mjhjmtu

I installed Debian Jessie on a new hard disk, and wanted to boot from this new disk. At the end of Debian setup, I choosed setup Grub also. But when booting, Grub falls into rescue mode with a File not found error. I tried several guides I found around to try to have it up again, with no success.

Here is my configuration (I booted on a live Knoppix distro)

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE LABEL MOUNTPOINT

sda 
└─sda1 ext4 
sdb 
├─sdb1 ext4 
├─sdb2 
└─sdb5 swap 
sdc 
└─sdc1 ntfs Stock 
sdd 
├─sdd1 ext4 Debian 
├─sdd2 
└─sdd5 swap 
sdh 
└─sdh1 ntfs My Passport 
sr0 iso9660 KNOPPIX /mnt-system
sr1 udf WD SmartWare 
zram0 swap [SWAP]
cloop0 iso9660 KNOPPIX_FS /KNOPPIX

blkid

 /dev/cloop0: LABEL="KNOPPIX_FS" TYPE="iso9660" 
 /dev/zram0: UUID="770d53d4-32d4-4810-988a-ffb80edecc8f" TYPE="swap" 
 /dev/sda1: UUID="2a0bdecf-9074-40de-8d23-bcaf01af17bb" TYPE="ext4" 
 /dev/sdb1: UUID="a4eaeb3b-27d1-4285-a364-fcdfa601fb82" TYPE="ext4" 
 /dev/sdb5: UUID="76381585-358a-46a1-bc16-feb51b08fe90" TYPE="swap" 
 /dev/sdc1: LABEL="Stock" UUID="A2904C19904BF1F9" TYPE="ntfs" 
 /dev/sdd1: LABEL="Debian" UUID="c45c0acc-f414-4c3e-a4ba-b3c1a33c3cbd" TYPE="ext4" 
 /dev/sdd5: UUID="2f0c8892-f4a8-4312-bc19-1e8d72f23e6c" TYPE="swap" 
 /dev/sr0: LABEL="KNOPPIX" TYPE="iso9660" 
 /dev/sdh1: LABEL="My Passport" UUID="325220A852207331" TYPE="ntfs" 
 /dev/sr1: LABEL="WD SmartWare" TYPE="udf" 

parted

(parted) print all 
Model: ATA Maxtor 7V250F0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 251GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 251GB 251GB primary ext4 boot

Model: ATA Maxtor 7V300F0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 300GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 284GB 284GB primary ext4
 2 284GB 300GB 16.1GB extended
 5 284GB 300GB 16.1GB logical linux-swap(v1)

...

The grub.cfg file contains thism which looks correct

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
function gfxmode 
 set gfxpayload="$1"

set linux_gfx_mode=
export linux_gfx_mode
menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux' --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-2a0bdecf-9074-40de-8d23-bcaf01af17bb' 
 load_video
 insmod gzio
 if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
 insmod part_msdos
 insmod ext2
 set root='hd0,msdos1'
 if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos1 2a0bdecf-9074-40de-8d23-bcaf01af17bb
 else
 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 2a0bdecf-9074-40de-8d23-bcaf01af17bb
 fi
 echo 'Loading Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64 ...'
 linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-amd64 root=UUID=2a0bdecf-9074-40de-8d23-bcaf01af17bb ro quiet
 echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
 initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-amd64

Note that the .mod files are in a seperate directory /boot/grub/i386-pc Is it usual?

Thank you for helping me understand what is wrong and how to solve this?

The line set root='hd0,msdos1' in your grub configuration tells grub that the root of your filesystem you want to work with is in the first partition of the first disk, which is the same as /dev/sda1.

Your parted output shows that /dev/sda1 has its bootable flag set, but a different partition, /dev/sdd1, is the one labeled "Debian" and I'm assuming your root filesystem lives there. If that's true you will need to edit your grub.cfg so grub is working with the right disk.

I would recommend making a backup of your grub.cfg and then changing the set root='hd0,msdos1' line to set root='hd3,msdos1' and repeating that change anywhere you see hd0 mentioned. Then use parted to set the bootable flag for /dev/sdd1 and try to boot Debian. Best of luck!