Help! Grub is installed on the wrong partition
Lately, I have frequently experienced that Grub is installed to the “wrong” partition. Or, more precisely, that another device (typically the USB drive I use to install different Linux distributions from) has given the highest priority (lowest index) by the BIOS. This causes for example the Ubuntu-installation to install Grub to the incorrect partition.
Fortunately, installing Grub on the correct hard drive is a straight-forward procedure. This description is for Ubuntu, but a rescue/recovery mode exists for the other distributions I have tried:
- Create a new startup disk, if the bootloader on your USB stick has been overwritten by Grub during installation.
- On boot, enter rescue/recovery (or similar) mode and drop to a shell. If you have option of using your main HDD as root file system, select that one.
- Run fdisk /dev/sdX (where X is the letter for your HDD). If you are unsure, it
can be found by looking at the output of
fdisk -l. - Set the boot flag on the first partition and save the new partition table. The
correct order of commands is
a(for setting the bootable flag),1(select partition) and thenwfor writing. - Then Grub needs to be installed. Run
grub-install /dev/sdX. - Reboot and all should be well.
Kristian Evensen
Observations I would forget if I don't write them down
kristian.evensen@gmail.com
