Grub> after LEAP42 install

Hi everyone,
Just installed LEAP42, no errors apparently.
However at boot, there is no graphical interface, only this message “grub>” ?
What should I do now ?

There’s too little information.

You need to boot a live system or boot the installer into rescue mode.

From there, you need to investigate.


During install, were there any problems reported when installing the bootloader?
Is this a UEFI system or a Legacy BIOS system?

How was booting install: boot from “/boot”, or boot from “/”, or boot from the extended partition, or boot from the MBR?

Just a guess at this point, but my first instinct would be that you need to set the boot flag on your HD to your root partition.

Do you have a utility boot cd/dvd, such as Hiren’s boot cd, PartedMagic, or the Ultimate Boot CD?

If so, launch the partitioner from it and check the location of your boot flag. Move it if necessary. Note that there can be only one boot flag, so if you see two, remove the other.

If you do not have one of those boot utilities, post back here and I will give you further instructions.

Did you use USB stick or DVD to install Leap?

Thanks for your answers

  • I used DVD to install LEAP
  • The boot system is UEFI (I think)
  • I have now Hirens and Ultimate boot CD but am clueless as to what to do with them

I’m not familiar with Hirens.

You can boot Ultimate Boot CD (or UBCD). Select “Parted Magic”. That should get you into a linux system for looking around. Then open a terminal (should be an obvious icon in the panel near bottom of the screen, if I remember correctly).

Then try

fdisk -l

to get a list of your partitions.
Possibly, “fdisk” will complain that this is a GPT partitioned disk. If that happens, use

parted -l

to get a list of your partitions.

You should be able to save the output to a USB flash drive, for later posting here. It will help if we can see the output from either of those commands.

If you are able to identify and EFI partition (the “parted -l” output might help here), try mounting it. Then, in that partition, look for a directory “/EFI/opensuse” (that path is relative to the mount point). Maybe list what’s in that directory and the file dates, if you find the directory. That will tell us if you are using UEFI.

Here’s the output of parted -l


Model: ATA HGST HTS721010A9 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name                          Flags
 1      1049kB  106MB   105MB   fat32           EFI system partition          boot
 2      106MB   1050MB  944MB   ntfs            Basic data partition          hidden, diag
 3      1050MB  1184MB  134MB                   Microsoft reserved partition  msftres
 4      1184MB  204GB   203GB   ntfs            Basic data partition
 5      204GB   362GB   157GB   ntfs            Basic data partition
 7      362GB   364GB   2162MB  linux-swap(v1)  primary
 8      364GB   407GB   43,0GB                  primary
 9      407GB   979GB   572GB   xfs             primary
 6      979GB   1000GB  21,5GB  ntfs            Basic data partition          hidden, diag

Using the rescue system, I identified my linux partitions as sda8 and sda9

Okay.

With the rescue system, what’s the output from:

efibootmgr -v

Can you then try:


mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
ls -l /mnt/EFI/opensuse

Here it is


efibootmgr -v
Fatal: Couldn't open either sysfs or procfs directories for accessing EFI variables

then


mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

returns something like


Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.

and finally


ls -l /mnt/EFI/opensuse

returns the following list:


MokManager.efi
boot.csv
grub.cfg
grub.efi
grubx64.efi
shim.efi

If it’s hopeless, maybe I should reformat the partition and try to reinstall from scratch ?
My data’s saved, so it’s ok

That just means that you booted into rescue mode with legacy BIOS booting instead of UEFI booting.

I’m currently suspecting that confusion between legacy booting and UEFI booting might be the entire problem.

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

returns something like

Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.

If you have Windows on your system, then I recommend CHKDSK in Windows.

To do this, you probably have to first go into Windows Computer Management (from Control Panel), and open the disk management application. Then assign a disk letter (such as “X:”) to the EFI partition (first partition on the disk). The run

CHKDSK X: /F

but using the disk letter that you assigned (where I put “X:”).

ls -l /mnt/EFI/opensuse

returns the following list:

MokManager.efi
boot.csv
grub.cfg
grub.efi
grubx64.efi
shim.efi

with the “-l” option, I was expecting time stamps. But never mind. I was wanting to know if those files have a recent date (the date of your install) or are much older. If they have a recent date, then you installed for UEFI booting. If they are much older, then they are left-over from a previous install.

If it’s hopeless, maybe I should reformat the partition and try to reinstall from scratch ?
My data’s saved, so it’s ok

That’s your choice.

I think you installed one way (UEFI or legacy BIOS – I’m not sure which), but you are trying to boot the other way. Reinstalling will only help if you can work out how to keep everything the same way.

Maybe reboot the rescue system, and mount “/dev/sda1” as before. Then look at “/mnt/EFI”. If there is a directory there named “Microsoft”, then Windows is installed in UEFI mode. Check the time stamp of “/mnt/EFI/opensuse” files. If they are from the time of your install, then your opensuse is also in UEFI mode and you are booting it wrongly. If those files are older, then you installed in legacy mode but are trying to boot in UEFI mode.

Best is to have Windows and opensuse using the same mode. If Windows is using UEFI mode, then make sure that opensuse is in UEFI mode. Maybe you need to look at BIOS settings to see if there’s a way to force booting the installer in UEFI mode. If there’s an option to disable CSM, try that (CSM = compatibility support module).

If I have confused you, feel free to ask appropriate questions.

Well, just reverted back to 13.2 with success.
Thanks for trying to help.