# Grub: Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no

## Wishmaster

Hello,

when I try to install grub the following message appears:

```

grub> setup (hd0)

 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no

 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes

 Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes

 Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes

 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  16 sectors are embedded.

succeeded

 Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,1)/grub/stage2 /grub/grub.conf"... succeeded

Done. 

```

The file stage1 is there, but why is grub not able to find it?

I think the problem occures after grub was updated (to 0.93).

Now only the grub prombt appears at boot.

It would be nice if somebody will help me out.

Bye,

Wishmaster

----------

## m33sb3w

Not 100% sure here, but I seem to remember reading about this once...

Try making a link named boot in the /boot directory that points to that directory.

```
# ln -s . boot
```

I know it sounds stupid, but like I said I remember reading something about it once.

Eric

----------

## Wishmaster

Allthough I don't understand the command, I tried it. But no change. Sorry.

I think you mean the link "boot" in the directory "/boot" that aims at "/boot" is that right? This link already there.

Do you have another idea? It would be great!  :Smile: 

Bye,

Wishmaster

----------

## m33sb3w

Man, I'm a bit out of it today...I read it again and saw that grub said it suceeded...have you tried the rest of the setup and then tried rebooting?  I don't know why it wouldn't find the /boot/grub/stage1, but it still found stage1 under just /grub/stage1

 *The grub manual wrote:*   

> This is an essential image used for booting up GRUB. Usually, this is embedded in a MBR or the boot sector of a partition. Because a PC boot sector is 512 bytes, the size of this image is exactly 512 bytes.
> 
>     All stage1 must do is to load Stage 2 or Stage 1.5 from a local disk. Because of the size restriction, stage1 encodes the location of Stage 2 (or Stage 1.5) in a block list format, so it never understand any filesystem structure.

 

Now from what your output read, grub installed stage1 so from what I understand you should be all set once you finish up everything else (i.e. tell it your root and then go edit the config file).

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## Wishmaster

Yes, you are right it suceeded and grub is installed in the mbr. I finished the configuration process and restarted but i only get the grub prompt.

The funny thing is that it works for half a year, so i think my config file is ok  and now after an grub update it doesn't work anymore.

I also have reemerge grub and again tried to install but nothing changed.

----------

## m33sb3w

There's one more thing I can think of to check...

I believe that grub used to use menu.lst as the config file and that it now uses the file grub.conf in the same directory.  The setup of the file is exactly the same...just the name is different.  If you had an older version and used menu.lst, try making a link called grub.conf that points to menu.lst.

Eric

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## Wishmaster

Ok, i think there is the problem. 

Now after the initialisation of the bios a blank screen with a blinking prompt in the upper left appears. But the menu is loaded.

And after 10 seconds the default entry is booted, ( i'm glad that it is gentoo!).

But now: How can i make my menu visible?

Thanks a lot for your help!

----------

## m33sb3w

I found this:

 *the grub manual wrote:*   

> hiddenmenu 	Command
> 
> Don't display the menu. If the command is used, no menu will be displayed on the control terminal, and the default entry will be booted after the timeout expired. The user can still request the menu to be displayed by pressing <ESC> before the timeout expires. See also Hidden menu interface.

 

It sounds like what you're experiencing.  Maybe it's being invoked somehow.  You might want to check that.

The entire grub manual can be found here.  It's very well written.

Eric

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## Wishmaster

 *m33sb3w wrote:*   

> 
> 
> It sounds like what you're experiencing.  Maybe it's being invoked somehow.  You might want to check that.
> 
> The entire grub manual can be found here.  It's very well written.
> ...

 

Thx for the link. I've tried pressing "ESC" when the blinking prompt is shown. But no menu is displayed.

In the manual i also found:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> If you are not sure which partition actually holds these files, use the command find (see find), like this:
> 
> grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
> ...

 

The output of this command is:

```

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

Error 15: File not found

```

So, back to the roots: 

I downloaded the grub sources and installed it manually. Substituted the stage1 file and again tried to insert the new MBR. And again the same failure.

I think there is a damaged stage1 in the MBR. But I'm sick of entering all start commands manually on every boot.

I'm only one step away from installing lilo!  :Very Happy: 

You are my last hope!

