[SOLVED] Grub Problems Can boot Arch w/ grub edits only

Question

I had 3 Linux OS's installed on this computer, Arch and 2 versions of Ubuntu on one hard drive.
The MBR belonged to Ubuntu, using grub2. I decided to get rid of the older Ubuntu (sda8 and 9) and add it's HDD space to my Arch home (sda12). Used the current Gparted live to modify the partitions and all went well, but of course, the numbers changed getting rid of 2 partitions.
No boot upon restart so I decided to get Arch's grub back to the MBR with the new partition numbering scheme.
Using a live CD, I used the grub shell, find /boot/grub/stage1.....etc, etc. and after a bit of fumbling, grub indicated success in the shell. When I was through though, a reboot was not successful, although the current stable grub was now written to the MBR.  I edited the lines using grub edit option, and got Arch to boot, and figured out the correct partition numbers. Next I edited the menu.lst to reflect the new sda numbers.
Now rebooting results in a long delay when grub should be on the screen, and the numbers on the Arch entries reflect the old numbers still!! I double checked thinking I forgot to save the edits to the menu.lst file, but they are correct. I can boot Arch, but have to edit the lines each time.
The current partitions are as follows. I edited the terminal output to show details.
[jeff@Arch2009p2 ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Password:
Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000383e7
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 91201 732572001 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1 255 2048224+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 (ubuntu /) 256 1471 9767488+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 (ubuntu /home) 1472 22321 167477593+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 (arch boot) 22322 22325 32098+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 (arch /) 22326 23627 10458283+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 (arch /home) 23628 91201 542788123+ 83 Linux
I have a few questions regarding a separate boot partition for Arch.
Should the grub> root (hd0.0) command be directed to the root or boot partition.
My handy printed emergency guide says: Set grubs root device to the partition containing the boot directory.
OK.....Writing it out now, it seems clear, so I'll try reinstalling grub from a live CD.
Why does grub have incorrect partition numbers even though the menu.lst is correct?
There are only 2 OS's on this box now, and one contains grub2.
Is current grub able to interact with grub 2 if I screwed something up on the install?
Last edited by jeff story (2010-05-24 20:05:06)

Answer 1

OK
I managed to fix the problem of grub not reading/using the menu.lst file. Not sure WTF it was reading and where that file was located!
The problem seems to have been the most insignificant detail.
When using the grub terminal, I did not execute the quit command when I was through. I just closed the terminal and rebooted.
After repeating the following code via live CD a few times:
$ sudo grub
grub> find /grub/stage1
grub> root (hd0,7)
grub> setup (hd0)
Grub still didn't read the current menu.lst.
This morning I got things to work correctly and grub to read the current menu.lst by adding a quit command and returning to the linux shell prior to rebooting.
I used the following commands:
$ sudo grub
grub> find /grub/stage1
grub> root (hd0,7)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit