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#1 2013-02-13 21:53:04

stringchopper
Member
Registered: 2009-02-19
Posts: 38

How to Restore Arch's grub after Ubuntu install to 2nd disk

I installed Ubuntu to sdb after installing Arch to sda. Ubuntu was installed with LVM, though Arch does not use LVM.

I want to wipe out ubuntu now, but it seems to be in control of my boot process, and as a newb, I'm not quite sure how that process transpires.  I have read the Grub article on Arch's Wiki site, but that doensn't help me.

After booting into Arch and running:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

and then rebooting, I still have the Ubuntu Grub menu on the next boot.  My Arch /etc/default/grub is the same one that I used before installing Ubuntu - I'm not concerned about adding Ubuntu to the menu, so that's not an issue.

What do I need to do to get Arch back in control of the boot process?

Thanks in advance! smile


Regards,
Brian

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#2 2013-02-13 21:59:16

olive
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2008-06-22
Posts: 1,490

Re: How to Restore Arch's grub after Ubuntu install to 2nd disk

grub-mkconfig does not reinstall grub, it just update the configuration file. You have to run grub-install for that.

Last edited by olive (2013-02-13 21:59:34)

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#3 2013-02-13 21:59:46

Kilz
Member
Registered: 2008-03-01
Posts: 140

Re: How to Restore Arch's grub after Ubuntu install to 2nd disk


I trust Microsoft about as far as I can comfortably spit a dead rat.
Cinnamon is a wonderful desktop
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

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#4 2013-02-13 23:45:25

stringchopper
Member
Registered: 2009-02-19
Posts: 38

Re: How to Restore Arch's grub after Ubuntu install to 2nd disk

Kilz wrote:

I did this:

# modprobe dm-mod
# grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory=/boot --recheck --debug /dev/sda
# mkdir -p /boot/grub/locale
# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

But I still have the Ubuntu Grub menu.  Do I need to execute those command from a Live CD?

EDIT: I just booted into Ubuntu on the 2nd disk, and the fonts and window resolution are messed up a bit, so the commands above did *something*, but the grub menu looks the same as before, with all the same options, background, etc..

Last edited by stringchopper (2013-02-13 23:52:08)


Regards,
Brian

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#5 2013-02-14 05:02:51

Kilz
Member
Registered: 2008-03-01
Posts: 140

Re: How to Restore Arch's grub after Ubuntu install to 2nd disk

Here is an option in case you cant figure it out. Rename the /boot directory in the ubuntu install and copy the /boot directory from Arch in its place. Reboot, if everything works fine delete everything in the Ubuntu partition but /boot. Rename the /boot directory in the Arch install then shrink the ubuntu partition and mount it in the arch install as /boot. in the end you will just have a separate boot partition that will take up little space.


I trust Microsoft about as far as I can comfortably spit a dead rat.
Cinnamon is a wonderful desktop
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

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#6 2013-02-14 08:38:12

stringchopper
Member
Registered: 2009-02-19
Posts: 38

Re: How to Restore Arch's grub after Ubuntu install to 2nd disk

Kilz wrote:

Here is an option in case you cant figure it out. Rename the /boot directory in the ubuntu install and copy the /boot directory from Arch in its place. Reboot, if everything works fine delete everything in the Ubuntu partition but /boot. Rename the /boot directory in the Arch install then shrink the ubuntu partition and mount it in the arch install as /boot. in the end you will just have a separate boot partition that will take up little space.

Thanks again. I finally got it working, but via a different, somewhat convoluted route. 

I screwed things up and ended up with only a grub prompt at boot.  Following instructions found online, I was able to boot my arch disk (sda), then ran grub-install and grub-mkconfig.  The install ran without errors (as before) but grub-mkconfig reported errors.  I had been disregarding these errors, because I thought they were related to the custom font and background in my /etc/default/grub file, and another source explained that I could ignore errors when setting fonts and background there (not sure if that source was reliable).  But one of the errors on grub-mkinstall reported it couldn't find device.map.  There was no device.map in /boot/grub.

Also of note, I had renamed the old /boot/grub/grub.cfg and left the /boot/grub directory without a proper grub.cfg file - probably why I got a grub menu at boot!

In the end, I created a device.map in /boot/grub/ and re-ran grub-mkconfig, but still got an error.  So I commented out the font and background lines in /etc/default/grub and also renamed my old backup /boot/grub/grub.cfg-backup to the proper "grub.cfg", then re-ran grub-mkconfig.  This time there were not errors reported from grub-mkconfig and with a quick glance at the contents, I was able to figure out that the menu entries looked good. 

I was able to reboot with the appropriate arch menu at this point!  While I'm not sure which step "fixed" my problem, I wanted to at least record my steps here for future users - perhaps one of the options above will help someone else.  Worth mentioning is that the ubuntu (sdb) drive was LVM, and I think that might have played into some of my difficulties, but I'm not sure about that.

The device.map that I created looked like this, where sda is my arch disk and sdb is the ubuntu installation (still not sure if it is needed, though):

(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb

Last edited by stringchopper (2013-02-14 08:38:52)


Regards,
Brian

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