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I have installed Ubuntu 13.10 on my PC as dual-boot with Windows 8. However the grub menu doesn't apper, and to fix that I'm supposed to run the sudo apt-get update command which is giving error. I'm a newbie to the world of linux, so please help me out here.

Error:

W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 13.10 _Saucy Salamander_ - Release amd64 (20131016.1)/dists/saucy/main/binary-amd64/Packages  Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs
W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 13.10 _Saucy Salamander_ - Release amd64 (20131016.1)/dists/saucy/restricted/binary-amd64/Packages  Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
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  • Are you trying to use apt-get update grub?
    – Terrance8D
    Mar 24, 2015 at 20:32
  • No, just sudo apt-get update. Should I use sudo apt-get update grub? Mar 24, 2015 at 20:34
  • No. That's not the proper way to update GRUB. Updating GRUB isn't an action that's controlled by APT. You have to run sudo update-grub for that.
    – Terrance8D
    Mar 24, 2015 at 20:36
  • /usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: failed to get canonical path of /cow. Mar 24, 2015 at 20:45
  • ^Thats the error I get when I type sudo update-grub. Mar 24, 2015 at 20:47

1 Answer 1

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Those warnings mean that some cdroms are selected as repositories and when you ran apt-get update, they were not mounted, so it could not find them.

There is an option in your System settings > Software & Updates where you can (un)check whether you want to have your installation media as repository or not. I would advise you tu uncheck it. In my case, it's the option at the bottom of the window, but it might look different in other versions and languages.

Screenshot (German) of the Software&Updates window

You could also manually edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list and convert the lines starting with cdrom to comments (writing an # before them), that should do the same trick.

But except that you should always keep your system up to date (with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade or any other package manager), this has nothing to do with GRUB. The command to create a fresh grub.conf and update the OS list is sudo update-grub.

If you want to run boot-repair you have to add its PPA first and install it. This is achieved by the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install boot-repair
boot-repair

Explanation:

  1. adds the PPA to the repository list. apt-get can't find it otherwise.
  2. updates the index of available software from your repos
  3. this command actually installs boot-repair
  4. now it's time to launch it!
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  • Could you elaborate on the unchecking of "installation media being a repository" part, I can't find the option in Software & Updates. Mar 24, 2015 at 20:45
  • Would a German screenshot help you?
    – Byte Commander
    Mar 24, 2015 at 20:47
  • Sure, something is better than nothing. Mar 24, 2015 at 20:47
  • Also, my /etc/apt/sources.list has the following data: #deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 17 Qiana - Release amd64 20140623]/ trusty contrib main non-free Mar 24, 2015 at 20:49
  • I added a screenshot. The line you quoted is already commented out, so it would not get processed. There must be another one...
    – Byte Commander
    Mar 24, 2015 at 20:57

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