 installed on it and usually upon turning on the computer I'd get GRUB with a choice of which OS to boot into. I've mostly been sticking to XP for the past few months so I'm not terribly familiar with Ubuntu (or Linux at all.)

I was having a hardware issue that prompted me to install Lenovo's rescue and recovery utility (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-4Q2QAK.html ) this morning in Windows.

Now, when I start the computer, I get GRUB with a blinking cursor, and nothing else. I can't boot into either OS.

How do I get GRUB back? I'm looking at this thread: http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=673058 which seems to suggest following the instructions here:https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows but I"m a little iffy since I'm not that familiar with linux yet.

Could anyone confirm that that's the right way to go? Is there something easier? Temporary fixes like a random combination of keystrokes? Also, I don't have my install disc - I need to burn another - is there a way to do this from a USB key instead? I'm sort of in the dark here since I don't really understand GRUB or the linux environment.

Thank you guys...

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu grub2 Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Rohan Garg
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Miriam (mfliegner) said : 		#1

Also, to make things more complicated...
I don't have the XP Pro install disc available either. I think I have access to an XP home disc, though.

And is there much chance that any of this recovery stuff will erase files? I have backups of most of this stuff on another hard drive (I installed a larger one recently and I still have the old one I pulled out), but it'd be good to know...

Revision history for this message
Best Rohan Garg (rohangarg) said : 		#2

Hi
Please refer to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling GRUB 2 if you have grub 2 installed.
Recovering grub is quite easy if you have access to a live CD or USB drive

Revision history for this message
T L R (tlr) said : 		#3

Hi Miriam,

I would recommend you follow the instructions here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

As you mentioned in your first post.

Revision history for this message
Rohan Garg (rohangarg) said : 		#4

@TLR the link you have given is outdated and needs cleaning up,there is now a new wiki page for grub2 related issues,please see my previous post

Revision history for this message
delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#5

If you don't boot on any OS from hard disk, answer is:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#6

Hi :)

If you are careful to AVOID reformatting or reinstalling Ubuntu or Xp then your data should be fairly safe with any of the links people have given so far. You can use a Usb stick to get a LiveUsb session instead as it works almost identically to a LiveCd session anyway.

All the links are saying basically the same thing. If you can't download Ubuntu and cannot access your download to make a Cd or Usb then it is usually possible to download a much lighter-weight distro just to get the machine working and then use that distro to access your data and download Ubuntu and make a Cd from inside that. I would recommend using sliTaz if you can't get Ubuntu onto a Cd or Usb stick properly
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
It is only 30Mb rather than the 800Mb of Ubuntu so it is much easier for a lot of people to download.

We can hopefully guide you through the steps which always tend to look a lot worse than they really are in order to cover a wider range of unique cases.

To sort a LiveUsb this link might help
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick#live-usb

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Revision history for this message
Miriam (mfliegner) said : 		#7

Thanks everyone!

I was able to download and burn a new live CD at a computer lab (where everyone thought I was nuts because I was asking around for a blank CD-R instead of a USB key) and reinstalled GRUB2 with the instructions above. I had to run through the process twice for some reason but everything's fine and dandy now, I get my normal options at bootup and no data loss :)

Man. Turns out the Lenovo program that broke Grub doesn't even do what I wanted. Oh well.

Thanks again for all the help.

Revision history for this message
Miriam (mfliegner) said : 		#8

Thanks Rohan Garg, that solved my question.

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#9

Hi :)

Great to hear you solved it and good to hear you raised eyebrows while doing that. Hopefully they will see Ubuntu in action at some point and want to make their own Cd or borrow yours ;)

Of course copying the Cd is easy and it is always worth making sure you have a spare one around somewhere. I love the idea of showing off Ubuntu to someone on their own machine and leaving no trace of it afterwards just to really impress them.

Ther is some vague chance that we might be able to help you with what-ever the problem was that claimed to need the lenovo disk. If you can give us the output of

sudo fdisk -l

then we might be able to help you tidy up a few things with any luck. Any install of Ubuntu really needs people to quickly work through the medibuntu page to help sort all their multimedia out
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Revision history for this message
Miriam (mfliegner) said : 		#10

That's awesome of you to offer to help.

It was a hardware problem, actually - after flying across country, I pulled out my laptop and the fan made a funky noise and booting led to a "fan error" message. After opening the case up and fiddling a little I was able to get the noise to get better and the laptop to boot normally, but I'm still nervous about whether it's functioning adequately. The Lenovo hardware maintenance manual said something about running a diagnostic utility that is generally on the machines they ship out. I'd done a new install of Windows when I set up dual boot, so I didn't have that utility. But apparently it's not in Rescue & Recovery either. Oh well. I'm just monitoring temperatures and it seems OK.

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#11

Hi :)

I am beginning to think that everything gets shipped with quite bad fans. I got a beautiful new case recently with stacks of fans in it but swapping in just 1 "Arctic" fan made a huge difference. Holding a small length of tissue paper some distance from each of the fans in turn shows how much radically better the Arctic one is.

A lot of laptops have a tiny partition at the start of the drive that is good for making a "Recovery Cd" with handy utilities and the Windows drivers for the machine. Apparently even a fresh install of Win7 tries to set-up a Recovery Partition with the same sort of idea. The Recovery Partition is usually sda1 and is meant to be hidden so it might only be sen by linux tools, such as

sudo fdisk -l

New fans can be quite cheap but quality can have a big impact on noise levels and stuff too. I usually have a list of things i want to improve in my machine and prioritise which is most and least urgent. Right now i need to sort my graphics out, again the issue is about cooling it adequately even tho it likes to run hot. I am going to bodge-it for now even though fans can be quite cheap.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)