Grub Rescue

[seekermeister]

When I attempt to boot to the drive containing Kubuntu 13.04, I get a black screen that only says Error: No such partition, Grub Rescue>. I attempted to boot from the disc that I installed Kubuntu with, but for some reason, only got the same black screen message.

The partitions are still visible in Windows Disk Management, so unless I do a clean installation, it appears that the only option for rescuing the current installation is by DOS commands. I have never dealt with that before, and have no idea of how to do it...does anyone?

 

[Ralph Bromley]

I did enjoy dinner thanks, and yeah I would just use gnome disk tool, it should install just a few packages and not install the whole gnome desktop.
a lot of people get thrown off when someone suggests an app that is mainly from another DE of linux (desktop environment) they think they have to install another whole linux distro just to use it.
Nah, its much better then that trust me.
And its possible there may be something wrong with your disk, I wont know until you do the check.
It may not be Kubuntu, but I have to rule everything out.
Usually when I see the issue you describe it usually deals with windows drive detection (I had a similar issue myself) so I had to eliminate that.
It could be your drive, how old is it?
I would not blame Kubuntu if the disk is old or something like that, wear and tear is a factor for any OS.

 

[seekermeister]

It's on the oldest drive I have (that is still working) ~9 years old. I suspect that since it still works at least to a degree, I will use it in my USB docking station, because I just use that as a convenient means of transferring data from my desktop to my old Think Center XP computer. If it fails there, there's not much to be lost.

EDIT: Plus, it doesn't need to be turned on during boot.

 

[seekermeister]

Hmm, I guess it's sore finger isn't sore enough, because I had Muon install it, but now I can't find it in the start menu...or whatever you call it. I looked through the various categories and also typed gnome disk utility in the search window, and all that it found was Firefox...for whatever reason that would be.

Since it is apparently installed, how do I run it?

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Its called "disk manager" in the menus.
And yeah 9 year old drive... it may be on its last legs.
And as for cloning Kubuntu, well there used to be remastersys but its development has stopped.
So until a suitable replacement can be found yeah sadly you will have to do all your Kubuntu related stuff again.
I mean you could try redobackup or clonezilla but I never really used them so i cannot say anything about them.
I used to use remastersys but like I said its a dead duck.
there is a newer tool for this here:
http://system-imaging.blogspot.nl/

but I am unsure if it will work on newer images.

 

[seekermeister]

Its called "disk manager" in the menus.
And yeah 9 year old drive... it may be on its last legs.

Thanks, I did see that before, but I thought it was just for partitoning. I tried to use the benchmark utility on the Kubuntu drive, but only got the error shown in the screenshot:

I'm beginning to think that the easiest thing to do would be to just disconnect the data cable on the drive and see if the BIOS still hangs on detection

And as for cloning Kubuntu, well there used to be remastersys but its development has stopped.
So until a suitable replacement can be found yeah sadly you will have to do all your Kubuntu related stuff again.
I mean you could try redobackup or clonezilla but I never really used them so i cannot say anything about them.
I used to use remastersys but like I said its a dead duck.
there is a newer tool for this here:
Black Lab Image Creator

but I am unsure if it will work on newer images.

I'm somewhat reluctant to try experimenting with any program or method that you don't use yourself, so if disconnecting the drive clears up drive detection on boot, I will just go the re-install route.

The smallest drive available for the new installation is 1TB, which is far too large for Linux. So I think I will just install it in a smaller partition at the front of the drive, and use the remaining space for other purposes with Windows. I know that Kubuntu doesn't require much space for a basic installation, but how large should a partition be for use with an LTS installation that is going to be around for a long time?

