GRUB Rescue | Repairing GRUB

In this video, I go over 2 methods of recovering grub when your Linux distribution won't boot.
Christitus.com Article: www.christitus.com/grub-rescue/ .
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[@PS_Tube]

Tip :: Every Linux user, especially new users should keep a live usb with them.

[@NilamDevi-fy6ps]

True words ❤️...I have done many times this

[@soulninjadev]

not only new users tbh everyone needs to hv one

[@clayhudson8892]

I keep 6😂

[@deezz244]

I got that lesson today

[@soulninjadev]

@@deezz244 lol

[@rogueyun9613]

"Only takes 30 seconds to a minute..." I'm on day two...

[@russghound]

Man, that was an awesome video on restoring Grub. You sure make stuff look easy. Will definitely want to keep this video bookmarked for future reference.

[@nicolasbrinkhus7437]

For those with UEFI system: also have to mount the efi, in my case I did: mount /dev/sda3 /mnt mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi (if you don't have the folder, create one) arch-chroot /mnt ... if your command grub-mkconfig does not found a linux kernel img (my case): mkinitcpio -p linux (should create one, if still don't find it, update your packages: pacman -Syyu grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg reboot and good luck.

[@vydave]

6:12 notice the excitement when he is about to mess up the grub real bad

[@samratpandey5131]

Bro 4:07 In mine it says Unknown command 'linux'

[@sethadkins546]

@@samratpandey5131 Are you in Rescue? If not try replacing the command with "load"

[@-BlueAzure-]

😮

[@spaceiswater6539]

You're so helpful Chris with all your videos, thank you so much for all the effort you put into them.

[@kellingc]

I just had one of my systems boot to Grub Rescue. You could not have posted this a better time. Thank you.

[@tonyfreehauf4463]

great job including your notes. this is very helpful. hope you do this on all your great videos - thanks old tony

[@victornetto4024]

This is awesome, i spent like 4 hours trying every possible solution, and only this one worked! Thank you very much!

[@s9209122222]

update-grub is available on Manjaro by default, too. After your explanation, it becomes so easy, it was a nightmare to me.

[@KeepItTechie]

Great video. I had to do this awhile back to my server. Thanks!

[@theodoros_1234]

This video has saved me multiple times from destruction caused by my shenanigans, thanks Chris!

[@desardlika755]

will these work on Linux mint , i also got an error "no such partition" when i deleted a partition .

[@linuxpcinstalls4313]

I need to watch this a few hundred times more so that it becomes hard-wired into my brain and I can get to do it in my sleep. Thanks. I copied and saved the notes on your website to a pdf file tucked away safely on my Google Drive ...and also backed up on my tablet. I'm ALMOST looking forward to seeing either of those two Grub errors ...ALMOST! :D

[@mTrader1]

😆😆

[@Sakuraigi]

@@mTrader1 what is your rating

[@mTrader1]

@@Sakuraigi 2050

[@devooko]

​@@Sakuraigi what color is your buggati

[@soundsandambientvideos380]

How can you build a custom .iso for installing OS and apps what partition has grub what apps are good to have on a usb to use for a rescue USB

[@arashkmahshidfar7780]

Ummm I have dual booted windows and kali linux and my problem is that windows is not showing in my grub. And os-prober command will only detect my FreeDOS which was my initial os when I bought my laptop. What should I do?

[@DonEdward]

Im trying to install arch on a usb stick. Its x86 architecture and a uefi bios. If all i need to do is setup the configuration for x86/uefi from i386, van that be done from grub-rescue?

[@teddraper1746]

Great, informative video. I normally end up reinstalling or deleting my install because I don't know how to fix the problem. This video is getting book-marked!

[@JemilMarcosTyC]

Damn... I went trough this hell over the weekend and took me serveral hours to figure it out and fix it... If I only had this video before... anyhow, Thanks a lot for the video mate!

[@Macleod1617]

Well, today the second part of the video saved my main arch computer after an update. Thanks Chris!

[@AJ_real]

Chris, why do you run grub-mkconfig before grub-install? Are there ever scenarios where grub-mkconfig should be run **after** grub-install ?

[@jamesschaefer9554]

I checked a few resources, this is the process that finally worked for me. Thanks Chris

[@protoyeen]

Thank you! I was having an issue getting AntiX to install grub and thanx to it's chroot tool and your tutorial, I got grub working again!

[@luigiprovencher8888]

How do you do this on Debian with a separate boot partition,though?

