Arch Linux

CyberPrime

Member

Registered: 2009-07-08

Posts: 4

Messed up my GRUB, Error 15.

Hi there, I recently installed Arch on a partition, the install went smoothly, but that's where the fun ended. I didn't install grub because I already had grub from a debian install, so I wanted to keep it with all my settings and what not. I went to load Arch from GRUB but I got Error 15: File not found. Alright, I had heard about this and the location of the kernel so I went and changed my root to /boot/vmlinuz26 (or whatever it is). No such luck. I fiddled around with it a lot more, but no cheese. It then occured to me that the GRUB files on the Arch partition might be missing, and they were. I only had menu.lst. So, I booted back into the Arch CD, set my mountpoints and installed GRUB again, onto the partition (not the MBR for fear of wiping out my previous settings). So, the files were there (albeit probably completely wrong because it insisted on making my main drive hd1 rather than hd0 like the GRUB install I already had has them as), but still a error 15. I copied some files from my ubuntu install to the grub folder on the arch install, same issue (I don't think they are quite that compatible). Any thoughts?

This guy seemed to have the same exact problem as I was, and he fixed it somehow (failed to put down exactly how, extremely vague like "used the grub CLI and moved around some stages" or something). I emailed him, but he hasn't gotten back to me.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=68853

Thanks for the help.

bgc1954

Member

From: Edmonton, AB, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-14

Posts: 1,160

Re: Messed up my GRUB, Error 15.

First, welcome to Arch.

I believe you are under a little misconception regarding grub.  You don't need to install grub on an operating system to have grub boot it.  I have a dozen or so linuxes and one windows partition on my box and some have grub installed and some don't--windows for example.  From my own experiences, as long as the /boot/grub/menu.lst on your debian partition points to the kernel on the right partition it should boot.  That being said, I have installed grub on the install partition of some linuxes as I have had some difficulties booting them but not either debian or arch.

If you have installed grub to your arch partition, you just need to add something like this to your debian menu.lst:

title Arch Linux 
root (hd0,xx)
chainloader +1

xx would be the partition of your arch install minus one, ie: Arch on partition sda2: root (hd0,1)

Otherwise your debian menu.lst should look something like:

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro vga=791
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

Hope that helps a little.

---

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

CyberPrime

Member

Registered: 2009-07-08

Posts: 4

Re: Messed up my GRUB, Error 15.

Alrighty. I understand that I don't need grub on an OS, just on the mbr. The issue was that for some reason grub didn't like that I was trying to boot right to arch with

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro vga=791
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

so, I made a new entry with

title Arch Linux 
root (hd0,xx)
chainloader +1

and started it up. It brought me to the Arch partition's grub install, from which I could start Arch. The commands were the same, and I still don't understand it but whatever.

Thanks.