Thinkpad won't boot with 11.1

**ClaireM** · 03-Jan-2009, 17:25

My Thinkpad won't boot after installing OpenSUSE 11.1 (64-bit)

Here's what happened.

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad R61i, which came with Vista HP. I promptly installed OpenSUSE 11.0 64-bit, and the installation was great.

Unforunately, I made the mistake of installing some RPMs from the factory repository, which messed up the sound and a few other things, and despite a lot of help I never succeeded in fuxing it.

So come 11.1, I decided to do a fresh installation rather than an upgrade. Downloaded the DVD, set up the options, and all went OK apart from zsh failing verification, until I got to the very end, when a problem was reported installing grub.

So I let the install process do a reboot, and got an "error no operating system message". Went to my desktop, looked here, and saw that the release notes warned me that I should have ensured that the bootloader was not installed into the MBR. Duh; I had read that when I dloaded the DVD, but forgot

I have tried using the repair facility off the DVD, but to no avail. And yes, my blue thinkvantage button is now useless.

So now I have no MBR, and have no idea how I can restore one. Where do I go from here?

Ideally I'd like to restore the original MBR to get the thinkvantage button back, but I'd be delighted to just have some way of getting an MBR in place that will boot the system.

When I run the diagnostics in the repair mode, everything checks out except grub configuration, but it doesn't say what's wrong with the configuration (I dunno if it's find no trace of gruyb config and suggesting something to put in place, or if it's found one that's broken).

Can anyone help rescue me?

**deano_ferrari** · 03-Jan-2009, 17:31

Use the DVD to boot installed system, then from a root console, do

fdisk -l
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

Post output here.

**ClaireM** · 03-Jan-2009, 17:42

Originally Posted by deano_ferrari

Use the DVD to boot installed system, then from a root console, do

fdisk -l
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

Post output here.

Sorry, no can do. Even with the DVD, I can't boot the installed system

**foresthill** · 03-Jan-2009, 18:19

Can you do a reinstall?

If so, do that and set up your boot options the way you want them at the beginning of the installation process when you enter your passwords and choose your desktop environment.

There should be a bootloader option, so configure it from there, and everything should go as it's supposed to.

I have had the "No Operating System Found" error several times, and it has always been triggered by trying to change bootloader options after the install is complete. There seems to be some kind of bug, but setting up your bootloader during pre-installation seems to be an effective work-around.

**deano_ferrari** · 03-Jan-2009, 18:37

If you're unable to get repair tools to work and just want windows MBR back, you can use opensuse dvd and boot windows repair partition via grub console mode. (But you need to know partition number.

For example, my windows recovery partition is at sda3 -> (hd0,2)

I just tested this to make sure it would work and all was ok:

grub> rootnoverify (hd0,2)
grub> makeactive
grub> chainloader +1
grub> boot

From there, let the utility load and you should be able to reinstate windows MBR

**foresthill** · 03-Jan-2009, 18:40

There used to be an option when in "Repair" mode called "Boot installed system". I wish they would bring that back, it saved my bacon several times.

**ClaireM** · 04-Jan-2009, 10:34

Hmm. I tried a complete reinstall per foresthill's suggestion, but no luck.

An error box popped up at the "Install boot manager" stage, entitled "Error occurred while installing GRUB". Here are the box's contents, in full:

Code:

GNU GRUB 0.97 (640K lower/3072 upper memory)

[Minimal bash-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
 lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
 completions of a device/filename.]
grub> setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 --force-lba (hd0,2) (hd0,5)
 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 (hd0,2)" ... failed (this is not fatal)
 Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,5)" ... failed (this is not fatal)
 Running "install --force-lba --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,2) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu.lst" ... failed

Error 22: no such partition
grub> quit

After that failed, I was offered the chance to try again, and got the same error.]

The system then rebooted, and I went into recovery mode to retrieve my partition table, as follows:

Code:

Device     Size       F  Type                 FS Type    Label
/dev/sda   111.79 GB     HITACHI-HTS54161
/dev/sda1    6.64 GB     unknown              NTFS       ServiceV002
/dev/sda2   59.13 GB     HPFS/NTFS            NTFS       SW_Preload
/dev/sda3   46.01 GB     Extended
/dev/sda5    1.45 GB     Linux swap           Swap
/dev/sda6   17.92 GB     Linux native Ext3
/dev/sda7   26.63 GB     Linux native Ext3

I didn't make any changes there, just copied the info here.

I tried the full system check, and everything (partitions, file sy7stems and packages etc) all checked out OK until we got to "Checking versions, which reported OK but noted:

Code:

grub current version: 0.97-156.4 required version 0.92-69

Intrd modules checked out OK, as did "Searching boot loader configuration file", but an error was reported on "Checking bot loader configuration file".

So I'm back to where I was last night, and it seems to me that the best option should be deano_ferrari's suggestion below:

Originally Posted by deano_ferrari

If you're unable to get repair tools to work and just want windows MBR back, you can use opensuse dvd and boot windows repair partition via grub console mode. (But you need to know partition number.

For example, my windows recovery partition is at sda3 -> (hd0,2)

I just tested this to make sure it would work and all was ok:

grub> rootnoverify (hd0,2)
grub> makeactive
grub> chainloader +1
grub> boot

From there, let the utility load and you should be able to reinstate windows MBR

But the problem there is that I don't know how to get to grub console mode. How do I do that from the DVD? And when I've got there, what do I specify as much recovery partition (I presume it's sda1? )

Thanks again to everyone who has helped, and hope I'm nearly there...

**foresthill** · 04-Jan-2009, 10:58

Did your installation get to the point where you had all your passwords entered and your desktop environment chosen and then pressed the "Install" button?

Because if so, you have an opportunity to review your bootloader options just before you press the Install button. You might take a look at the settings that Suse is setting up for you and see if you see any obvious errors.

**ClaireM** · 04-Jan-2009, 12:23

Originally Posted by foresthill

Did your installation get to the point where you had all your passwords entered and your desktop environment chosen and then pressed the "Install" button?

Yes, it did.

Originally Posted by foresthill

Because if so, you have an opportunity to review your bootloader options just before you press the Install button. You might take a look at the settings that Suse is setting up for you and see if you see any obvious errors.

I did review them, but can see nothing awry

**foresthill** · 04-Jan-2009, 14:25

Is there a different bootloader you can try? Is LILO still available?

I lost the ability to boot when I installed 11.1 and then changed the default OS from 11.1 to 11 after the install was done. This version of Grub does not like it when you make post-install changes to your bootloader, but if you make them just before installation they seem to work OK.

I would just continue with the your reinstall and keep my fingers crossed. What have you got to lose?