"Error 15: File not found" on login

zulu434 · April 30, 2010, 2:58pm

Hi,

Firstly, I realise this was posted previously and resolved, but my problem differs slightly.

Essentially I ran a full package upgrade and then a distribution upgrade yesterday on a Suse 10 system to bring it up to date. I think it worked out fine, except the boot loader (Grub) reports error 15: file not found on attempted boot.

In the other example, the boot loader was configured to look for the now non-existent kernel and i imagine mine is doing the same: the last example was fixed with a live disc that i dont have any more, and i cant make one because i dont have access to a dvd burner.

My question is this: how do I find what version of the kernel I’m using, and how do I configure the Grub boot loader so it’ll work as desired? I’ve been trying every possible option for hours and hours and I really can’t afford to lose my information on there.

Ta,
zulu434

hcvv · April 30, 2010, 4:33pm

I suppose you mean: “Error 15: File not found” on boot, because you say it comes from GRUB. That means you can not boot and are thus still far away from login.

Hm, “a Suse 10 system” is not very precise. Was it an openSUSE 10.x system (and when yes what was x) or a SLES/SLED 10?

Where did you update/upgrade to? Upgrading from one openSUSE level to another is only supported from level 11.1 or 11.2 on (I am not sure), but certainly not from 10.x. So anything could have gone wrong here.

Normaly you find which kernel you have with

uname -r

but as you can not boot that is only academic now.

My advice would be to save the personal data from your users (the contents of /home and any other), make also a copy of the contents of /etc (allways practical when asking oneself: how was this configurated before?) and do a fresh install with 11.2 (keeping /home untouched when you have it on a separate partition). But this advice is bases on a lot of guesses as you do not tell very much.

knurpht · April 30, 2010, 4:44pm

You ran a distribution upgrade on a 10.x openSUSE ? What do you mean by that? Changed the repos to 11.2 ones? A full guarantee for trouble like you have now. I bet this is not the only problem.

IMHO there’s only one way to get your system up to retrieve the contents of /home (is this a separate partition ?), and that is by downloading a LiveCD at a neighbour or friend, burn the image to a disk and boot from it. If needed we can guide you from there.

zulu434 · April 30, 2010, 4:56pm

Sorry for being vague: it doesn’t matter anyway now as I found a Debian live-disk and figured I may as well do a long-overdue wipe-and-reinstall. Means I’m stuck with a .deb based file server but…still use Suse on my laptop.

Thanks for your help anyway!

DenverD · April 30, 2010, 5:01pm

zulu434 wrote:
> Essentially I ran a full package upgrade and then a distribution
> upgrade yesterday on a Suse 10 system to bring it up to date. I think it
> worked out fine, except the boot loader (Grub) reports error 15: file
> not found on attempted boot.

pickle!

first, i wonder what level you brought your “Suse 10” up to, and how
you attempted that?

i wonder, because the only supported way to move from “Suse 10” to
openSUSE 11.2 is to do a new format and install and then copy your
data/etc over from a backup…see “Starting with openSUSE 11.2, a live
upgrade from the prior version of openSUSE 11.1 is officially
supported. This allows one to perform a complete operating system
update in place, without reloading everything from scratch.” cite:
http://en.opensuse.org/Upgrade

second, i wonder what you mean by “ran a full package upgrade and then
a distribution upgrade”??

> In the other example, the boot loader was configured to look for the
> now non-existent kernel and i imagine mine is doing the same: the last
> example was fixed with a live disc that i dont have any more, and i cant
> make one because i dont have access to a dvd burner.

hmmmmm…i doubt the old “Suse 10” could be used to repair GRUB and i
wonder just how you tried to perform this “full package upgrade”

did you (maybe) use zypper to lay openSUSE 11.2 over a running “Suse
10” (if so, i think you are in the pickle barrel)?

or, did you boot from an 11.2 disk…which you no longer have?

it might be possible to learn what you have installed by using any
of these in a terminal:


cat /etc/SuSE-release
lsb_release -sd |cut -f2 -d ""\"
cat /etc/issue

however, if you didn’t format there is absolutely NO way (i know of)
to know what might still be left over from your “Suse 10”

My question is this: how do I find what version of the kernel I’m
using,

as far as i know if you are not able to boot you are not using any kernel!

on the other hand, unless you have done something fancy i’d expect all
kernels available to your system to live in /boot

on mine, just now i use in a terminal:


$ls /boot | grep vm

and then see two kernels installed:

vmlinuz-2.6.22.19-0.4-bigsmp
vmlinuz-2.6.22.19-0.4-default

on my system i can use either of those…i don’t know what you have
available or what you can use…(and that goes for your system from
bottom to top [after an unsupported “full package upgrade and then a
distribution upgrade”])

> and how do I configure the Grub boot loader so it’ll work as
> desired?

i believe there are numerous examples around here (somewhere) [man
grub and info grub should supply most of what you need for the grub
version you have installed], but none of them will work for you until
you find a kernel you can point to…

> I’ve been trying every possible option for hours and hours and
> I really can’t afford to lose my information on there.

you have a good back up already, right???

if you don’t i’d highly recommend you make that you next order of
business…before you try anything else for hours and hours…

THEN, once you have all your data safe: you can either do a
format/install, then configure as required or…well, you are kinda
on your own unless someone here has a MUCH better crystal ball than i do…

DenverD · April 30, 2010, 5:15pm

zulu434 wrote:
> Means I’m stuck with a .deb based file server

well, you could do a LOT worse…