Minimal BASH --- Grub --- error 17

You probably should not "hold" the F2 key... you only "tap it" once or twice when you see that screen. Holding down a key often gives a keyboard error. I really do want you to be able to access BIOS reliably... we may need to get in and out of there a few times (if it is working properly).

About the grub> commands... I'm curious where or how you got the commands you used up above in post #11. They could be close to being correct if you got the information from grub using the ls command. But if you just copied and pasted from a website somewhere then they could be all wrong too. Did you use ls at your grub> prompt?

I just got them from a forum.... No I did not use ls, didn't know. I will put that hard drive back in later and try again so any other info I can try at that time will be helpful.... wonder why the stupid website said to hold it down lol and when do I tap it?
 


OK, yeah, just tap the F2 key when the computer is starting, and when you can see the screen that is telling you "F2 for setup" (or however it phrases it). Make sure this works right, every time.

Those grub> commands are similar to what you would need to do, but there were some things wrong with them anyway.... like, you don't start each command with a $ symbol. These aren't the kinds of things I can pull out of my head though, so I'm looking at a couple of sites to see if I can either give you a link or maybe summarize the steps better. Back soon.
 
OK, yeah, just tap the F2 key when the computer is starting, and when you can see the screen that is telling you "F2 for setup" (or however it phrases it). Make sure this works right, every time.

Those grub> commands are similar to what you would need to do, but there were some things wrong with them anyway.... like, you don't start each command with a $ symbol. These aren't the kinds of things I can pull out of my head though, so I'm looking at a couple of sites to see if I can either give you a link or maybe summarize the steps better. Back soon.

I never see a screen that says anything except the Minimal Bash one.... no setup screen at all...
Thanks for looking the stuff up, I try but there is just sooooo much and I don't really know what I am looking for.....
 
I never see a screen that says anything except the Minimal Bash one.... no setup screen at all...
Thanks for looking the stuff up, I try but there is just sooooo much and I don't really know what I am looking for.....

It's not much of a screen sometimes, just all black with the instructions in the corners. But it would be before the grub screen. It is usually at the same time, or just after, you see the computer maker logo... like HP, or Dell, or whatever you have.
 
Also, was your Ubuntu up and running... then suddenly failed? Or were you trying a new install?
 
Also, was your Ubuntu up and running... then suddenly failed? Or were you trying a new install?

It was running but not quite right so I tried to restart after a failed update.... I do not ever see any other screen, just the logo then black then the bash/grub screen. I watch very close...
 
Is there a way to get a terminal from the grub> command line
 
Is there a way to get a terminal from the grub> command line

Well, the grub> is sort of its own terminal, with its own command set. See more below.

@Rob was steering you to boot up a "Live Ubuntu" (on USB or DVD) so that you could install a program called "Boot Repair." That might solve your problem if you can follow those directions. Another program that could also possibly help is Rescatux. But again, you would need to create a bootable USB or DVD to use this tool.

Looking at a number of articles, you may also be able to boot the Ubuntu you already have installed by using the grub> commands. There are not many commands needed really, but you would need to use ls as I mentioned before to determine where your Ubuntu is located (on what partition). Take a look at this article and see if you can follow it along okay. Of course it is critical to follow commands exactly or they won't work, and you would need to change the examples given to your own partition, kernel, and initrd information.

Any of these options may work, or not. You have gotten to nitty gritty of how to boot a Linux system, and at this level it seems much more complicated for a new user, and difficult for us to help guide you to the best or easiest fixes.
 
Well, the grub> is sort of its own terminal, with its own command set. See more below.

@Rob was steering you to boot up a "Live Ubuntu" (on USB or DVD) so that you could install a program called "Boot Repair." That might solve your problem if you can follow those directions. Another program that could also possibly help is Rescatux. But again, you would need to create a bootable USB or DVD to use this tool.

Looking at a number of articles, you may also be able to boot the Ubuntu you already have installed by using the grub> commands. There are not many commands needed really, but you would need to use ls as I mentioned before to determine where your Ubuntu is located (on what partition). Take a look at this article and see if you can follow it along okay. Of course it is critical to follow commands exactly or they won't work, and you would need to change the examples given to your own partition, kernel, and initrd information.

Any of these options may work, or not. You have gotten to nitty gritty of how to boot a Linux system, and at this level it seems much more complicated for a new user, and difficult for us to help guide you to the best or easiest fixes.

I will try all this. Another thing that may or may not be relevant is I have been having to manually run fsck sometimes when restarting.....
 
I will try all this. Another thing that may or may not be relevant is I have been having to manually run fsck sometimes when restarting.....

You were running fsck before getting stuck at grub, right? That might indicate your hard drive is going bad after all. But you should be able to boot on a USB or DVD too, even with no hard drive! :eek::D
 
You were running fsck before getting stuck at grub, right? That might indicate your hard drive is going bad after all. But you should be able to boot on a USB or DVD too, even with no hard drive! :eek::D

Yes before grub..... I don't think my DVD drive is working :( and could not do anything with the usb but will try again......
 
Yes before grub..... I don't think my DVD drive is working :( and could not do anything with the usb but will try again......

Oops. I was wrong about tapping your F2 key. Sorry!

I'm digging for more info on your exact model (Asus A53U). Some ASUS instructions I found are to hold down the F2, press (and release) the power button to turn it on and keep holding F2... until the BIOS setup appears. You should be able to do this every time, but even the FAQ acknowledges that this may fail (see below). I can't be sure this is for your model, but it goes along with what you said earlier so it's probably right. Here is the Asus FAQ that shows this method.

