Arch Linux

Devio

Member

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 10

Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Hi there,
I have 3 hard drives all approximately 300GB, one with Windows 7, one with BackTrack5 and one which had Ubuntu.  I recently decided I wanted to make a project of learning more about Linux but seem to have gotten stuck.

I basically put the Arch iso on a DVD and put it in my computer and slowly made my way through the installation, formatting my Ubuntu partition in exchange for the /boot, swap, / and /home directories of arch set up by the automatic partition tool.  Everything went smoothly to an extent and I followed a brief guide to make sure I did things correctly the first time round.  However after I had come to reboot GRUB2 won't see the newly made Arch partition, it still thinks Ubuntu is installed, and obviously trying to boot that up generates an error taking me back to the GRUB2 menu again.

I've followed a guide on the wiki to install GRUB2 onto my new partition via the DVD installation but it didn't seem to make a difference despite generating the output expected during the process.

Am I missing something really simple here?  I'm probably punching above my weight in terms of difficulty really but I'd like to try and work this.

Oh and I've spent all night and all morning trying to find an answer to my problem, asking for advice wasn't my first port of call.  I'm very sorry if this is a waste of peoples time.

Thanks for reading!

cbowman57

Member

Registered: 2011-08-21

Posts: 77

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

I'm new to Arch myself so I can understand your frustration.

I'm assuming you followed the wiki to the letter and everything else went right.  Have you tried reinstalling grub2 with a recovery tool like Rescatux or boot into it with supergrubdisk?

Devio

Member

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 10

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Yeah I followed the wiki to the letter, and to my knowledge I've done everything correctly.  I'm fairly certain the problem lies with BackTrack5 and previously Ubuntu both using GRUB2 and Arch comes with GRUB as far as I know, so it's not the best situation.

I wasn't aware of either of those methods, I'll get googling and have a go at those though.

Thanks for the reply.

cbowman57

Member

Registered: 2011-08-21

Posts: 77

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Yeah, after installing grub2-bios & grub2-common you probably also want to install os-prober from AUR if you haven't done that already.

Make sure you do the Arch version of "update-grub"

Here's my update-grub script I keep in /usr/bin

#!/bin/bash
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

exit 0

I apologize if I'm being very basic and covering things you already know but it might help the next person.

Devio

Member

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 10

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

You're not being too basic don't worry, I'm really not an advanced Linux user in general so any help is good.  Even if I do re-read things at this stage it's only helping it stick!

cbowman57

Member

Registered: 2011-08-21

Posts: 77

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Ok, great.  They don't call this newbie corner for nothing.  I've used Debian/Ubuntu & derivatives for years but this is a whole new ballgame to me.

Did you already try Rescatux and/or supergrubdisk?  If so, did it discover or fix anything?

Devio

Member

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 10

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Rescatux didn't seem to work, I think I'm going to try supergrubdisk in a moment, just giving this a few more go's to make sure I've not missed anything.

I've tried the install and update functions for grub on Rescatux but neither have fixed anything when I actually boot up properly, although it does say it's worked when I run it.

cbowman57

Member

Registered: 2011-08-21

Posts: 77

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Alright, it sounds like your grub2 might not have installed properly or completely, or it's a fault in Rescatux.
Supergrubdisk will most likely at least let you log back into your Arch installation so you can work from there. (I hope)

Devio

Member

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 10

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Ermmmmmm... I fixed it... Somehow.  On BackTrack5 I ran update-grub after os-prober and it just seemed to work.  I feel really stupid now as I should have thought of that!

Argh the frustration of it all!  Sorry if you feel I've been incompetent and wasting your time, however you have shown me some valuable tools I'll no doubt use in the future so thank you very much for that!

cbowman57

Member

Registered: 2011-08-21

Posts: 77

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Great!  I've never used BackTrack5, guess I need to look at that.
Not wasting my time at all, I'm still feeling my way around Arch.

Devio

Member

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 10

Re: Grub/Grub2/Old partition - all causing problems together.

Haha BackTrack5 is a penetration testing operating system in case you didn't know, that's what I'm aspiring to do for a career so I have a permanent copy to learn what I can from it, it's also quite fun to mess around with anyway!
Thanks again for all your help though!