BIOS Setup Screen replaces GRUB Menu, please HELP!

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hello,

System: Multiboot AMD 64 with Win 7, openSUSE 12.1 and other Linuxes, and Suse is the default OS (controls Grub).

Up until recently, after booting my PC I was able to choose from a Grub menu which OS to boot into. However, yesterday we had some electrical problems. When I turned on the PC, all I saw was an AMI BIOS Setup Screen. I was able to change individual parameters in BIOS. When I hit F10 to save changes and exit, I got back the same BIOS set up screen! This drives me nut! I spent lots of hours checking each component of the computer and the motherboard. I thought the mobo was fried, but apparently it was not! I was also trying to load from system CDs but the drive only spins the disks.

Anyway, I accidentally dropped the keyboard and while trying to catch it I somehow brushed the ESC key. This brings me the “grub rescue prompt” (Found out later that “Exit without saving changes” in BIOS takes me to the same prompt).


error: no such device......
grub rescue>



grub rescue> ls
(hd0) (hd0,msdos1) (hd1) (hd1, msdos17)
etc.



grub rescue>set prefix=(hd1,7)/boot/grub
grub rescue>set root=(hd1,7)
grub rescue>insmod normal
grub rescue>normal

I then was able to boot into Ubuntu. After updating Ubuntu and reboot, I got the same BIOS setup screen staring at my face again!

Is there an easy way to have the system shows Grub menu every time I turn on the PC? I don’t want to type the above commands every time, partly because Windows, Suse and Ubuntu’s, etc. have different numbering systems for hard disks and partitions.

I would very much appreciate your help.

:frowning:

#2

Are you saying you installed grub from Ubuntu?
That would be, boot to Ubuntu
sudo update-grub
sudo grub-install /dev/sda

#3

Hello caf4926,

I did think about (re-)installing Grub into Ubuntu, but I am reluctant because of my being not familiar with Grub2. I would rather use Grub(0.999!) in openSUSE! In other words, whenever I turn on the PC, a nice green Grub menu should appear, with Suse as the first item on the menu! Yum! Yum!

Cheers!

#4

This is an option
Re-Install Grub Quickly with Parted Magic - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

But in the first instance** I’d** try the Ubuntu route

#5

On 2012-03-12 06:46, taytong888 wrote:

> I then was able to boot into Ubuntu. After updating Ubuntu and reboot,
> I got the same BIOS setup screen staring at my face again!

You have somehow a corrupted BIOS, nothing we do in grub will solve it.

Perhaps if you tell your bios to change to default settings it would do. If
not, remove the board battery for some time and replace. Check the battery
with a voltmeter, maybe it is bad.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#6

If the power outage was the cause of bios setup screen appearing when you turn on the pc.
It could be the cmos battery needs to be replaced.

You can check this by setting your time in the bios to the current year/month/day/time
and save it and try to reboot your system. If it boot your operating system then the cmos battery
is discharged already.

#7

Hello,

I did change the CMOS battery and flashed BIOS to the latest version, but the problems remain:

  1. Same old BIOS Setup Screen
  2. CD/DVD drive no longer works
  3. Cannot load Windows either via DVD drive or indirectly via grub rescue prompt which leads to a Grub menu on Kubuntu

The store that I bought the motherboard several years ago has gone out of business, and the manufacturer ECS doesn’t really help.

Is there a way I can copy important files from Windows partition and move them to a Linux partition? I can still use Linux on this machine via grub rescue commands.

Thanks in advance for your help.

#8

I wouldn’t try to fix the operating system(s) before making sure the mainboard is OK. Seems more reasonable to try to boot Linux with another mainboard. Windows will be more tricky when you change the mainboard … because of activation and other Windows kind of stuff.

#9

Pull the HD and place it in another Linux Box
You can backup all you want easily then

#10

If I replace the ECS board with a different & better one, will I need to re-install Windows from scratch or just a repair install be sufficent?

#11

There are a whole lot of things that could have happened to cause this but none of them are related to the software on your disk(s). Therefore any changes you make to your software (OSs etc.) will only make the eventual resolution of your issues much more difficult. You must first ID the piece of hardware and/or BIOS that got damaged by your “electrical problems”. Based on what you’ve tried so far I suspect the BIOS isn’t the primary issue. It’s most likely some other component on the motherboard (HDD controller maybe).