[@lukaradisavljevic5791]

thank god someone who isnt having a harsh indian accent

[@BinarySmurf]

Hi Chris... When I get to the point of entering 'grub-install' and 'grub-mkconfig' in the grub console (prompt is 'grub>') I get told that both commands cannot be found, despite the fact that I have verified that grub is installed and that both commands run in a 'normal' terminal. What am I doing wrong? Distro is XeroLinux (arch based). Thanks.

[@vinvvinv7460]

Hi, I installed Rocky Linux 8.5 on VMware after installation I am not able to boot into the OS as when I select the kernel from the grub menu I get a kernel panic error it reads "Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception" it also does not boot into the rescue in the grub menu. I used an iso to boot into the rescue mode & tried to fix/repair the initramfs file using Dracut but that did not fix the issue. I tried the above steps you showed but in my case tab completion does not work properly sometimes it works & sometimes it does not. It's something related to vmlinuz which is causing it but I am not sure what to do or configure in the grub to fix it. can you kindly help. I don't think its an issue with the initramfs because one of my colleagues had fixed this issue using the grub rescue/CLI by passing some parameters like you did

[@rcktrvs]

So I just installed linux on a hp laptop, and the install seems to have completed. However now it won't boot, and it goes strait to a menu with two options ( Linux mint 21.1 cinnamon, with linux 5.15.0-56 generic) and Linux mint 21.1 cinnamon, with linux 5.15.0-56 generic (recovery mode) if I select either it goes to loading linux 5.15.0-56 generic ... then directly under it, it says error: bad shim signature, then below that loading initial Ramdisk ....then below that error: you need to load the kernel first. what do I do? I am lost. Thank you in advance for your help.

[@eddieoconnor4466]

Thanks for this!.....I've always wanted to have a better understanding of the whole "grub" thing!

[@sarojkhadka2706]

Hey chris i have got the issues with kali linux, i am new to kali and a day ago i installed it and the problem that i have got is i cant login to kali when i am in a normal mode or advance mode, to login into kali always i have to use recovery mode . so, if their is any solutions to fix it please let me know

[@ricardo072]

What if I don't remember the label of my disks? You did it easy and fast because you knew the path of your drive, how can I find that out from the GRUB console?

[@GooogleGoglee]

What if you want to move the boot folder in a boot partition? How can you do it?

[@kirkd1502]

I installed Lubuntu 18.04 and it crashed on the final portion which is installing grub. I tried another distro....FreeSpire 6.0, but same issue. I reboot and get to the grub prompt. I'm not sure why the sudo update-grub is not repairing the files in my case.

[@mercuriete]

Thanks! Great video. I've never been able to understand grub command line. I always use the live cd approach. Now I switch from grub to boot directly from UEFI. It is faster and is easier to do dual boot if your BIOS have UEFI OS selector. If I mess up UEFI variables I probably only need efibootmgr from a liveCD to restore my boot configuration. Another unsual configuration in my boot process is having all drivers (and firmware) built-in in kernel. This allows you to avoid use initramfs image. Avoiding initramfs speeds up disk reading from SSD or HD because you have everything you need inside the kernel. The fastest you bring up your devices the fastest init/systemd starts. The fastest you start init/systemd the fastest you get to login prompt. You can archive very fast boot times (3 seconds) if you do that.

[@kenmurphy4259]

Nice walk through Chris, great channel

[@andreas_aqua]

I can do it on every linux version? I can't install linux mint and Lubuntu after a dumb thing I did

[@marjaireplay8730]

Great work CT! This is by far the farthest I've gotten with grub cl. Question: What about adding extra things to this boot covered in the first portion so as to add things like noacpi or things like that? How would I type that and where? Thanks so much for your encouragements and insights CT

[@MushishiYoki]

My os is linux mint set boot=(hd0,msdos3) set prefix=(hd0,msdos3)/boot/grub insmod normal normal Ok my linux starting up.. Reboot Grub rescue again.. what? So i should type the command every boot? if i type 'set' the display partition is (hd0,msdos2) boot and prefix, but actually this is incorrect, my system and boot and prefix actually in (hd0,msdos3) partition. What i can do this? Every boot, grub rescue again and i should type the command again too.. Sorry if my english is bad :(, i hope your answer..

[@chanchalnambiar4196]

ls command and insmod normal both returns "error : no such partition". What can I do? How can i boot to windows?

[@paulb9769]

Thanks I had the Grub crash all UEFI systems had and managed to fix it but I get a black screen the shows the enter decryption password. My LUKS password still works but there is no prompt what could the cause be?

