Install boot failed, grub> (hd0): filesystem unknown

[RogerX]

Hi, I have a Lenovo ideapad 100s and am trying to install Mint Xfce. When the install finished, I removed the USB hit enter, a blue screen came up, “Ubuntu boot failed”. I couldn’t access or do anything so I powered down. In the BIOS I selected secure boot disabled, and for Booting only two options, Ubuntu or EFI USB device. I tried with Ubuntu Boot, again, “Ubuntu boot failed”. Then with the EFI USB Boot selection, with a USB drive inserted, this time a grub window came up.

GNU GRUB version 2.12 Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions. To enable less(1)-like paging, “set pager=1”

After a bit of research, I typed in ls, then enter, and this came up,

(memdisk) (hd0) (hd1) (hd2) (hd3) I believe this is 4 disks and no partitions.

Then I typed in, ls (hd0) and this came up, (hd0): filesystem unknown. This was the same on each disk.

I’ve been on this for a while, and this is as far as I could get, I would appreciate any help I can get to complete the installation, thanks

 

[Condobloke]

G'day Roger, Welcome to Linux.org

How did you attach the Linux Mint xfce .iso file to the usb stick, to make it bootable ?

 

[kc1di]

Hello @RogerX
Welcome to the Linux.org forum, enjoy!
did you check the downloaded file to make sure it was good? See here.

Linux Mint Installation Guide — Linux Mint Installation Guide documentation

linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io

 

[osprey]

Hi, I have a Lenovo ideapad 100s and am trying to install Mint Xfce. When the install finished, I removed the USB hit enter, a blue screen came up, “Ubuntu boot failed”. I couldn’t access or do anything so I powered down. In the BIOS I selected secure boot disabled, and for Booting only two options, Ubuntu or EFI USB device. I tried with Ubuntu Boot, again, “Ubuntu boot failed”. Then with the EFI USB Boot selection, with a USB drive inserted, this time a grub window came up.

GNU GRUB version 2.12 Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions. To enable less(1)-like paging, “set pager=1”

After a bit of research, I typed in ls, then enter, and this came up,

(memdisk) (hd0) (hd1) (hd2) (hd3) I believe this is 4 disks and no partitions.

Then I typed in, ls (hd0) and this came up, (hd0): filesystem unknown. This was the same on each disk.

I’ve been on this for a while, and this is as far as I could get, I would appreciate any help I can get to complete the installation, thanks

When the user is launched into the grub prompt: grub>, it means that there's a problem with the normal booting process that grub is intended to run. It could be a number of things like missing or corrupted grub config files, problems for grub accessing the boot partition or even hardware failure among other things. In the case of being thrust into the grub prompt, it's worth reinstalling grub. For mint there are instructions here: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=1818770#p1818770. Using the live disk method described is the optimal way to go. If indeed the mint installation proceeded without error, a successful re-installation of grub would normally boot that installation.

It's possible to check what's on the drives in the machine from a live disk, so whilst running a live disk before re-installing grub, one can run a few commands to see if there is what looks like a valid installation. A first useful command could be: lsblk which would show disk and partitions. To check the partitions one can mount them and list the files to see if what is supposed to be there is in fact there.

 

[RogerX]

Thanks for the responses, I downloaded the Linux file then carried out verification and authenticity checks, they were fine. I then used Echter to flash the drive onto a USB. The install seemed to go ok until the end, when it said Ubuntu boot failed. I downloaded again and tried again, with a different USB stick this led me back to the grub page. I read that Echter can cause problems so I checked my two USB sticks and they were both write protected, I had to clean both of them. So I used Rufus to flash the USB drive, I tried twice once with GPT and then MBR still the same.

I think the first time I actually installed Mint, Echter corrupted the file, but now I can’t get past the grub page, to re-install a good Linux iso.

Hi Osprey

Not sure what you mean by a live USB is this the normal installation USB? Because I’ve tried to use an installation USB and I can’t get past the grub page, it appears, to do anything it must be done on the grub page.