Based on the fact that you’re using an old system I speculate that your budget may be tight so I offer this suggestion:

If I were in your place I’d think of doing a search on line for a vendor who still has the same motherboard in stock. There are lots and lots of folks with unsold inventory of old models on their back shelves and they’re usually willing to sell them real cheap just to clear the space. I’ve bought dozens of “obsolete” boards to repair this sort of problem. They can be hard to find but it’s worth the effort.

A new Motherboard would be nice. But… you need to see if your old HDD is IDE. If so some new motherboards are SATA only making your data recovery and eventual return to function much more complicated.

BTW: try changing out the HDD data cable… long shot but any easy test.

#12

one more thought:

Try disconnecting and reconnecting all the data cables in your PC then remove and reinstall the RAM modules and any add on cards… It’s another long shot but I’ve seen it solve this sort of issue right after “electrical problems”. I’m not sure why it sometimes helps but it’s cheap and easy and worth trying .

#13

Hello everyone,

I can now boot into the Grub menu, openSuse 12.1 and other Linuxes. How? Exiting BIOS setup screen without saving. The DVD drive and printer work again. After I did a repair installation of Windows, the recovered Windows is an evaluation copy of Win 7 Ultimate Build 7100 which I totally forgot about, rather than Win 7 Home Premium which I paid for. I cannot boot into Win & Home Premium (hd0,0) as before.

First, the following is /boot/grub/menu.lst:


# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat Mar 17 19:38:42 EDT 2012
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# For the new kernel it try to figure out old parameters. In case we are not able to recognize it (e.g. change of flavor or strange install order ) it it use as fallback installation parameters from /etc/sysconfig/bootloader

default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,4)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 12.1 - 3.1.9-1.4 (/dev/sda5)
    root (hd0,4)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.1.9-1.4-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250824AS_5ND36152-part5 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250824AS_5ND36152-part9 splash=silent quiet showopts nomodeset vga=0x317
    initrd /boot/initrd-3.1.9-1.4-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 12.1 - 3.1.9-1.4
    root (hd0,4)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.1.9-1.4-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250824AS_5ND36152-part5 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe vga=0x317
    initrd /boot/initrd-3.1.9-1.4-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Linux other 1 (/dev/sdb7)###
title Ubuntu 12.04 GNOME 64 (/dev/sdb7)
    rootnoverify (hd0,6)
    chainloader +1

###Add Kubuntu 11.10
title Kubuntu 12.04 KDE 64 Desktop (/dev/sdb16) via chainloading
    rootnoverify (hd0)
    kernel (hd0,15)/boot/grub/core.img

###Add Linux Mint 12
title Linux Mint 12 (Lisa) GNOME 64 Desktop (/dev/sdb14) via chainloading
    rootnoverify (hd0)
    kernel (hd0,13)/boot/grub/core.img

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name:  Fedora (2.6.41.1-1.fc15.x86_64) (/dev/sdb10)###
title Fedora 16 KDE 64 Desktop (/dev/sdb10)
    root (hd0,9)
    kernel /boot/grub2/core.img

###Add Fedora 16 GNOME 64 bit
title Fedora 16 GNOME 64 Desktop (/dev/sdb12)
    root (hd0,11)
    kernel /boot/grub2/core.img

####Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
title Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
    rootnoverify (hd0,0)
    chainloader +1

Secondly, the following is the output of fdisk -l:



Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7b92de40

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

(NOTE: sda1 is the 100 Mb system reserved partition of Win 7 Home Premium.  Don't know how Windows placed it in the 320GB disk, ie. rather than the original C: drive (250 GB) of Win 7 Home Premium).

/dev/sda2          206848   157695999    78744576    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

(NOTE: sda2 is shown as the recovered "evaluation copy" of Windows 7 Ultimate Build 7100.  I don't want this and besides Microsoft says this is not genuine Windows, blah blah blah).

