Hello all, need some help. I had a working x64 13.2. I ran the online update this week. After the reboot, grub is lost. Made no other changes, need some help.
GRUB loading.
Welcome to GRUB!
error: failure reading sector 0x403988 from ‘hd0’ .
Entering rescue mode . . .
grub rescue>
general rant
“I’ve been using SuSE since 6.4 and this is the worst release I have ever seen.”
Still a suse fan, waiting for a cleaner, less buggy release . . .
Sounds like a possible hard drive failure. maybe run smartctrl from a live Linux disk/USB
any recommendations of where to get that? If I understand right that would be downloaded from the suse site?
thanks
That was my first reaction.
But then another possibility occurred to me. If grub is using a block list, it might be getting a bad block number that doesn’t actually exist on the drive.
Maybe it is a good idea to boot live media and check for disk errors. And possibly, a recovery re-install of grub might be needed.
It is already past blocklists at this point. The error comes straight from HDD driver. As we do not know which one (BIOS or EFI), hard to guess. Number is slightly over 2GiB. I remember it was one of magic BIOS limits but I would not really expect to see such BIOS today.
I was able to get in with Parted Magic 2.6.36.2.
Ran fdisk -l, below is the results.
root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 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: 0xad69ad69
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 4209029 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 4209030 109065283 52428127 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 109066240 172007423 31470592 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 172007955 312576704 70284375 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 172008018 312576704 70284343+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 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: 0x00099f7d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 312580095 156289024 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdc: 15.4 GB, 15377080320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1869 cylinders, total 30033360 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: 0x00037716
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 30009419 15004678+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdd: 6448 MB, 6448619520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 784 cylinders, total 12594960 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: 0xc5307e80
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 63 12578894 6289416 b W95 FAT32
Disk /dev/sde: 7872 MB, 7872184320 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7507 cylinders, total 15375360 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: 0x10ce3e4f
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 3584 11647 4032 ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
/dev/sde2 * 11648 9138175 4563264 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sde3 9138176 15374335 3118080 83 Linux
It matches what I have as a screenshot from when it was partitioned at installation. I can post that image if anyone needs it. (where was that site to post images?) Does that mean the hard drives are still good?
I am downloading 13.2 to burn to a disc. If I can open that live, it should allow me to dig through my data. Is that a valid assumption? As long as it is not a brick.
Is there a possibility the crash is only grub? If so will reinstalling grub from a live disc work? Or is there a better way? Are there any text line commands that could check or fix this?
thanks for the help
No that does not mean the drives are good only that the partition table is intact. You must run smartctrl to test the drive. If it is a bad sector then the drive is on it way to drive heaven since the drive will replace bad sectors with spares if this does not happen it has run out of spares.
Thanks. I tried to run smartctrl in PartedMagic, but it did not recognize the command. I will give it a try from the Suse 13.2 live disc tonight.
Sorry miss typed
it is
smartctl
not
smartctrl
call would be
smartctl /dev/sdX
Where sdX is the reference to the device to test
I did something wrong making the usb live. Got the error “missing MBR helper”, or something like that.
I’ll try again.
Buying a new computer this weekend, will move hard drives to grab any data I can.
Built this one 12 years ago. It had a good run.
Additional evidence that openSuSE is the better choice.
It can even prolong the life of hardware. lol
Don’t use any USB boot helpers to make a USB live just binary copy file to the device (not a partition on the device. The ISO image provides the partitions)
Here are some details
https://en.opensuse.org/Live_USB_stick
Booted into rescue mode. Ran smartctl /dev/sda -a. Too much information scrolls down the screen. How do I get it to pause so that I can read the report?
Thanks.
smartctl /dev/sda -a | less
Thanks for your help.
When it enters that mode, how do I exit it to check another disk?
thanks
You can normaly abort a program by typing Crtl-C.
It was the grub4dos instructions that I was following.
Are you saying that if the iso is in the root folder it will read it and boot? Much easier than the instructions.
No.
He means that you should copy the ISO to the device directly. Something like:
dd if-file.iso of=/dev/sdX
Of course you should use the correct name for file.iso.
You should also use the correct device for .dev/sdX (take care: wrong device > data destroyed!).
And take note of the fact that you should use the device /dev/sdX and not a partition /dev/sdX1.
It also helps use to help you if we know what OS you use to create the USB. Instructions are different from Windows to Linux
On 2015-07-19 21:46, idee wrote:
>
> gogalthorp;2719951 Wrote:
>> smartctl /dev/sda -a | less
>
> When it enters that mode, how do I exit it to check another disk?
‘q’ (quit)
and ‘h’ for help.
It is a very old command, a decade or two old…
Or you can instead pipe the output of smartctl to a (text) file, and
upload it to susepaste.org so that we can interpret it for you.
You will need to run the short and long tests of smartctl, and then read
the results after the time it will tell you in the screen to wait.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))