 

[osprey]

Hi Osprey

Not sure what you mean by a live USB is this the normal installation USB? Because I’ve tried to use an installation USB and I can’t get past the grub page, it appears, to do anything it must be done on the grub page.

The linux mint isofile, when properly written to a usb, makes that usb both a live disk and an installation disk. When booting the usb into linux mint, (without having chosen to install the mint distro) the data on the computer's drive is not altered since the live disk distro runs in RAM. One can use the tools on that live disk running in RAM to install grub as outlined in the link in post #4, a well, of course, to explore the linux mint distro.

There are numerous live disks for different distros which allow the user to check out the distro before it's to be installed by selecting the installation option and they mostly can be used for the same repairing functions. There are specialised rescue disks which often have extra tools, and they are also live disks that can be used for repairing systems. A couple of well known ones are: systemrescue, and grml. Those repair live disks are made in the same way as any live disk, by writing the isofile to the usb, so the the usb becomes bootable. In your case, the linux mint usb, used as a live disk will suffice to re-install grub if you follow the directions.

 

[RogerX]

Hi Osprey, please bear with me I’m not good at understanding tech. Are you saying as my install USB is a live USB I can plug it in and then when the grub page comes up type in the instruction in that link which will be grub>sudo grub-install /dev/sdx

 

[Mike-BTU]

... I then used Echter [Etcher?] to flash the drive onto a USB. The install seemed to go ok until the end, when it said Ubuntu boot failed. I downloaded again and tried again, with a different USB stick this led me back to the grub page. I read that Echter can cause problems so I checked my two USB sticks and they were both write protected, I had to clean both of them. So I used Rufus to flash the USB drive ...

Respectfully, this is yet another post where someone used Rufus and/or Etcher and didn't get good results.

Get Ventoy.

I have yet to read any experiences where using Ventoy ended with booting problems.

Description:

Ventoy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Official website:

Ventoy

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again, you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it.

www.ventoy.net

I use it all the time, and never had an issue. And so have countless others.

 

[Mike-BTU]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etcher_(software) says
"balenaEtcher (commonly referred to and formerly known as Etcher)".

 

[kc1di]

Unfortunately Ideapads are not the best with Linux but can be made to work. If you have no other OS on the machine I would turn the computer off hold the off button for 5 To 10 secs after it goes off. This will clear junk that maybe in the bios/eufi.
then try rebooting with the live usb stick and once there I would go to menu. Gparted and format the hard drive reboot and try the install again.

 

[Condobloke]

From @kc1di's post above, turn off pc, hold down off button etc.....then insert usb, turn on pc and then start tapping the F12 key to bring the pc to the boot menu. Make your selection there and then proceed.

The key to tap could be either the F12, F8 or F10. I do not use a lenovo, so am unfamiliar.

 

[osprey]

Hi Osprey, please bear with me I’m not good at understanding tech. Are you saying as my install USB is a live USB I can plug it in and then when the grub page comes up type in the instruction in that link which will be grub>sudo grub-install /dev/sdx

Yes, the mint install disk is a live disk. On re-installing grub, no! When re-installing grub from the live disk, there is no grub prompt: grub>! Rather, one needs to follow the instructions in the link in post #4. It is technical. There are terms that need to be understood. I guess it's like being thrown in the deep end if one is not familiar with the terminology and the processes. I understand that. If that re-installation process of grub is too difficult, an alternative, is to re-install the whole operating system. You might consider using ventoy as mentioned by @Mike-BTU in post #8. There's reading and understanding that needs to be done before using ventoy as well, but it's fairly straight forward.

If you re-install, when the installer gets to the point of asking where to install the grub bootloader, you should tell it to install to the disk, which means not to a partition or elsewhere.

