[F9] laptop not booting - reinstall MBR?
Phil Meyer
pmeyer at themeyerfarm.com
Wed Jul 9 16:56:46 UTC 2008
Don Levey wrote:
> My F9 laptop won't boot this morning - I go through the POST, but when
> I ordinarily get to the "Hit Enter for options" boot screen, all I get
> is:
>
> GRUB
>
> at the top left of my screen. Does this mean I need to reinstall grub
> and the MBR? I can access the HD via a liveCD, and everything *seems*
> OK from what I can tell. Any thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> -Don
>
This condition occurs whenever the BIOS changes the drive order.
First things to check:
Do you have a USB drive plugged in? A camera, ipod, memory card, or
thumb drive may all have this affect on some BIOS. Unplug them before
powering on the system and you might boot normally.
Did you add an internal hard drive since the last time you booted?
Did you make any modifications to the BIOS since the last time you booted?
Did the BIOS battery expire and force you to hit F1 to continue the boot
process?
All of these factors, and more, can cause the BIOS to report a different
drive order to grub.
Only in the case of a new drive should you be forced to fix the MBR, and
then only if the BIOS insists on calling the new drive a lower order
than the existing one.
To repair the MBR:
boot a rescue CD
# chroot /mnt/sysimage
# grub-install /dev/sda
On some systems, it has been necessary to use old arguments:
# grub-install --no-floppy --recheck /dev/sda
# exit
That should do it.
Good luck!
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