package: grub2
version: 1.96
severity: important
PC is an AMD64, some 3-4 years old. Lenny was installed some time ago
when it was Testing (when 2.6.24 was the default kernel), using grub1.
The install was last updated (using apt-get upgrade) on 26/12/08. At
that point grub1 was working fine, with three menu entries:
linux-2.6.24-1-amd64
linux-2.6.24-1-amd64 (single user mode)
Windows XP Professional
These menu entries had survived undamaged since the original Lenny
install, up to and including the Dec 08 update.
Today (8th March 2009) I performed the first apt-get upgrade since Dec
08. The 2.6.24 kernel was updated, as was grub. I needed to do some
Windows updates, so I rebooted.
The system was totally unbootable. grub1 had been replaced by grub2,
without any prompting, and the menu entries had not been properly
updated. The two Linux entries failed with "unknown command 'initrd'",
and the Windows entry failed with "unknown device" because the root
setting had not been updated from (hd0,0) to (hd0,1), which I understand
is a change in nomenclature from grub1 to grub2.
The command syntax is sufficiently different between the two grub
versions that I was unable to reboot into Linux and fix the problem by
hand ("unknown command: linux" for example). I ended up manually editing
the Windows entry and booting into Windows. I ran out of time to read up
on grub2's command syntax, so I ran fixmbr to remove grub completely.
This upgrade should have amended all three original menu entries so that
they all worked properly on reboot. If that cannot be guaranteed, it
should not be considered a valid upgrade: grub2 should not have been
installed in place of grub1 from apt-get upgrade.
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