I believe I know what causes this problem. It's been bugging me for the past few kernel updates, and i wrongly assumed that it would be a known issue and someone would be on the case.. clearly not.
I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 64bit, on a SATA HDD, with ubuntu installed on the 2nd partition (/dev/sda2) What seems to happen is that when a kernel update is applied the ubuntu update manager (or some other process) re-writes the grub menu.lst config file to point to the new kernel image. However in my case rather than just updating the name/location of the kernel image, it changes the root partition information aswell!! Why the hell does it assume that your root partition is the first one?? My root partition is the 2nd partition, I'm quite happy with it that way. Basically it changes the root line from (hd0,1) to (hd0,0): /boot/grub/menu.lst (excerpt) .. ## ## End Default Options ## title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic <b>root (hd0,1)<b> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic quiet savedefault .. I'm no expert but i think this bug could be resolved by changing the kernel update process so that it does not molest the /boot/grub/menu.lst quite so much. Leave the 'root' line as it is and just update the 'kernel' line. It's annoying to have to boot into a live cd and correct my menu.lst file every time. If you have this problem, then boot a livecd, launch 'Gnome partition editor' (this will mount any partitions it can find), launch a terminal, then open the menu.lst in gedit (sudo gedit /media/disk-X/boot/grub/menu.lst) and correct the root line. (hd0,0) is partition 1, (hd0,1) is partition 2 etc. I also had to change the root location in the 'kernel' line to root=/dev/sda2 as the update manager had replaced it with some UUID hash. It doesn't seem necessary and stopped me from booting! Someone please fix this, it's ridiculous! I'm an intermediate user, but I can imagine it has caused a lot of less experienced users to give up on ubuntu and try another 'user-friendly' distro. -- "grub stage1.5 error 17" after restart https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/130280 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is the bug contact for Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs