[ubuntu-nz] Problems with Installing 10.04

[Dave Lane]

Although your problem might be completely different, I did have vaguely
similar problem when installing 10.04 (32-bit desktop) from a USB key.
The install went fine, I accepted the defaults, but, for some reason,
when I rebooted the machine with the USB key *not plugged in* I got the
sort of error you've got (only without the Grub prompt).

The problem was that the USB key was recognised by the system as the
*first hard disk* (sda) during the install process, and the boot
information was written to it rather than the normal first hard disk
(which was sdb during the install). If the USB key was plugged in, the
system booted as expected because it was actually booting from the
master boot record on the USB Key... and it was looking for the Linux
kernel on sdb (not sda).

I fixed this by reinstalling, and on the step where you can accept the
writing of the master boot record (near the end of the process) there's
an "Advanced..." button. Pushing that revealed the option to choose
another device onto which to put the master boot record. I was able to
choose my hard disk rather than the USB key (which was listed as the
default device)... following that, everything worked, with or without
the USB key plugged in.

For the record, the system this happened on was an HP 5102 netbook,
which is otherwise a lovely wee machine, highly recommended.

Hope that helps you, James (or perhaps someone else if not).

Cheers,

Dave


On 07/07/10 19:54, Ubuntu wrote:
> I installed 10.04 onto a new HDD the install went perfectly. When I
> cold booted (boot after a power off) this morning I got the following
> message "Boot from CD/DVD : error: no such device: (long string
> identifying the UUID) grub rescue >"
> 
> I booted up again with the Lice CD and used the restart option.
> Allowing what I will call a warm boot. This time the system booted up
> perfectly.
> 
> Using our friend Google I did some searches and found the following
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1481733&highlight=grub2+error%3A+device
>
>  This tells me to edit /etc/default/grub and remove the comments
> from:
> 
> # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter
> to Linux
> 
> #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
> 
> 
> Which I did.
> 
> It didn't work from a cold boot.
> 
> More searching revealed
> 
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/bootinfoscript/index.php?title=Boot_Problems:search
>
>  Which told me to place comments in the following 
> /usr/lib/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib to remove the search line in
> grub.cfg
> 
> thus:
> 
> # If there's a filesystem UUID that GRUB is capable of identifying,
> use it; # otherwise set root as per value in device.map. echo "set
> root=`${grub_probe} --device ${device} --target=drive`" # if
> fs_uuid="`${grub_probe} --device ${device} --target=fs_uuid 2>
> /dev/null`" ; then # echo "search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set
> ${fs_uuid}" # fi
> 
> This didn't work from a cold boot either. I looked at the resulting 
> grub.cfg and the entries for 10.04 did not have any mention of the
> UUID.
> 
> Is there someone who can point me in the right direction to obtain a 
> solution to this problem?
> 
> This is a dual boot system with 8.04 on the other HDD. Booting back
> into 8.04 was achieved by changing the order of the SATA cables
> allowing the system to boot using Grub (from 8.04 install) not Grub2
> (from the 10.04 install). I can not get access to the 10.04 HDD from
> 8.04 because the filesystem is EXT4.
> 
> Regards James
> 
> 

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