Linux server boot issue

0

I managed to mess the grub menu earlier and tried to fix the situation.

Unfortunately I'm really out of ideas now. I get errors trying to run dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc and grub-install. grub-setup claims there is none of GPT partitions have a BIOS boot partition and that embedding is not possible.

/boot does have the boot flag on. I have tried to set the bios boot partition flag as well, but I'm uncertain where I'm supposed to put it. Setting it didn't do anything useful.

I have a three-disk system where 32 gigabytes at the start of each disk is reserved for /boot, /home, /, /var, /tmp and swap (/home is one 32GB partition, others are smaller). Rest of the disks are on RAID5.

I have tried all sorts and this is where I'm now and all I know to do would be to reinstall the system. I can't find anything useful by googling and I spent most of Saturday on this. So I would appreciate some pointers on what I could still try or if I should just give up and reinstall.

P.S. Now I know what I should have done instead of running any rescue applications: Download 64-bit Ubuntu image, boot, mount root and boot && bind /var, /tmp, /sys and /proc, chroot && edit the menu && update-grub.

But that's too late now. Next time I'm wiser.

Here's the output from fdisk -l:

root@ubuntu:/# fdisk -l

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 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: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1  3907029167  1953514583+  ee  GPT

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 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: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1  3907029167  1953514583+  ee  GPT

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdc'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdc: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 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: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1  3907029167  1953514583+  ee  GPT

And here's parted:

parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WD20EARS-00M (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      17.4kB  32.0GB  32.0GB                     bios_grub
 2      32.0GB  2000GB  1968GB                     raid


Model: ATA WDC WD20EARS-00M (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags
 1      17.4kB  8000MB  8000MB  linux-swap(v1)
 2      8000MB  16.0GB  8000MB  ext3
 3      16.0GB  32.0GB  16.0GB  ext3
 4      32.0GB  2000GB  1968GB                        raid


Model: ATA WDC WD20EARS-00M (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      17.4kB  200MB   200MB   ext3               boot
 2      200MB   32.0GB  31.8GB  ext3
 3      32.0GB  2000GB  1968GB                     raid

bios_grub flag was added by me, it didn't exist before that (or it was wiped out by the rescue application).

linux
ubuntu
boot
grub2
asked on Super User Jan 7, 2013 by Marko Poutiainen • edited Jan 8, 2013 by Marko Poutiainen

1 Answer

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I accidently overwrote a boot device once mistaking it for a different device, although I did recover the bootable partition, either GRUB or the drive's MBR got incinerated. I managed to fix this by doing (based on a tutorial):

###First, mount the bootable partition somewhere, like /mnt
mount /dev/your-boot-device (maybe /dev/sda1) /mnt
###Next, mount a required system directory under it.
mount /dev /mnt/dev --bind
###You will probably need to chroot into the mounted boot device
chroot /mnt

###Finally, install GRUB again grub-install --boot-directory=/boot /dev/your-boot-device ###Unmount /dev (if you chrooted) umount /dev ##That should be it. It's been too long since I followed
that tutorial so this answer might be a bit rusty.
Let me know if so.

running from a Live CD as administrator. I hope this helps (or at least gets you close).

answered on Super User Jul 12, 2018 by Shadowcoder • edited Jul 13, 2018 by Scott

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