Grub rescue after showing biosdisk error [Ubuntu 9.10]

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Lostee

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I have intel pentium 4 Dell desktop with the latest Ubuntu installed. The OS was running fine, but when I tried booting it up today it showed me the following errors:

"PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.
BRUB loading.
error :biosdisk read error
grub rescue> "

And then it doesn't boot from there, it shows that only. I have tried google to search for a solution, but the other problems similar to this one do boot up. I have tried "grub-install" and it says unkown command 'grub-install'.

I don't know what might be the problem, but please help if you have a clue.
 
PXE is usually a network boot. Check your BIOS for the boot sequence.

I've used the gparted bootable CD to run grub-install. Instead of the LiveCD, try downloading the relevant alternate CD, but I do feel something has gone wonky in the BIOS.
 
The booting sequence seems to be fine, unless I'm missing something.
1. Onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive
2. Onboard Network Controller
3. Onboard SATA Hard Drive
4. Onboard or USB Floopy Drive
5. Onboard IDE Hard Drive (not present)
6. USB Device (not present)

It should be as is above, right?
 
Can someone please provide me with a link to download the required Live cd locally. I have used up my Telkom 1 gig cap and my DC test acc is super slow; I need to download locally coz I still have a few local gigs left on the Telkom acc.
 
You should be able to get the Ubuntu images from mirror.ac.za. Go to their page and get the download link there. It is also completely local.
 
Lostee said:
The booting sequence seems to be fine, unless I'm missing something.
1. Onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive
2. Onboard Network Controller
3. Onboard SATA Hard Drive
4. Onboard or USB Floopy Drive
5. Onboard IDE Hard Drive (not present)
6. USB Device (not present)

It should be as is above, right?
Click to expand...
Move #2 below #4.
 
BigAl-sa said:
Move #2 below #4.
Click to expand...

I've done that, but it only eliminates the 1st two errors. The biosdisk error is still there.

I'm busy downloading the live cd now, I hope I will be able to download grub. If I can't, I will just re-install the whole thing, but I want to sweat first so that I know what to try next time when I face a similar problem; I can't keep re-installing every time I get a system failure.

Thanks for your help guys, I will post a report back once my live cd has finished downloading so that it will be easy for anyone who gets this problem in the future.

PS: I hope u had a merry Christmas and a safe Boxing day.
 
I have just logged in using the Ubuntu Live Flash drive, don't know what it's called, but now I get a warning that my hard disk has many bad sectors. "Last self-test FAILED (Read)" I have not installed grub yet, I don't know if it will come up with this problem once I have downloaded grub.

Any insight on this??
 
You can try install grub but tbo it sounds like your hdd is popping.
 
Your HD might be on it's way out.

fsck -t ext3 /dev/hda1 or fsck -t ext2 /dev/sda1, where one is your specific HD number, ext3 specifies the filesystem type.

Aslo check your HD's SMART status.

Google for more options on the above commands.
 
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