Using the live disk of mint xfce here, which I've just tested, what happens is this:

• The usb is plugged in before the computer is started
• The power-on button is pushed and I need to press a key to bring up the boot menu. In this case that key is F12 but it varies, as noted above in post #11. From the boot menu, I select the item which is the usb. Then the usb boots up.
• A grub menu appears on screen. The linux mint xfce distro can be selected by making sure it's highlighted and pressing the enter key. There is no grub prompt: grub>! Once the linux mint xfce distro is selected, it boots to a live installation into RAM. Once booted up a GUI appears and the user can use linux mint.

In the top left hand corner is an icon which says "Install linux mint". If you wish to re-install grub to your computer's drive, you do not install linux mint by clicking on that icon. Rather, you open a terminal and follow the instructions on the link in post #4. But, if you want to re-install the linux mint operating system to get a new clean installion on disk, then you would press that "Install linux mint" icon, and, during that installation process, ensure that when the question of where to install the grub bootloader, to answer to install to disk.

If you are thrown into a grub prompt: grub>, at the point where the usb is trying to boot up in a new installation of linux mint, then there is a problem such as one or more of those mentioned in post #4. If that is happening then you may need to clean the drive because it's likely that repeated attempts at installation have left code on the disk that is interfering with the new installation. That's a process that's done from a live disk, but you may need a specialised rescue disk to do it if the linux live disk can't. Those are my thoughts at this point.

 

[bob466]

Forget burning ISOs to Flash Drives...Ventoy is the way to go.

Install Ventoy to a Flash Drive and drag the ISO in...then boot to Ventoy...select Mint xfce and hit Enter twice.

I have Mint xfce installed on my Laptop from the ISO above.

 

[RogerX]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I’m busy today I’ll look into them tomorrow

 

[RogerX]

I thought the best way for me was what a few of you had suggested, format my laptop and re-install linux, however I can’t format my laptop, when I go into the BIOS and select system recovery it goes back to the black grub page, it seems like this page has taken over my laptop. I think I will have to try and use a rescue USB as Osprey suggested.

Searching how to format my laptop I found Lenovo saying its 32 bit, with this mint xfce being 64bit is this why I have a problem? I am now looking at 32bit OS like antiX, and see if I can install it over Xfce. I’ll keep you posted.

 

[Kamalokax]

Hi, I have a Lenovo ideapad 100s and am trying to install Mint Xfce. When the install finished, I removed the USB hit enter, a blue screen came up, “Ubuntu boot failed”. I couldn’t access or do anything so I powered down. In the BIOS I selected secure boot disabled, and for Booting only two options, Ubuntu or EFI USB device. I tried with Ubuntu Boot, again, “Ubuntu boot failed”. Then with the EFI USB Boot selection, with a USB drive inserted, this time a grub window came up.

GNU GRUB version 2.12 Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completions. To enable less(1)-like paging, “set pager=1”

After a bit of research, I typed in ls, then enter, and this came up,

(memdisk) (hd0) (hd1) (hd2) (hd3) I believe this is 4 disks and no partitions.

Then I typed in, ls (hd0) and this came up, (hd0): filesystem unknown. This was the same on each disk.

I’ve been on this for a while, and this is as far as I could get, I would appreciate any help I can get to complete the installation, thanks

 

[Kamalokax]

It exist a Program "Boot repair" thats
must Go.

Greetz

 

[kc1di]

if it is 32 bit machine that is why your having all the trouble. Is the machine 32 bit or is it just the boot /bios that is 32 bit.
please give us a little more infor on the machine. Which model Lenovo is it how old? Mint no longer supports 32 bit. So you would have to choose another Distro that does. AntiX, MX Debian I believe still support 32 bit. machines there are others but the number is dwindling every year.

 

[RogerX]

Hi kc1di, the laptop is a Lenovo ideapad 100s 11IBY, not sure how old it is but probably around 10 years.
I've read that Debian no longer support 32 bit, so I'll probably go with AntiX as I've found a YT video that explains the complete set up.

 

[RogerX]

I have now managed to install Linux antiX-26 a 32bit version on my laptop, so I think my problem was that mint is 64 bit and my laptop is 32 bit. Thanks for all the responses.