Fixed Windows - But Now Grub is Gone?

dajohnson89 said:

OK, first I ought to correct the thanks. Thanks to isuuee, not Dinesh.

You are most welcome dajohnson89. And please feel free to thank Dinesh anytime, he would probably say he never gets enough "thanks" anyway!

dajohnson89 said:

Second, the method of re-installing GRUB with the Ubuntu (10.04) Live CD is NOT permanent. Just now, my boot sequence got caught up in an infinite loop; never reaching GRUB. Imagine my frustration; it has only been two days since I encountered the problem, searched for a solution and implemented it!

You only use the live CD to access a "Terminal". After you "mount" the Linux partition, as wee pointed out, the terminal commands reinstall the version of Grub from the Linux on the hard drive. So the commands in this thread will work for Grub2, that is permanently reinstall Grub2 to the MBR of the hard drive. If you have an older distro version, you need to use the commands for "Legacy Grub".

A point in fact: you cannot install Grub from a Live CD, that is without mounting the Linux partition on the hard drive. As you say, it will not work.

dajohnson89 said:

I conjecture that Windows hibernate is a culprit, at least in my case. The first time, and this most recent time, that GRUB was messed up, I had Windows 7 loaded, and my notebook slipped into hibernate mode after several hours of inactivity. Fortunately, one can just do without hibernation. In my case, I just repeated the re-installation of GRUB, and everything works fine. I should add that previous to the occurrence of the problem, shutting down and restarting normally under either OS incurred no problems. It was only after hibernation.

I have no personal experience with this issue, however I can see the possibilities for a conflict between Windows and Linux. If you are using only the Grub boot manager and Windows saves its sleep state settings and shuts down, when it reboots (or restarts) the computer will have to go through Grub first, then to Windows. What is going to happen with the sleep state settings saved to memory?

I would say you have made a good guess and would avoid hibernation.

Thanks for posting your solution!

Cheers!
Robert

iseeuu said:

A point in fact: you cannot install Grub from a Live CD, that is without mounting the Linux partition on the hard drive. As you say, it will not work.

I want to be clear; I executed the following commands:

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Code:

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

This does mount the Linux partition on the hard drive, and installs grub2. I'm using Ubuntu 10.04.

If you are using only the Grub boot manager and Windows saves its sleep state settings and shuts down, when it reboots (or restarts) the computer will have to go through Grub first, then to Windows. What is going to happen with the sleep state settings saved to memory?

THe sleep state settings don't account for a loader other than the Windows 7 loader. The problem is that my setup is such that the Windows 7 loader is accessible only through the Grub loader.

How Messy!

dajohnson89 said:

iseeuu said:

A point in fact: you cannot install Grub from a Live CD, that is without mounting the Linux partition on the hard drive. As you say, it will not work.

I want to be clear; I executed the following commands:

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Code:

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

This does mount the Linux partition on the hard drive, and installs grub2. I'm using Ubuntu 10.04.

If you are using only the Grub boot manager and Windows saves its sleep state settings and shuts down, when it reboots (or restarts) the computer will have to go through Grub first, then to Windows. What is going to happen with the sleep state settings saved to memory?

THe sleep state settings don't account for a loader other than the Windows 7 loader. The problem is that my setup is such that the Windows 7 loader is accessible only through the Grub loader.

How Messy!

Clear as crystal!

Thanks again!

Unfortunately, my proposed fix of disabling hibernate in Windows 7 does not stop Grub2 from being overwritten. I disabled hibernate, and any functionality which turns off the hard disk while Windows 7 is loaded, but still: grub2 has been lost numerous times since I last posted here, resulting in an infinite boot loop. I'm now at a loss as to exactly *WHEN* Windows 7 screws up the MBR. My next step is to disable sleep. I can restart, and shutdown, and put my computer to sleep under Windows 7, without any problems. But perhaps this MBR problem surfaces when the computer is in sleep mode for a prolonged period of time. Other than that, I have no idea, and I'd appreciate any thoughts anyone has on this bug.

So tell us your computer model, really the manufacturer is whats needed. We have run into problems with I think it was HP, in that there is a program that is part of a manufacturers setup that rewrites grub.

So here is a link to information on Dell DataSafe this appears to rewrite grub but can be removed. The link in thread has more information that you probably know already but the information in the last paragraph may be pertinent. Ubuntu Forums - View Single Post - [ubuntu] GRUB2 bootloader crashes with Win7 and Ubuntu 10.04 dual boot

wee said:

So tell us your computer model, really the manufacturer is whats needed. We have run into problems with I think it was HP, in that there is a program that is part of a manufacturers setup that rewrites grub.

Acer Aspire 3680. The hard drive is not factory default, and I've wiped it numerous times anyways; there is nothing besides the Operating Systems I've installed.

I have a aspire one net-book that has been setup with W7 and lucid. It has the ram maxed 2 gigs. I had no problems with the sleep in Lucid, and it started backup as it should. But there was a bug in the bios firmware that was making it completely shutdown if I unplugged the ac. At first there was a way around this with in the gconf-editor in Lucid. Then I just upgraded the bios and it went away.

I wonder if there isn't a problem similar with your set up, although I never lost the boot loader in mine.

Sleep doesn't seem to be the problem. Now, I think it's the act of switching to/from AC power, while Windows 7 is running.

I'm planning to dual-boot soon, but dajohnson89, are you saying that if you switch to/from AC power, the Grub loader is replaced EVEN if you aren't in Sleep mode?

EDIT: Whoops, I just noticed the date-- anyway, have you found out the cause of the problem? :)