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Yeah disconnect the drive and try another one, as for installing on another drive well I too have a 1TB drive that I just run linux on.
I suggest looking up on partitioning disks, maybe dividing the drive into four pieces.
Kubuntu at its base doesnt need more then 10GB to run, but I would devote at least 20GB for its root partition that way you can do whatever you want and just keep it up to date.
Linux in general is not nearly as hoggy as windows, at the very least windows needs 20GB for a 64bit install base and with all the service packs, updates and the like.
Linux however I have seen take up about 10GB and thats iwith all the codecs and the like.
And often linux updates normally just overwrite the previous version, only some config files here and there might take up room plus there is the application cache in some systems. Kubuntu is based on Ubuntu which is in turn based on debian (the distro i am spotting in my logo as I am very pro debian these days) debian has a package cache that every so often needs to be cleaned to clean up room.
20GB should be plenty of room for a root partition but what to do with the rest of that room you may ask?
well you can learn how to create other partitions like a separate /home partition.
a separate /home partition could come in handy for any possible future reinstaslls and you can make this partition any size you want.
the only other partition you may want to factor in using is swap, swap is linuxes memory saving measure and helps on some systems.
its debatable if Swap is still viable in these days of cheap high RAM, its up to you in the end and there are arguments for and against a swap partition
the last partition you can devote to storage for windows, its really up to you on how much space and devotion you want to give linux.
But for early dual booters if you got a free drive why not let linux take the whole thing if its not a backup drive?
But again this is up to you, i can show you some stuff on partitioning
one tool I find very easy on partitioning is gparted, here is a nice tutorial on how to use it:


gparted can be found on most linux distros (though kubuntu uses kparted, its simular)
and is very easy to use

 

[seekermeister]

Currently, I have Windows 8.1 on one of the 1TBs , which I don't intend to keep, it is just there to experiment with. Typically, I make 200GB partitions for all of my Windows installation, which is a lot more than necessary, but I got tired of running out of space in older installations, and would prefer to waste a few GBs than having to resize anything.

Do you think that anyone would ever run out of space with 200GBs available for the various partitons on a Linux installation. Would it create any problems for the Linux installation to have other ntfs partitons following it on the same drive?

I finally got disk management to run both a benchmark and SMART data and self test, but I kind of wish I hadn't because it took a tediously long time for it to finish, and didn't tell me much of anything that HD Tune hadn't already. However, while looking at the functions available in disk management, I noticed that it had a create disk image and a recover disk image function. Do you know if I could use a basic image like that to recover it to a different drive. I know that I could do that with True Image in Windows, but have no idea of how this works in Linux. If it could work, would it have the ability to make the disk bootable?

 

[seekermeister]

Yup. I disconnected the Kubuntu drive and now everything boots normally. All that leaves is deciding on how to install it on the new drive?

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Yeah that goes to you there, 200GB plenty of room really for linux.
I mean you could just dedicate 20GB for root, 5 for swap, and the rest for your files in linux.
you can do whatever you wanted with that kind of space really unless you ran out of room.
But that would be more from you putting stuff into it then what linux would want to install plus any softwares you may wish to have.
I just suggested more space for home if you wanted to have some play room, such as space for any videos, music and documents you may want to run under linux

 

[seekermeister]

Your answer didn't quite hit the nail on the head, because I knew that 200GBs would be more than enough for the distro itself to use, but I'm not sure how much space to allow for possible future installations that I might make. I know that it would be impossible to give a precise answer, because it's not possible to know everything that I might do in the future, but I'm just wondering how likely it would be that 200GBs wouldn't be adequate over a period of years. I have plenty of additional space available which I could use, but at the same time, there is no point in reserving that space if it were totally unrealistic that it might ever be needed.

You have been using Linux for many years now, and I thought you might have a better feel than most at what might be expected. Of course, you may not go all that long of a time without changing things around, therefore not needing to think that far ahead.

EDIT: I'm not concerned about space for individual files in Linux, like music, videos, etc. like you mentioned, because I keep them in dedicated volumes of their own. That only leaves consideration for apps that might be added.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Well if you are not concerned about files in linux then a minimum of 50GB would be more then enough for it.
20gigs for your main system and 30gigs for any things you wish to have in it like room for downloads, some personal files and the like.
I just like play around space.
And no really I never had room issues in linux but then again I am a bit of a distro hopper these days.
But even when I wasnt 20gigs was more then enough room.
the biggest thing really in linux is the stuff you add in, the default install of Kubuntu is usually 4 gigs.
and considering how much you get makes you wonder why Windows needs so much room sometimes just for the base OS
and like i said even with updates linux in general wont need nearly as much as a windows install

 

[seekermeister]

Then I'm going to leave it at 200GBs, just to feel comfortable with it, that only leaves the question about the division of the space. I know that you have already mentioned that, but I'm thinking about times in the past when I was advised to create a lot more partitions for other directories other than just root, home and swap. I've never understood what the advantage or disadvantages one way or the other are. I can somewhat understand that the root directory wouldn't need a vast amount of space, but as for the other possibilties does it really matter. I mean with 200GBs - 20GBS for root leaves 180GBs for the rest. Wouldn't Home or any of the other directories just take whatever space that they needed, or is there some other reason that it would be good to separate them on different partitions...other than the swap file, which I know needs it's own space?