Bye,

Tim

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## m33sb3w

Sorry, but I've run out of ideas.  I figure that if grub/stage1 exists in /boot (which it does) and if the boot link in the /boot directory exists (which it does) then the file /boot/grub/stage1 should be found because it's the same file as /boot/boot/grub/stage1 which is the same as /boot/boot/boot/grub/stage1 and so on.

That being said, I don't think that's where your problem lies.  Grub just needs to find stage1 and it did.  From what I understand, when you invoke the setup command it goes through a list of possible locations until it finds each stage.  It didn't find it at /boot/grub/stage1 (though I don't know why) but it did find it at /grub/stage1.  I found a couple other places on the net where the grub setup process was demonstrated and the output for the setup command matched yours and it was a perfectly functional install.

I'm also not sure that it's a MBR problem, but not 100% sure.  If it boots fine after the default time is up then that means the stage1 in the MBR did it's thing:  it activated stage2 (or 1.5).  That's the only job of stage1 and it seems it does that job.

There's one more thing that just may be contributing, but this I know next to nothing about:  framebuffering.  Did you put framebuffering support into your kernel around the time you updated grub?  Like I said, I've never messed with framebuffering, but I know kind of what it is and also that it can cause blank screens if not done properly.  Maybe a framebuffer guru can jump in this thread and tell us if that could be the problem or if I'm just blindly stabbing in the dark.

I'll keep this whole thing in the back of my mind today and maybe some other idea will pop up.

Eric

----------

## Wishmaster

 *m33sb3w wrote:*   

> 
> 
> There's one more thing that just may be contributing, but this I know next to nothing about:  framebuffering.  Did you put framebuffering support into your kernel around the time you updated grub?  Like I said, I've never messed with framebuffering, but I know kind of what it is and also that it can cause blank screens if not done properly.  Maybe a framebuffer guru can jump in this thread and tell us if that could be the problem or if I'm just blindly stabbing in the dark.
> 
> 

 

Ok, thx for your patience. The Vesa framebuffer is in use on my system, but i don't think that is the problem because the framebuffer kernel works without problems and as far as i know grub know nothing about the booted kernel and so don't know if a special framebuffer driver is used or not.

I hope you understand what i want to say. My englisch is bad!  :Wink: 

Bye,

Wishmaster

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## m33sb3w

Yes, I see you're right about that.  Grub wouldn't see the substance of the kernel at the point where you are having your problem.  I don't know what else it could be.  I'll try looking around the internet and I'll also try different things with grub on my computer.

And don't worry about your english--it's fine.  I have no trouble understanding you.

Eric

----------

## SIR

I too, am getting the same problem, maybe I can add some new ideas.

When I run setup (hd0) from the grub prompt, I get the exact same message as above:  

```
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
```

 (and so on)

I tried using the tab key (like in bash) to fill in the info at the grub prompt, and it would not find the /boot directory.  I typed:

```
kernel (hd0,0)/bo <Tab key>
```

and nothing happened.

I did happen to have a copy of my bzImage file in my /root directory (as a backup), and when I type:

```
kernel (hd0,0)/b
```

and then hit the tab key, it filled in things so it now says "kernel (hd0,0)/bzImage"

After this (and filling up the rest of the parameters), everything boots up properly.

I did create a dummy text file in /root, and tried using the tab key in grub to see if it could find it, but alas it could not.  It must be finding my bzImage somewhere else, or maybe my drive is not mounted properly, or something.

Does anybody know why this is happening?

----------

## SIR

 *Wishmaster wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I hope you understand what i want to say. My englisch is bad! 
> 
> 

 

Ich kann Deutsch... aber wir verstehen dich!  :Cool: 

By the way, I edited my /boot/grub/grub.conf file and changed my kernel line from

```
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3
```

to

```
kernel (hd0,0)/bzImage root=/dev/hda3
```

and my computer boots fine now.

I don't see the grub splash screen like I used to (before I was getting this problem), but since I'm using only 1 kernel configuration right now, that's ok.

I'm wondering what will happen next time I build a new kernel, though.

I don't understand mounting boot and such, but am I normally supposed to do something like:

```
# mount /dev/hda1 /boot

# <make changes, copy new kernel, etc.>

# umount /boot
```

whenever I'm messing with files in /boot?

I notice, because I get a different result from "ls -l /boot" when doing it right after startup, and after mount /dev/hda1 /bootLast edited by SIR on Sat Jun 28, 2003 5:12 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## SIR

Does this mean anything?

