GRUB disk write error

[nicolarmarfi]

Hey all,

I'm not too sure whether or not this has been posted before, so forgive me if it has.

In any case, I recently decided to try dual booting my already installed Windows Vista with a new copy of Sabayon. I installed Sabayon to a partition in /sdb and kept my Windows partition in /sda exactly as it was before the installation, and told the installer to install the GRUB bootloader. To my understanding, GRUB should have detected Windows and Sabayon, which it did, however neither OS is bootable. I'm not entirely sure why I'm getting the error, it doesn't give me much detail: it just prints up a blank screen with the error code "Error 29: disk write error", and "grub >". If anyone can tell me what went wrong/how I can fix it, I'd very much appreciate it.

Thanks in advance .

[kodiakmax]

try this post:
viewtopic.php?f=86&t=16709

[nicolarmarfi]

The OS selector comes up for me, but the problem occurs when I select an OS using it. It just brings up the GRUB error...

[pepe999]

Could you post your /boot/grub/menu.lst please??
If Grub comes up there is probably problem with settings..
I have Vista on sda1 and Sabayon on sda2 so there is my menu.lst..

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# grub.conf generated by the Sabayon Linux Installer
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You do not have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
#          root (hd0,1)
#          kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel real_root=UUID=db086af4-ec56-40f5-80be-178fe40f67d7
#          initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel
#boot=sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Sabayon Linux x86-64 (genkernel-x86_64-2.6.29-sabayon)
   root (hd0,1)
   kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.29-sabayon  root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk=8192 real_root=UUID=db086af4-ec56-40f5-80be-178fe40f67d7 dolvm init=/linuxrc splash=verbose vga=791 CONSOLE=/dev/tty1 quiet resume=swap:/dev/sda4
   initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.29-sabayon
   savedefault

title Sabayon Linux x86-64 (genkernel-x86_64-2.6.29-sabayon) (safe mode)
   root (hd0,1)
   kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.29-sabayon root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk=8192 real_root=UUID=db086af4-ec56-40f5-80be-178fe40f67d7 dolvm init=/linuxrc CONSOLE=/dev/tty1 resume=swap:/dev/sda4 nox acpi=off ide=nodma vga=normal
   initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.29-sabayon
   savedefault

title   Windows Vista
   rootnoverify (hd0,0)
   chainloader +1
   savedefault

Use this to edit yours menu.lst..

edit: Use live DVD to do that above..

[nicolarmarfi]

Looking at the file, I notice that somehow it is only 9 bytes in size... I'd imagine this is a problem. I'm not entirely sure what to do with it, I can't even open it, so I'm assuming it's broken somehow. Is there some way I could just reinstall GRUB, or should I try another install of Sabayon?

[pepe999]

Looking at the file, I notice that somehow it is only 9 bytes in size... I'd imagine this is a problem. I'm not entirely sure what to do with it, I can't even open it, so I'm assuming it's broken somehow. Is there some way I could just reinstall GRUB, or should I try another install of Sabayon?

Don't reinstall Sabayon, it's the last step if is it necessary...
1: Boot in to Sabayon linux live CD/DVD as root(username root and password root as well)
2: Open terminal and type

Code: Select all

grub

3: Find a hdd partition with /boot

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find /boot/grub/stage1

there should be something like (hd0,1) if you have linux on sda2
4:

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root (hd0,1)

This command says to Grub where is /boot.
5:

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setup (hd0)

It should be ended by done or succeeded..
6:

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quit

7: Reboot

[nicolarmarfi]

Hmm, I tried your fix, and it did say succeeded in the end, but I still can't boot either OS, nor can I do anything to the menu.lst. But I realize I made a bit of a mistake, as I notice now that the menu.lst file appears to be a shortcut to menu.lst, though I can't seem to find the actual menu.lst anywhere...

[kodiakmax]

nicolarmarfi- need info

Need output of:
"fdisk -l"
"blkid"
"cat /boot/grub/grub.conf"
and what partitions your sabayon, windows, ubuntu, storage, whatever are located on.

also if you would have bothered to read the post I linked. It would tell you 3 different ways to possibly fix grub. don't just go off the title of the post. I wouldn't have linked it if it wasn't relavent.

Also, check these links
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=16631
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=16844
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/h ... stall-auto
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/h ... ull=1#grub

[nicolarmarfi]

also if you would have bothered to read the post I linked. It would tell you 3 different ways to possibly fix grub. don't just go off the title of the post. I wouldn't have linked it if it wasn't relavent.

I'm sorry if I offended you in anyway, but I did in fact read the post. I just wasn't sure at the time what the problem even was, so I wasn't sure whether or not your fixes would have helped for my purposes.

In any case, here are the outputs:

Fdisk:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb37a81e0

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 892 7164958+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 893 15669 118696252+ 6 FAT16
/dev/sda3 15670 30401 118334790 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf0099cfd

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 27 23071 185108962+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 23072 30402 58874880 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb3 1 26 208813+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Blkid:

/dev/sda1: UUID="3E30F53916D9B5D2" LABEL="PQSERVICE" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda2: UUID="145409E65409CC04" LABEL="ACER" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: UUID="BEA40F63A40F1E11" LABEL="DATA" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/cloop0: LABEL="KNOPPIX_FS" TYPE="iso9660"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="/" UUID="cab80741-33ff-4db3-b309-1261b6bed90b" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb3: LABEL="SWAP-sdb3" UUID="ea4b6ffd-2188-4b5e-be03-f1e532cd3c14" TYPE="swap"

grub.conf:

# grub.conf generated by the Sabayon Linux Installer
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel real_root=UUID=cab80741-33ff-4db3-b309-1261b6bed90b
# initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel
#boot=sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Sabayon Linux x86 (genkernel-x86-2.6.29-sabayon)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.29-sabayon root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk=8192 real_root=UUID=cab80741-33ff-4db3-b309-1261b6bed90b dolvm init=/linuxrc splash=silent,theme:sabayon vga=791 CONSOLE=/dev/tty1 quiet sabayonmce resume=swap:/dev/sdb3
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.29-sabayon
savedefault

title Sabayon Linux x86 (genkernel-x86-2.6.29-sabayon) (safe mode)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.29-sabayon root=/dev/ram0 ramdisk=8192 real_root=UUID=cab80741-33ff-4db3-b309-1261b6bed90b dolvm init=/linuxrc CONSOLE=/dev/tty1 sabayonmce resume=swap:/dev/sdb3 nox acpi=off ide=nodma vga=normal
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.29-sabayon
savedefault

title Other Operating System - Microsoft Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
savedefaulttitle Other Operating System - Microsoft Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

[pepe999]

I'm sorry, didn't notice that sdb drive so ignore my previous post..
I've seen many times problems like this, 2 or 3 harddrives..
The problem is that in BIOS is set just one HDD to boot priority and it suppose to be sda with Windows but you have also installed Sabayon linux and Grub is on sdb harddrive(hd1,0). Grub can't boot up any system because its on sdb drive and it is not bootable in BIOS I would say....