[@chris-ui2nt]

Hi all, when I type Linu and press tab there are so many choices, and the newest one says incorrect magic number... or something like that. Any suggestions?

[@goldmaster369]

4:17 I got error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-linux' not found Help quickly plz!

[@Blackstarr-ye9fp]

You got an asnwer?

[@Vaishravana07]

The line after the ls root=(hd0,msdos1) Doesn’t work what shall I do it says file /boot/vmlinuz-linux not found????

[@suttle_writeups]

Hey bro i have a linux distro and somehow that partition is corrupt and i wont able to load grub and wont able to access bios and bootmenu. It stucks on lenovo logo and after black screen .how to solve it

[@catsartpics]

Very helpful Chris Titus Tech, thank you so much! Somehow during a LMDE install Grub got hosed and when I repaired Grub with a Live Debian USB it still booted to grub rescue. Found out in the BIOS the distros somehow got switched around.When I put the devices back in order sda, sdb and sdc and rebooted from the BIOS I had Grub again. Any idea how the /etc/default/grub got mis-configured?

[@myself_pk7378]

I accidentally deleted my /boot folder for kali linux...... It is showing the same error '/boot/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod' not found. Can you help me? PLEASE ASAP

[@shankhanilsaha8858]

I installed windows 10in a spearate partitions but it doesnt work grub boot lader is not even opening and linux boots automatically how to fix it?

[@asepramdan2640]

Helo, i have some problem, ls result only shown (proc) and (hd0), i cant found ubuntu partition wich contain boot loader. Cant you help me

[@trungnguyenhoang1139]

Verry helpful. Thank you! Chris

[@januji6888]

Sir please answer this. I am using ubuntu 20.04 I tried to install some packages which includes kernel headers as well. Now I see two kernels. And I am getting this boot error. I have checked the error by pressing ESC at the booting time all services boot properly at the end I see "grub failed boot detection". Is this video can help me ? Because I have data in root directory and users directory as well. And I have GPT file system.

[@mahanthakuri3471]

How do I reset parrot os back to fresh install or like in windows as I am new and some of my frn got access to my os and messing with me ... Pls aid me

[@srikhalifa2059]

Hi i have accidentally deleted and allocated the hidden 50gb drive which is Linux grub stored drive and stored my 25gb file in that drive. When i restart the laptop it came to entering rescue mode... grub rescue> command page. Now the problem is i can't able to repair my windows because of the 25gb file which i stored in linux grub hidden drive. How to solve this problem pls help me.

[@timeforchange9514]

My boot screen only has the word grub nothing more nor will it boot a live USB. Any thoughts? Need help.

[@Klinoklaz]

I experieced a weird situation with ubuntu 22.04. I had my os installed in a usb stick, which already came with an efi partition, but after a system update the bootloader somehow started to use another efi partition on the cmputer ssd. Not sure these two thing are related. I set ubuntu as the first entry of uefi boot list, so when I boot my computer without ubuntu usb pluged, it loads ubuntu efi file but can't find the os, then ends up getting into grub. Solved this by copying everything under efi partition of ssd into that of the usb, then configuring it mannually with efibootmgr

[@computethis7128]

Oh man thank you so much. Saving this video for sure since it saved me. I was very close to eiping the drive and just using it as extra storage space after linux just stopped booting. But I'm back in again. Well sort of. For some reason it keeps doing this after rebooting but repeating the same commands at the end of the simple one to mount the kernal works fine each time without problem. But I don't want to have to keep doing those commands every time I boot my pc. And I still can't get the normal grub selection screen to show up. I have to switch to windows on a seperate drive by changing the bios boot order. Windows boots fine and normally. I have linux mint on an external ssd which is what's having issues.

[@Douglas-hw8is]

Thanks - great vid BUT, when executing (in Ubuntu 22.04 terminal) "sudo chroot /mnt" I get the following response: "chroot: failed to run command '/bin/bash' : No such file or directory. Any suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

[@derek2220]

Does anyone know where I can find a video that explains how to fix the “unable to install grub” issue, I’ve been trying to find the answer and fix this problem for four months now, please! any help would be greatly appreciated!

[@MUKESHSINGH-ou1ou]

Hello, It saying that init command not found. Can tell what I am doing wrong?

[@Incommensurate]

thank you so much for this video, i screwed up grub trying to make a dual boot system, been trying for over an hour to fix it and this is the only solution that worked. wish I'd found it sooner...

