Ubuntu 12.04 upgrade: Grub update-grub fails after update

Question

Thanks in advance for any help.

I'm running Ubuntu and Windows 7 on separate partitions with a large storage drive to share files between them.

fdisk -l shows:

Device Boot         Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048   209717247   104857600    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       209717248   419432447   104857600   83  Linux
/dev/sda3       419432448  3907028991  1743798272    b  W95 FAT32

There's a second GPT backup disk, but it shouldn't be a problem.

Device Boot         Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1  4294967295  2147483647+  ee  GPT

I've just upgraded my 11.10 Ubuntu to 12.04, during the upgrade I got an error about grub being installed on a partition, which I recognised from installing 11.10 and ignored.

However, having completed the upgrade all the Ubuntu entries have disappeared from grub. There are a few linux 3 entries, which don't work and my Windows 7 entry, which I didn't try but I presume still works.

I've booted up the 11.10 live cd and i've tried following this:

http://opensource-sidh.blogspot.com/2011/06/recover-grub-live-ubuntu-cd.html

however when I get to the part where I run

update-grub

I get

/etc/grub.d/00_header: 28: .: Can't open /usr/share/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib

I had similar problems when I installed 11.10 but I can't remember how I fixed them >_<

Any advice on what to try next?

Solution 1

I've had this issue every time I've upgraded a dual boot system since. I've fixed it every time using boot-repair installed via apt-get from the Ubuntu live CD.

Note: You only need to install boot-repair temporarily onto the CD, then run it to fix the problem. The default option has worked for me every time.

Solution 2

This is apparently a bug in Ubuntu. Package grub-common contains the missing file but in another place. I added a symbolic link to allow the file to be found.

I ran this command:

ln -s /usr/lib/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib /usr/share/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib

Afterwards update-grub succeeded.

Comments

[thelastshadow]

In the end I fixed this by running boot-repair help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair Installed through the 11.10 live cd. The default repair fixed the problem for me, although it didn't change the names of my grub records, so I now select Linux 3 to boot Ubuntu. I'm sure I can fix that issue separately by editing the grub config.

[thelastshadow]

Cheers. If I have any trouble on my next update I'll give that a go.