The FAQ above also says (when turning on the laptop) you can hold down the ESC key, press and release the power button and keep holding the ESC key until the Boot Device selection appears. If you do this with a bootable USB stick plugged in... maybe it will see it there and allow you to select it and boot. (This menu also will let you select "Enter Setup" to get to the BIOS if the F2 key method fails to work. Since you've had trouble with that, you may need to use this ESC key method instead.)

A different ASUS FAQ describes the BIOS settings needed to boot a USB. These things may already be set properly, but would be good to check if you can get into the BIOS Setup. The Secure Boot should be disabled, and CSM should be enabled. It's also good to disable Fastboot, but the FAQ doesn't say that. This may not be your exact BIOS either, but will hopefully be similar to yours.

So let's see if any of this works?!?!
 
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Oops. I was wrong about tapping your F2 key. Sorry!

I'm digging for more info on your exact model (Asus A53U). Some ASUS instructions I found are to hold down the F2, press (and release) the power button to turn it on and keep holding F2... until the BIOS setup appears. You should be able to do this every time, but even the FAQ acknowledges that this may fail (see below). I can't be sure this is for your model, but it goes along with what you said earlier so it's probably right. Here is the Asus FAQ that shows this method.

The FAQ above also says (when turning on the laptop) you can hold down the ESC key, press and release the power button and keep holding the ESC key until the Boot Device selection appears. If you do this with a bootable USB stick plugged in... maybe it will see it there and allow you to select it and boot. (This menu also will let you select "Enter Setup" to get to the BIOS if the F2 key method fails to work. Since you've had trouble with that, you may need to use this ESC key method instead.)

A different ASUS FAQ describes the BIOS settings needed to boot a USB. These things may already be set properly, but would be good to check if you can get into the BIOS Setup. The Secure Boot should be disabled, and CSM should be enabled. It's also good to disable Fastboot, but the FAQ doesn't say that. This may not be your exact BIOS either, but will hopefully be similar to yours.

So let's see if any of this works?!?!

Thank you so much! I will be trying this shortly and let you know how it turns out.
 
Good luck! I hope we can get you through this, one way or another!

OK, I have grub> commands! But I don't know what I am looking for so here is what it says:
1st command:
grub> ls (hd0,1)/
lost+found/ etc/ media/ var/ bin boot/ dev/ home/ lib/ lib64/ mnt/ opt/ proc/ root/ run/ sbin/ srv/ sys/ tmp/ usr/ vmlinuz initrd.img cdrom/ initrd.img.old vmlinuz.old snap/

The next command
grub> cat (hd0,1)/etc/issue
Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS \n \l

Then:
grub> set root=(hd0,1)
grub>linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=/dev/sda1

This one says error: file '/boot/vmlinuz..... ' not found
 
I am experimenting lol. I did
grub> ls /boot/grub
and got this:
gfxblacklist.txt i386-pc/ lacale/ fonts/ unicode.pf2 grubenv grub.cfg
 
OK, you're getting there. In the article you're following, about "booting from grub"... it shows these 4 commands that need to be done one at a time:

Code:
grub> set root=(hd0,1)
grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=/dev/sda1
grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic
grub> boot

But following the article, look below where those commands are posted... and it describes how to start typing the 2nd command, with vmli (then hit the TAB key to auto complete the real value you need). You'll need to do that again with the 3rd command to get the correct initrd.img for your system (the two should match for version number).

You're getting the error now because your kernel isn't the same as that shown in the article.

I gotta run for a bit, but back soon. See if it boots with those instructions, and if so just play awhile. The end of the article is a little more confusing to try to make it permanent, so I'll try to help make sure you get through that too, if it boots at all!
 
OK, you're getting there. In the article you're following, about "booting from grub"... it shows these 4 commands that need to be done one at a time:

Code:
grub> set root=(hd0,1)
grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=/dev/sda1
grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic
grub> boot

But following the article, look below where those commands are posted... and it describes how to start typing the 2nd command, with vmli (then hit the TAB key to auto complete the real value you need). You'll need to do that again with the 3rd command to get the correct initrd.img for your system (the two should match for version number).

You're getting the error now because your kernel isn't the same as that shown in the article.

I gotta run for a bit, but back soon. See if it boots with those instructions, and if so just play awhile. The end of the article is a little more confusing to try to make it permanent, so I'll try to help make sure you get through that too, if it boots at all!

I did this with several of the options of the 4.4.0...... that were given

grub> ls /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-47-generic
vmlinuz-4.4.0-47-generic
grub> ls initrd /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-47-generic
error: disk 'hd0,1' not found
 
Last edited:
I did
grub> ls
and got:
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos1)

then did grub> with each of those and got:

Device hd0: No known filesystem detected - Sector size 512B - Total size 312571224KiB

Partition hd0,msdos5: No known filesystem detected - Partition start at 308791296KiB - Total size 3779584KiB

Partition hd0,msdos1: Filesystem type ext* - Last modification time 2017-04-26 12:32:40 Wednesday, UUID 41680705-e40d-411f-9813-f07e5308362e - Partition start at 1024KiB - Total size 308789248KiB

now what?
 
OK, you're close (I hope!). In the 2nd and 3rd commands, you gave "ls" which isn't correct. Check them carefully, and use that "tab completion" to help you fill them in. So...

grub> set root=(hd0,1) --- this first
grub> linux vmlinuz-4.4.0-47-generic root=/dev/sda1 ---command is linux, then a space
grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-47-generic ---command is initrd, then a space
grub> boot ---then this

The article mentions another possibility if this fails, but see what happens with these commands. (Of course, don't copy my comments! LOL)
 

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