[@userfour-cy1bu]

aye i think i have the same problem tried installing kali linux as dual boot on windows and everytime kali finishes installing it doesnt restart on the kali menu

[@jessicajessica3190]

How do I do the second option but on Mint?

[@byjacobc1880]

i am in this grub i got dual boot windows and linux mint. i need help. can someone help me im stuck i dont know how i find my driver but i found mine on gpt 3 but dont now were to get it

[@nadafaashiq24]

Sir i deleted grub.cfg now am not able to boot ubuntu... As soon as i switch on i get grub loader and i exit it it goes to boot options there is i choose windows it works properly and if i choose Ubuntu again grub loader comes... Its kind of loop. Plz help me i have important documents in Ubuntu

[@vinayakpatil5851]

In my VMware, in Kali Linux, I did this sudo apt-get upgrade command and it was downloading . After some time the screen was off and I itried to wake but only Black Screen with a Flashing Cursor, so I shutdown it and restarted but it didn't starting. please help me out.... The host is starting but the virtual is not. Please please help anyone....

[@davemckewan4450]

This was going to be a life saver. I had moved part of a partition, from my W7 install, and I received the dreaded Grub Rescue. I learnt that I should have just used GParted... Sadly, this video didn't work for me, even after booting up with a Mint install DVD and using GParted there to complete the partition job. So, in the end, I took a slightly different route and just installed Solus Linux into the 100GB partition I had created for it and let the installer take care of Grub. I'm now triple booted...

[@rubencristobalgarcia185]

THANKS A LOT, GOD FINALLY A TUTORIAL ACTUALLY USEFUL

[@nkmicros540]

Excellent!, the first method worked for me just fine =D, thanks for share.

[@nickoct7472]

In case your viewers have the same problems as me also add these commands before you chroot sudo mount -t proc proc /mnt/proc and sudo mount --rbind /dev /mnt/dev plus also sudo mount --rbind /sys /mnt/sys this will help your devices be recognized when chrooted. I always use those commands every time grub won't recognise devices within a live distro. I had the grub issue a lot when using UEFI within Virtualbox. Its ok as long as the ISO is installed once you extract it there is no grub menu. Maybe you could do a video about solutios to that. I think that is normally if I manually create the EFI partition. Great video.

[@Letmefixyourswagg]

Im stuck on linux /boot/linuz-linux root=/dev/sda1 it says file not found someone help

[@neoneos2914]

You are the best my friend. Thanks a lot.

[@renaldi6210]

but i accidently deleted my ubuntu (yes i am very dumb) not the partition but the linux.. please help me :'( and the grub is still there

[@peterjansen4826]

Questions. When big brother Microsoft overwrites the bootloader with their bootloader (allegedly that happens occasionally with W10 after an update when you dual boot from the same SSD), what is the best way to fix Grub then? You don't get that Grub recovery tool when that happens. Could you boot up with a live-USB and then install the bootloader again? I once bricked my Linux system by installing certain AMD proprietary software for my graphics card which apparently is not supported by those drivers. The same question, I guess. How would you install the proper software when you access your partition via a live-USB? Reinstalling Linux (ideally with some backup-utility) is the easiest solution but that isn't fun. ;)

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Great Question, and yes, you use live installation media and simply do the chroot, update-grub, install-grub and done.

[@dylanstoesz1324]

one thing you could try is using easyBCD from windows, and just use the MS bootloader to boot your linux partition. Not quite as nice as just grub, but it works.

[@peterjansen4826]

​@@dylanstoesz1324 Not for me. I like my nice picture, the ability to configure GRUB (timer and sequence of items) and the ability to load the distro with another kernel. If it happens to my system in the future then I will try out two SSD's with two bootloaders but then it is a bit more clumsy because you have to load the bootmenu first when you start the bootloader for Windows. Or possibly run Windows with PCIe-passthrough with the downside to have a higher power draw and the advantage of Windows not being able to take your system hostage when it updates again..

[@CatabductionsAnoym]

@@dylanstoesz1324 I'll have to try that again, not sure if it will work though, now you have to purchase it. My m.2 nvme seems to have complicated things, or my mb bios, even updated bios. I have to go into bios settings change things around, then it will see the grub, where ever it is now, but wont linux wont even see windows to list it in grub, spent days once trying to fix this!

[@dennisdevine9563]

How do I move my boot partition from sdb to sda?

