[GLLUG] problem with grub

[James Courtier-Dutton]

>
> Hi
>
> I have done some further investigation and found some additional
> information.
>
> When I am being dropped out to the initramfs, I dont have enteries in
> /dev/disk/by-uuid for any of my lvm logical volumes.
>
> If I do a lvscan, they are all showing as inactive.
>
> A vgchange -a y activates them and populates the entries in
> /dev/disk/by-uuid.
>
> If I then exit the initramfs by typing exit, it will boot to a login.  I can
> then login.  The / partition is mounted and I am able to mount the other
> partitions from lvm.
>
> If I then logout and back in, I have a mostly working system.  However I
> have to manually bring up the eth0.  Also as none of the init scripts seem
> to have run successfully some things dont work.
>
> Just wondering what might cause that.
>

I have come across this problem before.
It happens when grub does not install correctly,

What you sometimes see is the grub .mod files are corrupted.
All the .mod files should have the same date on them.
If there is a mix of dates, delete them all and reinstall grub.
A mix of dates means that you have a mix of modules from old grub
versions and they don't work correctly as they don't match the grub
version number.

Things to do:
1) install grub onto a USB stick and put a vmlinuz and initrd on it.
You can then use this to boot your current system by manually typing
the grub boot line.
After that you can then reinstall grub on the HDD.

2) Boot a live cd or install cd and use CTRL-ALT-F1 or CTRL-ALT-F2 to
get to a command prompt.
Then you can do "ls" commands and check out the /boot directory and
reinstall grub etc.

Kind Regards

James