[Sussex] grub problem - post kernel upgrade

[John D.]

John D. wrote:

> Ronan Chilvers wrote:
>
>> Hi John
>>
>> On Mon, 14 Nov 2005 14:01:52 +0000
>> "John D." <john at johnsemail.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>  
>>
>>> John D. wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Ok so I've managed to get back into the system to try to correct my 
>>> problem. I can boot it etc etc, but only by putting the info 
>>> manually into grub as it's still dropping me into the grub> prompt.
>>>
>>> I've done the usual n00b approach, unmerged grub and then re-emerged
>>> it, but this hasn't made any difference. Plus I'm also trying to
>>> re-run the genkernel too see what it comes up with.
>>>
>>> Any further advice/suggestions please ???
>>>   
>>
>>
>> If you can get into the system by bashing in the kernel boot parameters
>> at the grub prompt then all you need to do is duplicate that
>> information into grub.conf.  Can you not boot up, su to root and then
>> just edit the grub.conf file (which is probably a symlink
>> to /boot/grub/menu.lst)?
>>
>> Well done for getting it to boot though!
>>
> Well I seem to have completed things as far as I can i.e. I've managed 
> to get into it all the way as far as completing the kernel upgrade - a 
> small anomally seems to have been that this time the "genkernel" 
> compile (I use the flags/arguements or whatever you'd call them so 
> that normally it modifies the grub.conf as well) produced an empty 
> grub.conf, but there was also a file called grub.conf~ I'm not sure 
> where or why the ~ appeared but I renamed/overwrote the grub.conf file 
> with it - that appears to be OK.
>
> The only issue remaining is that when I reboot the system, I still end 
> up at the grub> prompt rather than grub firing up and offering the 
> various (well, the only) version(s) for me too boot.
>
> Thats stumped the hell out of me - I've been trying to get my head 
> round the grub manual, the grub faq's, etc etc and not making any 
> progress - I'm guessing that theres something that it just isn't 
> finding, but I've got no way of confirming that.
>
> Hence any ideas or suggestions are still (as ever) greatly appreciated 
> - I still don't follow why this has happened, because I've upgraded 
> the kernel about 3 or 4 times since I re-installed the gentoo without 
> any problems???
>
Solved (I think). Tried to do some stuff on a hit or miss basis (most of 
which I'd tried before). The thing that seems to have worked was 
/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda (which I'd already tried on 4 or 5 
occassions). So I don't know why it's worked, just that it seems to have.

Thanks for those who suggested ideas etc always very much appreciated.

regards

John D.