Request help fixing grub

English Install/Boot/Login
1

openSuse v13.1, KDE, 86_x64.
Previously I tried to upgrade my system to v13.2 and it failed. After 2 days with much help here I gave up on it and restored to v13.1. The restore didn’t exactly go well. Grub fails.

I am able to boot to my v13.1 by using Super-grub boot disk and I select “Detect any grub2 installation”. It finds only one, “(HD0,MSDOS6)/boot/grub2/i386-pc/core.img”. Selecting that and then my choices are several prior v13.1 kernels. If I select the newest, 13.11.10-25, it gives errors regarding temp directories being full and offers me a login screen (My system is set to auto-login).

If I choose kernel 13.11.10-25 recovery mode, it works perfectly, I haven’t tried every app but it appears to be fully functional, except for grub. I do not have any other OS on this computer, except I think there may be a Dell recovery partition.

I started yast/2 and rewrote the boot loader but it still doesn’t work. According to Super-Grub, my loader is in the MSDOS6 partition, which is sda2. This matches fdisk.

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 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 label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xf44763df

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63       80324       40131   16  Hidden FAT16
/dev/sda2   *       81920  1953523711   976720896    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           83968    16883711     8399872   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6        16885760    58830847    20972544   83  Linux
/dev/sda7        58832896  1953503231   947335168   83  Linux

and in case it helps, df:

# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6       20510716  11945100   7500608  62% /
devtmpfs         4062152        40   4062112   1% /dev
tmpfs            4075928       432   4075496   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs            4075928      1036   4074892   1% /run
tmpfs            4075928         0   4075928   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs            4075928      1036   4074892   1% /var/lock
tmpfs            4075928      1036   4074892   1% /var/run
/dev/sda7      932338920 265791472 665583732  29% /home

My config boot loader settings in yast2 show Grub2 & Boot from extended partition. /dev/sda is greyed out but if I toggle custom boot partition then I can specify another dev, like sda2. I tried that but it didn’t fix my problem.

I don’t know why I can boot in recovery mode but not normal mode and of course, why grub fails.
I’m not sure what to try next, I will double check my backup to see if all the files were properly copied to /boot/grub & /boot/grub2. I also just noticed there there is a backup_mbr dated about the time I got this computer but since super-grub finds grub2 in sda2 I have not tried to write it to the MBR. And doing so will probably blow away the Dell Recovery partition, if there is indeed one (sda1?)

Thanks, Jon

2

I am only guessing here.

On why you cannot boot the latest kernel – my guess is that there is a problem in the “initrd” for that kernel. When you are booted into the system (via supergrub), you could try “mkinitrd” as root to rebuild the “initrd” files. Or check the man pages for “mkinitrd” and rebuild only for that kernel if you want to play it extra safe. You can be running a different kernel when using “mkinitrd”.

On the problems with 13.2, again I am only guessing. If you want to keep the current partitioning, then 13.2 should be fine as long as you use “ext4” for the root file system. You might run into problems with “btrfs”. In particular, installing “grub” in the MBR will be a problem because the first partition begins at sector 63. Grub in the MBR wants to use the space before the first partition, and 63 sectors is not enough.

Sorry, I didn’t look at your earlier thread on 13.1 → 13.2.

3

If you boot in to openSUSE. Do so and make sure it’s all updated.

To be sure with grub. I do

su -
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

grub2-install /dev/sda
4

Caf:

Beautiful, Thanks. I’m finally back to v13.1 and will give it a rest before tackling v13.2 again.

Jon

5

13.1 is great
Enjoy

6

Consider doing a full new install not an upgrade. Also consider redoing partitioning and have 2 root partition to easy change of versions.

7

:slight_smile: Everytime I get a computer I opt NOT to get the largest possible drive. Who needs all that space? Ummmm, I guess I need a larger drive.

jon

8

Well you need 2 roots so that is say 25 gig each (say 40 each if you go BTRFS). For today’s drives that is not all that much. Hard to find them less then a TB any more.