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up vote 1 down vote favorite

When I try to boot I get this message:

error: unknown filesystem. grub rescue> _

results of:

grub rescue> ls

are as follows:

(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos1) (hd1) (fd0)

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Hey I am having the same problem as you had of grub rescue how did you fixed it? can you explain me. –  user2014111 May 22 '14 at 7:33
    
Honestly, user2014111, I actually had to copy the files off of the HDD, and then I re-installed the whole OS. Sorry I couldn't be of more help... -Chandler –  Chandler R. May 22 '14 at 14:43

3 Answers 3

up vote 5 down vote

If you don't know your Ubuntu boot partition, check them one by one:

ls (hd0,msdos5)/
ls (hd0,msdos1)/

When you hit the right one, you'll get a line mentioning "lost+found" and so on.

Assuming (hd0,msdos5) is the right partition:

set root=(hd0,msdos5)
set prefix=(hd0,msdos5)/boot/grub
insmod normal
normal

Now you'll be able to boot into Ubuntu. Once you do, reinstall GRUB:

sudo update-grub
sudo grub-install /dev/sda
share|improve this answer
    
I ran the first two commands with (hd0,1) in place of (hd0,5) as (hd0,msdos1) was the correct partition... they produced no message so I assumed they worked, but when I ran insmod normal... it gave me this message: error: file not found. Then I ran the normal command and it rebooted to the same problem (unknown filesystem) I am running 12.04 LTS Server Version if that changes anything. Thanks again! –  Chandler R. Nov 12 '13 at 16:18
    
Nevermind that. I got it fixed! Thank you so much! –  Chandler R. Nov 12 '13 at 16:45
    
Ur wlcm. Plz mark as answered. –  Pavel Nov 12 '13 at 18:07
    
thank you very much.. life saver! –  Sumoanand Jan 27 '14 at 8:31
    
Hi Chadler..i am getting file not found error when i type insmod normal. please help me –  Ekaveera Apr 4 '14 at 6:22
up vote 0 down vote

If you have a UEFI bios make sure you boot through uefi boot and not legacy. Grub is actually there but the bios doesn't allow it to start

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up vote 0 down vote

The easiest way i found to fix this error was to put in an old windows 98 disk and in dos you can delete and create partitions and then format

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protected by Community♦ Oct 25 '14 at 10:37

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