Arch Linux

iopo

Member

Registered: 2009-10-26

Posts: 31

[SOLVED] GRUB crashed after pacman -Su

Hello all,

I did a system update about 2 hours ago, I did pacman -Syy and pacman -Su. Every thing looked normal.
Restarted and system crashes right in GRB, it doesn't even shows the menu or error message, it just fills the screen with "GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB".

I checked the disk, partition tables are ok, and the whol HD looks ok, no errors at all (checked with system rescue cd, a gentoo live cd).
I also mounted the boot partition, all files seem to be ok, grub menu, etc..
/grub/menu.lst was modified today, but looks ok.

Any Idea of what could happen?
How to solve it?

Should I try to replace grub?

Last edited by iopo (2011-04-28 11:31:34)

demian

Member

From: Frankfurt, Germany

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 709

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB crashed after pacman -Su

yup i'd reinstall grub

P.S.:

GRUBGRUBGRUBGRUB

---

no place like /home
github

iopo

Member

Registered: 2009-10-26

Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB crashed after pacman -Su

Ok, any recomendation to reinstall grub?
Arch is down, and I have an old gentoo live cd, that's how I acess the disk.
I can't just pacman -S, and the cd has grub 0.9.

Any help for this will be apreciated.
Thank you.

hcjl

Member

From: berlin

Registered: 2007-06-29

Posts: 330

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB crashed after pacman -Su

use arch live cd and combine this https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_Root with this https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … stallation.

iopo

Member

Registered: 2009-10-26

Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB crashed after pacman -Su

Thank you hcjl and demian.
Problem solved after GRUB re-install.

Here is the procedure (resume from hcjl links) I made, just in case someone else needs it:
1- Download the arch iso and write it to cd or dvd
2- Run the cd, login as root
3- Mount arch and boot partitions:
-Find boot and arch partitions with

fdisk -l 

Create a directory where you would like to mount the arch partition, then mount it:

mkdir /mnt/arch
mount /dev/<device-or-partition-name> /mnt/arch 

4- Changing Root:

cd /mnt/arch
mount -t proc proc proc/
mount -t sysfs sys sys/
mount -o bind /dev dev/ 

Mount the boot partition:

mount /dev/<device-or-partition-name> boot/ 

And change root:

chroot . /bin/bash

5- Install GRUB on hd0 (first hard drive):

# grub
grub> setup (hd0)

6- Exit all, reboot

That fixed my problem, and preserved my original GRUB menu (I did a backup of broken GRUB, but it was nor necesary)

Thank you all for your help.

Last edited by iopo (2011-04-28 21:16:47)

demian

Member

From: Frankfurt, Germany

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 709

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB crashed after pacman -Su

i think you skipped the chroot command in your recap of the procedure.

also, for the setup command, you don't have to chroot.
next time, mount root, then:
grub-install --root-directory=/path/to/mounted/root /dev/sdX
maybe with --recheck too.

---

no place like /home
github

iopo

Member

Registered: 2009-10-26

Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB crashed after pacman -Su

Thank you demian.

I corrected my previous post, added chroot command.
And, good to know that is not even necessary to chroot.
I will try that next time.

Thank you.