recover from grub failure

[Member stephenbbb]

Hello,
is it possible to recover from grub failure? I did apt update and thne upgrade and it complained that it could not write sth about i386-pc and I chose continue as the laptop runs amd64 mode. now it cannot boot saying it can’t find

/boot/grub/i386-pc.normal.mod

and it puts me in grub rescue mode. anything to do here or just re-install?
Cheers
S.

[Member Xecure]

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Hi.
If you still have any antiX Live USB ready, boot live, update the live system, and use the Boot repair in Control Centre
(Control Centre > Maintenance > Boot repair). Do “Reinstall” and then “Repair” options. This usually fixes most of the grub problems. You should then be able to reboot to your installed system.

If that doesn’t work, let us know and we will try to guide you in a different path to fix it.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member stephenbbb]

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yes, I have the live USB. do you mean I should open a terminal in the live boot and then do apt update without installing?
then go and do grub re-install? also do I choose MBR or root for the re-install?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by stephenbbb.

[Member Xecure]

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Yes. Updating the live session will make sure you have the latest boot-repair program and latest grub program.
To update you could also do.
Menu> Applications > antiX > antiX Updater

When using boot repair, reinstall grub, use the same configuration you used during your installation. If you installed grub in MBR when you installed antiX, then also select MBR in boot repair.
Then, after reinstallin grub, relaunch the boot-repair program and select Repair, just to make sure.

If after following these steps it doesn’t work, we will try to figure it out.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member stephenbbb]

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I ran the antix updated and that does update and then upgrade. I chose MBR and then install on the same partition where antix resides. it re-installs with a message:

Installing for -386-pc platform
Installataion finished. No error reported.

then I ran repair and get:

I inserted an image link above, but it does not work. the link is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i2KGb7_qDIN9G2Jfl_Fhqh1USyDJfToc/view?usp=sharing

then I look in /media/rootantix19/boot/grub/i386-pc
and there is nothing there. the normal.mod file that grub complains about is not there. I look in /media/mate20.04/boot/grub/i386-pc
and there is a ton of mod files there, dated from 2020 when I installed Mate. for some reason the antix boot repair is ignoring the mod files.
should I just copy all the mod files from the Mate folder?
thanks
S.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by stephenbbb.

[Member stephenbbb]

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I managed to boot into antix by copying the i386-pc files from /usr/lib/grub (the antix live usb) to /boot/grub (my antix partition).
don’t know why grub repair would not do the copy, maybe a bug?

[Member userzero]

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Pensamiento,

Acaso no es necesario chroot para reinstalar grub y generar un nuevo archivo de configuración grub, en la partición que genero el problema?

———

Thought,

Isn’t it necessary to chroot to reinstall grub and generate a new grub configuration file, on the partition that caused the problem?

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/html_node/Installing-GRUB-using-grub_002dinstall.html

The reference above indicates using grub-install to install grub.

4.2 Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM
https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/html_node/Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM.html#Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM

Once grub is bootable, you can update grub:
(from our own archive):
https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/re-installing-grub-t6563.html

--
Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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another tip:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/antix-reinstall-messed-up-grub-entries-4175680309/

Adding all of these references together, you can recover on any existing system, from removable media, and you can start by attempting to update the grub.cfg file using update-grub first if you can access it; if not you can recover from CD, DVD, or USB removable media.

If even that does not work you can reinstall grub-install, again either from another system or from removable media.

If you read all of these references in the thread, there is a way to recover, either from another working system or from removable media.
It is NOT necessary to reinstall your software, but if you have nothing that needs to be preserved, that is yet another alternative.

--
Brian Masinick

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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I’ve used my antiX live usb < full edition 64 bit> to fix a 64 bit MX linux update snafu created by me when grub was reinstalled during a system update.

I had told MX to install grub to root folder in MX partition instead of mbr on drive.

My live usb run even fixed my MX update hiccup < PBKAU >. Not sure why you had issues.

Since not enough what you did previous type of info. Like in the thread Brian linked to.

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