Here's some output at my grub prompt:

```
grub> find /boot/grub/bstage1

 (hd0,2)

grub> find /boot/bzImage

 (hd0,2)
```

I set up my system just like the install guide (/dev/hda1 is /boot, /dev/hda2 is swap, /dev/hda3 is / in my fstab file).

(hd0,2) translates to /dev/hda3, so is my system messed up (I thought I should be expecting (hd0,0) or /boot in my find commands above)?

----------

## cyrillic

 *SIR wrote:*   

> Does this mean anything?

 

Yes, it means you did not have /dev/hda1 mounted when you copied bzImage to /boot ,  so bzImage ended up in the /boot directory of your / partition (/dev/hda3)

----------

## Wishmaster

 *SIR wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I don't see the grub splash screen like I used to (before I was getting this problem), but since I'm using only 1 kernel configuration right now, that's ok.
> 
> I'm wondering what will happen next time I build a new kernel, though.
> ...

 

Ok, but this is my problem. I need this grub splash screen, because from time to time i need to boot Windows. 

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> I don't understand mounting boot and such, but am I normally supposed to do something like:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

Yes! I'm doing it in the same way and the output after boot (without mounting the "boot" Partition) is nothing and after mounting the output is:

```

root@wishmaster / # ls /boot/

apmkernel  boot    boot-bmp.b   boot-text.b  chain.b  etc   home  lost+found  memtest86  opt      proc  sbin  usr

bin        boot.b  boot-menu.b  bzImage      dev      grub  lib   mbr.b       mnt        os2_d.b  root  tmp   var

```

I'm wondering why there are directories like "home", "bin" and "sbin" but i don't think this is a problem.

Bye,

Wishmaster

----------

## SIR

 *cyrillic wrote:*   

> Yes, it means you did not have /dev/hda1 mounted when you copied bzImage to /boot ,  so bzImage ended up in the /boot directory of your / partition (/dev/hda3)

 

Should I mount /boot, re-emerge grub and follow the steps in the install doc then?  I'd like to be using /dev/hda1 for booting, and all, I'm a little confused on this.

Is /dev/hda1 supposed to be mounted at startup?

Thanks for the help and insights.

----------

## beandog

 *SIR wrote:*   

>  *Wishmaster wrote:*   
> 
> I hope you understand what i want to say. My englisch is bad! 
> 
>  
> ...

 

Weird... That fixed both my splash screen, and the Error 15 File not found for my bzImage.

All these problems started popping up right after I emerged the latest version of grub.  I just reinstalled Gentoo, and got the same thing, but its working now.

----------

## SIR

 *Wishmaster wrote:*   

> Ok, i think there is the problem. 
> 
> Now after the initialisation of the bios a blank screen with a blinking prompt in the upper left appears. But the menu is loaded.
> 
> And after 10 seconds the default entry is booted, ( i'm glad that it is gentoo!).
> ...

 

Ok Wishmaster, I think I've got the answer for you.  Like I mentioned earlier, I too got a blank screen on startup, I could boot either by pressing enter or waiting for the timeout to happen.

The solution is similar to the one I mentioned with bzImage.

First, go into grub, and then use the tab key to find out where the splash.xpm.gz file is located.  I did the following:

```
# grub

 grub> kernel(hd0,0)/gr <tab key> spl <tab key>
```

For me, this filled in the following:

```
 grub> kernel(hd0,0)/grub/spalsh.xpm.gz (don't hit enter/return!)
```

Be sure to erase this, that's no kernel!!!  But at least this should tell you where the splash screen file is.

So, using that information, edit your grub.conf file.

Mine looks something like this:

```
default 0

timeout 30

splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=My example Gentoo Linux

root (hd0,0) 

kernel (hd0,0)/bzImage root=/dev/hda3
```

Compare this to the install guide, and make any changes necessary for your drive setup.

Viel Glück!

----------

## Wishmaster

 *SIR wrote:*   

> 
> 
> The solution is similar to the one I mentioned with bzImage.
> 
> First, go into grub, and then use the tab key to find out where the splash.xpm.gz file is located.  I did the following:
> ...

 

Yeah! Thanks a lot. You have pointed it out. That was the solution for my problem. 

From now on i am able to see the bootmenu!  :Smile: 

Vielen, vielen Dank!!

Bye,

Wishmaster

----------

