On 1 Dec 2009 at 23:19, Kris Douglas wrote:
>
> Hello everyone, I'm struggling with an installation of Ubuntu Karmic
> on my netbook.
>
> After an update, I switched my machine off and left it till the
> morning, when I went to boot it up, it sat on "loading grub.." for a
> while, and then proceeded to display "error: biosdisk read error" and
> then return me to a grub rescue> CLI.
>
> "Ok" I thought, and I went to try some of the recovery commands, which
> didn't actually work, as in, "not found", other than SET and LS. This
> is screwing me over quite a bit, because disasembling the machine in
> order to get the drive out it a pain, and I need it for work on a
> daily basis, ideally I would like to get my files off there.
Grub2 has caused problems - it searches all partitions before booting-
and therefore there is often quite a delay. - but yours sounds more serious.
I've reverted to the original Grub.
If you can boot your netbook to a command line you might be able to boot
up manually Ubuntu manually:-
Type:- *find /etc/fstab*
response should be something like - (hd0,2)
which will be the partition containing Ubuntu
Type : *kernel /boot/vm* then hit the tab key this will then complete
to something like : /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic or it will give
you some options to select from until you have generic as the last word
when you have /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic add a space and add
*root=/dev/sda3 ro *so you will now have
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=/dev/sda3 ro
*sda *assumes a SATA drive if yours* *is PATA then you should use*
*root=/dev/*h*da3 ro
(note if etc/fstab returns (hd0,2) root is on /dev/sda3)
Once you have that line press return
Now Type *initrd /boot/ini *then hit the tab key this will then
complete to something like :
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
Press return
Type *boot
*Press return
Hopefully you will be into Ubuntu
-BUT GRUB2 numbers the partitions differently from the original GRUB:
-starting from 1 not 0
so if you get an error message repeat above BUT use same number for
root as returned by etc/fstab ie :-
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=/dev/sda*2* ro in example
IF that gets you into Ubuntu I suggest you install GRUB 0.97
sudo aptitude install grub - or better via synaptic.
Then from terminal run:
sudo update-grub
and
sudo grub-install hd0
This may work!!!
Jack
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