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Well having a separate root is a good idea just in case you need to re install the system so it wont touch your personal data in linux (such as any wallpapers you downloaded and or applications) or even try out other distros.
There is nothing wrong with allowing Kubuntu to use up 200GB, but that really is overkill for the root partition.
Thats why i suggested what i did, have 20 gigs for root and assign the rest to home to store files you may want.
Really I am not kidding that at most linux will not need more then 20GB of space, even 10 will do in a pinch.
I know some say you may want more partitions, some distros like adding another partition called boot so that GRUB wont overwrite your master boot record.
But if you have a windows disk laying around and dont want linux anymore then you can remove the linux boot that way too.
I personally just stick to three main partitions for linux, really you dont need more then that unless you wanted seperate space for say /opt or somthing (/opt= optional pretty self explanatory)
Some people I know go crazy and use up to five parttions, one for /var (variable data like system log files; packages and database files)
one for root
one for /tmp (temporary)
one for /home
one for swap
and one for /boot

but I limit to root, then /home, then /swap.

 

[seekermeister]

Okay, but those "crazy" people have any logical reason for dividing partitons for those other directories (other than Root, Home, Boot and Swap) or is it nothing more than a subjective decision?

EDIT: Thinking further about what you said about Boot, that would only be good if you were installing Linux on the same drive as with Windows...yes? Like I mentioned previously, I always install all OSs on their own drives with all other drives disconnected, so there is no cross dependency of one OS for another.

The fact that Kubuntu went ahead and created a boot menu including all my installations, after reconnecting the other drives isn't of any use for me, unless I decided to set the Linux drive as my primary boot drive, which is not very likely. Therefore it just makes another unnecessary screen to have to deal with on booting Kubuntu.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Okay, but those "crazy" people have any logical reason for dividing partitons for those other directories (other than Root, Home, Boot and Swap) or is it nothing more than a subjective decision?

Trust me its very subjective, the only time those extra partitions come in handy is if you are using a server or something.
Even doing more then one partition is subjective, there are strengths and weaknesses to it.
The advantage of multiple partitions is to keep your data separate from the system if it ever goes kaput, it certainly beasts having to back everything up before an upgrade to the OS... sure you should do that with any OS but I dont panic any time i have an update in linux anymore... if it fails it fails and I can just swap out and most of the time the issue is my fault for trying something out that i wasnt supposed to but I self taught myself linux and how to avoid breakages in it.
so breaking my system was a part of my user experience learning.
Fact is I have had very little breakage in linux compared to how I was under windows.
I didnt have that with windows 7 but boy did I have it under XP.
But in any case that is one thing i wish windows would have caught on to by now, multiple partitions.
It makes like easier in the long run, sure learning partitioning can be a challenge but its benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

anyway I am off to bed here, I will answer any other questions you may have when I wake up.
Its pretty late here for me (4:43AM) and while I may be a night owl I do need my rest.

 

[seekermeister]

I agree with you you about the inferior stability of XP. I had almost forgotten about the improvement made over it with Windows 7, but having recently acquired an old Think Centre with an OEM instalation of XP on it, it quickly comes back as to the drawbacks that it has.

I guess that I will keep the Kubuntu partition layout fairly simple. You never commented on my question regarding the use of a disk image to recover to the new drive. Is that because of a lack of experience with that kind of operation, like with cloning as you spoke of previously? If so, then Linux is lacking a very useful tool, because doing something like that in Windows is very easy and reliable.

 

[seekermeister]

Sorry if I kept you up, because I never think much about time, I'm pretty much of a night owl also and don't have a schedule to keep. As they say...sweet dreams.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

I agree with you you about the inferior stability of XP. I had almost forgotten about the improvement made over it with Windows 7, but having recently acquired an old Think Centre with an OEM instalation of XP on it, it quickly comes back as to the drawbacks that it has.

I guess that I will keep the Kubuntu partition layout fairly simple. You never commented on my question regarding the use of a disk image to recover to the new drive. Is that because of a lack of experience with that kind of operation, like with cloning as you spoke of previously? If so, then Linux is lacking a very useful tool, because doing something like that in Windows is very easy and reliable.