/dev/sda3   *   157698046   373526527   107914241    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       160157532   184844159    12343314   83  Linux

(NOTE: When I installed openSUSE I placed GRUB loader in MBR and its own root partition /dev/sda5)

/dev/sda6       184844288   206225407    10690560   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       206226468   225408014     9590773+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8       225408078   234356219     4474071   83  Linux
/dev/sda9       157698048   160155647     1228800   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda10      234356283   251626094     8634906   83  Linux
/dev/sda11      251626158   257778989     3076416   83  Linux
/dev/sda12      257779053   276221609     9221278+  83  Linux
/dev/sda13      276221673   285989129     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda14      285989193   304206839     9108823+  83  Linux
/dev/sda15      304206903   313781579     4787338+  83  Linux
/dev/sda16      313781643   332641889     9430123+  83  Linux
/dev/sda17      332641953   350088479     8723263+  83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000180c7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63   625137344   312568641    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

(NOTE: sdb1 is Windows 7 Home Premium (formerly drive C:), which I want.

Now when I boot from the Grub menu into Windows 7, I can only boot into the recovered Windows 7 Ultimate evaluation copy (now drive C:). My Computer in Windows shows drive C as Recovered Windows 7 ultimate and drive E as Win 7 Home Premium.

How do I sort this mess out? Thanks a lot for your help.

#14

On 2012-03-18 01:26, taytong888 wrote:
>
> Now when I boot from the Grub menu into Windows 7, I can only boot into
> the recovered Windows 7 Ultimate evaluation copy (now drive C:). My
> Computer in Windows shows drive C as Recovered Windows 7 ultimate and
> drive E as Win 7 Home Premium.

You need a grub entry to boot that other copy of windows. You have:


>   ####Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
>   title Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
>   rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>   chainloader +1

Add another one for (hd1,0)

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#15

Hi carlos,

Using the same boot stanza but with (hd1,0), the screen shows:


rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

Blinking cursor

However, if I use


rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

then I got:

BOOTMGR is missing. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart (Nothing happens!)

Since Windows 7 looks for the System Reserved Partition but cannot find it, I believe the boot sector of Win 7 is corrupted.

#16

On 2012-03-18 02:36, taytong888 wrote:
>
> Hi carlos,
>
> Using the same boot stanza but with (hd1,0), the screen shows:
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> rootnoverify (hd1,0)
> chainloader +1
>
> Blinking cursor
>
> --------------------

This is the one you have to repair.

> However, if I use
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> rootnoverify (hd0,1)
> chainloader +1
>
> --------------------
>
>
> then I got:
>>
>> BOOTMGR is missing. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart (Nothing happens!)

This one you have to forget. It is the wrong partition. You are booting
sda2 here, which is not bootable, you have to boot sda1 which in turn loads
sda2, which you know is the wrong windows version. So forget it, format it
over, whatever you want.

> Since Windows 7 looks for the System Reserved Partition but cannot find
> it, I believe the boot sector of Win 7 is corrupted.

That boot partition can not be on a different disk. If I’m mistaken and it
it can, you have overwritten it with your repair of ultimate, it is
probably destroyed.

I would recover whatever files I could from that windows partition and
install it again. You may try repair tools as easybcdedit, perhaps.

I told you that you had a problem in the bios, leave grub alone. You
insisted on doing things to your disks and operating systems in there, and
now they are finally broken.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#17

Carlos,

Grub is still fine as I am writing this reply from openSUSE. Only Windows side is broken for the moment but hopefully I will find a solution. Thank you for your time.

#18

How do I sort this mess out? Thanks a lot for your help.

I don’t know how you live with this.

Assuming you have a backup. Format the HD and install only openSUSE 12.1 in 3 partitions
swap
/
/home

Now tell us what things are like, what is not working etc…
From here we can establish reliable info

#19

Forget that. I just see you placed notes in the code.

It sounds like sdb needs it’s MBR and boot code fixing
Plug this HD in alone
And repair the bootmgr etc…

Win7 Boot repair:
Boot off the windows 7 installation DVD
Proceed to the screen “Windows 7 / Install Now” BUT DO NOT click to install
Select to “Repair your computer”
Select/put the radio button/dot next to “Use recovery tools that can help fix problems” → Next
Select “command prompt”
enter this command: Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
enter this command: Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
enter this command: exit
Click to Restart

Put your HD’s back in the correct order (as they were)
(They will have changed as a result of your pulling one to fix sdb)
Now try

#20

Hello caf4926,

I left only the sdb disk (320GB) plugged in and rebooted with the Win 7 Installation DVD. Here’s the error message:

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

  1. insert your windows installation cd and restart the computer
  2. choose your language settings and click next
  3. click repair your computer

0xC0000225: unspecified error