Arch Linux

jemofthewest

Member

Registered: 2012-02-27

Posts: 37

[Solved] Grub Error 17 After Installation

Hello Arch Community!

I guess I'd consider myself as an intermediate Ubuntu user who recently read a Lifehacker article explaining Arch, and I decided that sounded perfect.

As a background, i'm running a Lenovo X201t with Windows 7 on it, and I had Ubuntu installed on a Mushkin 16gb flash drive.  I partitioned it with a FAT32 partition as sdb1, a Linux partition as sdb2, and a swap as sdb3 so that I can use 3GB of it on windows machines as a typical flash drive, but run it as Linux on my laptop instead of dual booting (I've had issues with that in the past).  I'd really like to keep this configuration moving to Arch, but I can't seem to get it to work.

I first tried to partition using GParted and install accordingly, but first boot I got a Grub Error 17.

Booting 'Arch Linux'

root   (hd1,1)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
kernel /boot/vmlinux-linux root=/dev/sdb2 ro

Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition

I then googled the error and found the wiki article on grub, which tells me that using gparted might make the order off.  So I followed the instructions (fdisk fix and grub reload), but I already edited the grub to be sure it was (hd1,1).  fdisk told me no errors.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#GRUB_Error_17

So then I tried to reinstall using the partition editor included with the livecd.  No dice.

I then tried to reinstall using UUID instead of device names.  Same error.

I tried editing grub at the time and changing root to (hd0,1), and it starts to boot a little, but then i get dropped into an emergency shell saying sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

I've taken a look at the wiki article on installing to a USB drive, but it doesn't do what I want with the 3gb flash drive.  I didn't change any of the configurations overly much (I added my host hard drive the first time through to fstab), I just followed the beginners tutorial.  I am installing within a virtual pc, always installing bootloader and everything to sdb.  Let me know if there is anymore information you need.  I'm really stuck and I've tried everything I could think of.  Thanks in advance for the help.

Last edited by jemofthewest (2012-02-27 20:27:52)

KingX

Member

From: CA

Registered: 2010-03-24

Posts: 324

Re: [Solved] Grub Error 17 After Installation

Is your / on a single partition? You should create a /boot partition that is ext3, the error could be due to grub enable to boot a ext4 partition. Can you post the output of fdisk -a.

jemofthewest

Member

Registered: 2012-02-27

Posts: 37

Re: [Solved] Grub Error 17 After Installation

Originally, I had sdb1 at /home/flashdrive, sdb2 at /, and sdb3 was swap.  I put the FAT32 partition first because otherwise Windows won't recognize it as far as I can tell.  Installing /boot on sdb1 would, as far as I know, not allow me to access any other partitions besides that on Windows (unless someone knows another way). 

Regardless, I just tried installing a 20mb /boot partition.  This is what my table looks like (paraphrased, since I can't copy and paste).  I'm only including sdb, the flash drive, because sda depends on what computer I have it plugged into.

Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0 GB ...
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15272 cylinders ...
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical) = 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c56fc

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 32 38911 20mb 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2  ... 14.08gb Linux
/dev/sdb3 ... 1gb Linux swap / Solaris

I tried it both with an extra windows partition and without.  The wiki says that a flash drive is always hd0, even if its sdb, so I manually edit grub to be (hd0,0) and again it does boot, but then I get that sh: tty error I mentioned.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

jemofthewest

Member

Registered: 2012-02-27

Posts: 37

Re: [Solved] Grub Error 17 After Installation

I'm sorry for wasting peoples time, I forgot to put the usb hook in the mkinitcpio.conf file which is in the wiki.  I had read almost every other part of the wiki and had done the other steps, this of course was one of the most important.  Thanks for the help anyways, and I look forward to contributing however I can!