Well there are tools for it, clonezilla is usually quite popular as was remamstersys.
Now I did some checking and it turns out that remastersys has been forked and that fork is called System Imager.
Its essentially the same program under a new name, in fact according to this video it still bears the remastersys name:


and it will probably work with all debian based distros including Kubuntu

I would not totally dis credit clonezilla because I never used it, its really a good piece of software I just found remastersys a little easier to work with at times.
But that was just my experience, here is a video on it from about a year ago:



edit: here is a very comprehensive video on clonezilla:



as you can see you can even use it for windows, its very versatile and is good for practically any setup so any distro you may want to use in the future this could help with.

 

[seekermeister]

I just watched all 3 videos and think I got a fair idea of what those apps do, but obviously not in detail. I'm left with more of impressions than true understanding, which is what they were designed for in the for place. I think that the impression I have of Clonezilla is bit bit clearer than that of Remastersys though, because the latter sounded more as though it is designed for customizing an installation, rather than just making an identical installation.

Clonezilla sounded okay, except that it sounded as though it was necessary to run it from a removable device, outside of the OS, which wouldn't be as convenient as I would like. With True Image I can create images and to a limited degree, even recover from one stored on a hard drive, directly from TI running on the OS itself. The only time that I need a CD is if the OS is inoperable and a copy of TI is then required to boot from to perform the recovery. Under the circumstances, I think that I will just do a clean install, rather than trying to clone or recover what I have, but this gives me some valuable insights for future use.

Although I'm getting a bit ahead of where I currently am, I would like to see what you might tell me about another problem I had in the current installation that we hadn't discussed...inoperative audio. Although nothing that I found indicated a reason for the audio not to work, except that one utility, which I can't remember the name of, in Kubuntu listed 3 options for audio output, one of which was grayed out. It had a test button on it, but none of the three options produced any sound when selected. I didn't find any audio configuration utility available. Even though the options that I mentioned identified my sound card, I'm left with the impression that it hadn't loaded an appropriate sound driver for it.

I Googled and found this thread:

Link Removed

I haven't read it in detail yet, but it sounds like a solution, but I am curious why Kubuntu wouldn't have located a workable driver itself?

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Clonezilla sounded okay, except that it sounded as though it was necessary to run it from a removable device, outside of the OS, which wouldn't be as convenient as I would like. With True Image I can create images and to a limited degree, even recover from one stored on a hard drive, directly from TI running on the OS itself. The only time that I need a CD is if the OS is inoperable and a copy of TI is then required to boot from to perform the recovery. Under the circumstances, I think that I will just do a clean install, rather than trying to clone or recover what I have, but this gives me some valuable insights for future use.

Well clonezilla does have a advantage over true image, that its not OS dependent making it a fantastic tool for recovery purposes.
Such as what happens when the OS goes down and you have no other way to get to True Image.
Clonezilla could help preserve your data if you need to reinstall, a lot of pros use it due to its versatility.
Sure True Image offers a more native approach but like I said not all the time that is a good thing.
Now for an easier tool there is reedo backup, that offers a GUI and an install image.
Again its OS independant so it too is very good at helping in recovery:

Although I'm getting a bit ahead of where I currently am, I would like to see what you might tell me about another problem I had in the current installation that we hadn't discussed...inoperative audio. Although nothing that I found indicated a reason for the audio not to work, except that one utility, which I can't remember the name of, in Kubuntu listed 3 options for audio output, one of which was grayed out. It had a test button on it, but none of the three options produced any sound when selected. I didn't find any audio configuration utility available. Even though the options that I mentioned identified my sound card, I'm left with the impression that it hadn't loaded an appropriate sound driver for it.

I Googled and found this thread:

Link Removed

I haven't read it in detail yet, but it sounds like a solution, but I am curious why Kubuntu wouldn't have located a workable driver itself?

Now this here may be from your sound card
some sound cards just wont work in linux, especially if you are tying to use HDMI audio.
I am guessing the sound card in that topic you linked is yours correct?
I could try a more generalised search to see if your sound card is compatible with liunux or if there is some workaround.
For me I have two ways I can get sound, one via HDMI and the other though my standard sound card.
Sadly my graphics card is no longer supported by lionux nor AMD (its an ati card) and while the open source video drivers work fine I cannot get audio via HDMI.
Its a shame but its just how it is, if AMD would be better at allowing source code I would have HDMI sound.
As for USB sound cards, they seem to get the worst in linux.
Most of them dont even have a driver made for it that linux can use.
I really have to look into your soundcard.