[@JessicaFEREM]

nice, thanks chris

[@primakovch8332]

Thank you so much..... I found it really helpful

[@konradwerner4134]

I can't get into my bios , password required , never set one up , anything I can do ? Because through grub method didn't work for me .... Thanks tho ....hoping anyone can help more , thanks

[@Spelis]

okay so what if you accidentally ruined most of the system? (missing mtab and fstab, kernel images, and a bunch of other stuff)

[@aleksxbeats9576]

How should i find with ada is my system ?

[@conebone_69]

Thank you. It really helped🙏

[@abdelhamidbarakat2019]

error:. /.. /grub-core/kern/disk. c:258:no such partition entering rescue mode

[@rickbaker475]

I downloaded a grub rescue iso for Debian and Ubuntu. It says Ubuntu 17.04 or something like that and it boots up like an xfce desktop os and you run grub repair and it works.

[@master225561]

tks dude

[@justinaskelmelis6346]

Wow finnally got that ancient grub was pretty hard but the cloak helped me.

[@safderali9253]

Waht is the method for windows .? If same case we face fo windows

[@howtoeveryday14]

Thank you sir it really help me to fix my grub menu

[@brunorcabral]

This video helped me, thank you

[@aaronvond]

I watched this while I used Garuda's live DVD to fix Grub (I installed an old version of Ubuntu, for reasons, onto another partition and it reinstalled old Grub and didn't recognize Garuda). I feel like I should do this stuff in the video for practice...

[@randomvideo2692]

I have (hd0,gpt1),(hd0,gpt2) and (hd0,gpt3) and I can't seem to find the root folder can anyone help?

[@INeedAttentionEXE]

I had some trouble a while back when my efi table got reset because my bios battery died. It took me an hour to regenerate the table to be able to boot and add the '--removable' switch so I can go from system to system!

[@safderali9253]

With dual boot i fomated the drive where ubanto was inistall .and now i ha no access to windwo

[@cocl6331]

/dev/sda1 already mounted or /mnt busy Pls help

[@mani8050]

At 4.15 you say you'll tell us how to figure out which drive to enter sda1 sda2 etc - soooo is there going to be a follow up video for that?

[@andrewstafford1143]

If you found out the answer to this, could you please share a link or something with me? I need to figure out which one, but im stuck figuring out how.

[@j.4880]

Yas! Thanks Chris

[@TilTheBreakADawn]

I seem to have an unsolvable issue no one else has. Nothing is in my (hd0, msdos1) or (hd0, msdos2) partitions. When I list the contents I get the message, "filesystem is unknown". The 3rd partition is (proc) and when I list the contents I just get "Filesystem is procfs". And the road ends there. I can not set this as the root directory. BACKGROUND: I had a dual boot Windows 10 and Manjaro. The Windows 10 update knocked out Manjaro and I was in the midst of successfully installing from the Manjaro .iso. But I noticed that Manjaro had taken over all but some 400MB of my hard drive space (regular hard drive and not a SSD) and I only later learned about how to manually extend the Windows partition space. Bottom line: Now Windows 10 doesn't have enough space to boot and Manjaro has gone to Grub Rescue and will not recognize the .iso from the USB. I'm on a Dell Lattitude and FINE with reformatting the hard drive if I could access an OS. Any sound suggestions would be appreciated!

[@ramonvaldivia9733]

I just can’t fix my laptop tho happened and I try but it just can’t get it to work I’ve been without my laptop working for like a month now I’m thinking about buying a new one

[@mrcrackerist]

to know what disk you have just type, #sudo fdisk -l if you are using a hardware raid it will be something like "md126p" or similar For Raid0, you need to reload #GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES="... mdraid09 mdraid1x" UEFI #grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=esp --bootloader-id=GRUB *the UEFI portion need to be in fat file format. Recommended when shutting down, will make the system power off faster #sudo umount -a All this information can be found here, you should read it. wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB well it always help to have some visual conformation also =P thx Chris ^^

[@user-bt5xm7vz7e]

Umm nothing is in my partition litterly empty hdd what to do send help😐

[@izuukyandrey2235]

damn bro, i have watched so many videos, but ty so much for help me

[@Hey-Yaz]

I need to destroy my Grub now just to use this very useful information. Thanks :)

[@Rayen1911]

Well did that but there's error: file `/boot/vmlinuz-linux` not found... What should i do

[@marcusurso6866]

Type `linux /boot/vmlinuz` then tab complete

[@allenshaw1720]

Great video, still working like a charm in 2024.