Live CD To Fix / Restore Grub (And Grub2) Or Force Filesystem Check: Rescatux

There are many ways Grub can get broken: installing Windows, messing around with Grub configuration files or just a faulty update. Luckily, there are also quite a few ways to restore Grub. Such a tool is Rescatux, an really easy to use Live CD that fixes the Grub in seconds.

Rescatux is a tool to recover Grub / Grub 2 that comes with a GUI so it's less "scary" for those of you who do not like the command line and can restore Grub to the MBR or update the Grub configuration with just a few clicks. Further more, the latest Rescatux version (released a few days ago) comes with an option to force a filesystem check which can help recover Grub or Grub2 when Grub cannot read the filesystem because of inconsistencies. It can Restore Grub to the MBR for most Linux distributions, however the update Grub option only works with Debian-based Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Linux Mint and so on).

To use Rescatux, simply burn it onto a CD or create a bootable USB stick, then boot the Live CD/USB and the Grub recovery window will automatically pop-up:

Then chose "grub-install" to restore the Grub and finally run "update-grub", then restart your computer:

If for some reason Rescatux doesn't work, you can try to do this manually: How To Recover GRUB2 [Linux]

Rescatux is supposed to work with both Grub (legacy) and Grub2, however please note that I've only tested it with Grub2 (it worked just fine for me - I broke the Grub for a virtual machine and then used Rescatux to fix it).

Download Rescatux (a single ISO for both 32bit and 64bit - 595 mb)


See also: Grub Customizer (can also fix Grub2)

[via Tux Planet.fr]

How To Boot An ISO With GRUB2 (The Easy Way!)

If you want to try out a new Linux distro, be it the latest Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal daily ISO or any other (I've only tested it with Ubuntu though!) and don't want to burn a CD each time you want to try a new daily build (and you don't have an USB memory stick around), you can use a cool GRUB 2 feature that lets you boot a live CD ISO directly from your hard disk. You can also use this method to boot varous utilities such as Super Grub Disk, SystemRescueCD, Parted Magic and so on.

Usually, setting up GRUB 2 to boot an ISO can be quite a difficult process (well, not that difficult but for some reason it always failed for me) but you can do this with just a few clicks thanks to Unetbootin. This info is actually available on the Unetbootin website but I somehow missed it - until now (thanks to Usemos Linux).

I've recorded a video showing the Unetbootin Grub2 menu entry and then booting the latest Ubuntu 11.04 daily ISO using this method, however the video is very bad in quality (my cam sucks) so I didn't embed it into this post, but you can watch it @ YouTube if you want.

Install Unetbootin and set everything up for booting an ISO using Grub2

Warning: remember, when messing with Grub (or any application that modifies it), there are things that might go wrong so use this at your own risk and if you know how to fix it in case things go wrong.

1. Install Unetbootin:

In Ubuntu, simply run the following command to install it:

sudo apt-get install unetbootin

If you're not using Ubuntu and Unetbootin is not in your distro official repositories, download it from HERE.

Important: like Scirocco points out in a comment, there are issues with some Unetbootin versions which not only fail to work when trying to boot an ISO from the hard disk, but will also fail when you try to create a bootable USB. I've used Unetbootin 494 from GetDeb and everything worked fine so I suggest you use the same version. So if you're getting an error like this: "disk image not found. need to load kernel first", it's because of the Unetbootin version you're using.

2. Using Unetbootin to create a new Grub2 entry to boot the ISO:

In Unetbootin, select the "Diskimage" option, then browse for an ISO and under "Type" select "Hard Disk" and leave "/" for the "Drive", then click OK:

Once Unetbootin finishes, restart your computer and select "Unetbootin" in the GRUB2 menu. If the Grub2 menu doesn't show up, press and hold the SHIFT key.

Because Unetbootin extracts the ISO, you'll have to run it again when you want to boot a new ISO, even if it has the same name and is placed in the same location as the old one.

Removing the ISO from GRUB2 menu

The next time you'll launch Unetbootin, it will ask you the following: "Unetbootin is currently installed. Remove the existing version?" - this isn't about removing Unetbootin but about removing the Grub2 menu entry for Unetbootin (and the ISO). Select "OK" and the ISO will be removed from the menu.

Update: if using Unetbootin doesn't work for you, you can try the manual instructions Dan Sonny Radu posted in a comment below - it's not as easy as using Unetbootin though.

Update 2: reader payet07 mentioned in a comment below that this works with Burg too. "But with some themes (i.e gnome) no icons appears. You just have to change for another theme at boot (i.e ubuntu2) to see see it right". However, he used the manual method for settings this up.

Many thanks to Usemos Linux for the heads up!

Grub Customizer 2.0 Can Change The Default Grub2 Boot Entry, Menu Colors, Background Image And Lots More

With the release of version 2.0, Grub Customizer becomes the most complete GRUB 2 graphical configuration tool.

Grub Customizer - a new graphical GRUB 2 and BURG settings manager -, 2.0 has been released today with a lot of enhancements: you can now select the default boot entry, change the menu visibility and timeout, set kernel parameters, disable recovery entries and change screen resolution (GFX_MODE) - all by using Grub Customizer.

(Grub Customizer 2.0 - Appearance preferences)

Besides the above new features, Grub Customizer 2.0 also brings some GRUB 2 only specific settings (they don't work for BURG) like changing the menu colors or background image. Please note that these appearance options worked for me in Ubuntu 10.04 but did not work in Ubuntu 10.10 - however this might happen because I've messed a lot with the GRUB 2 configuration (including running the script for fixing the Plymouth).

(GRUB 2 with new colors)

Install Grub Customizer in Ubuntu:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

Once installed, you can find it under Applications > System Tools > Grub Customizer.

For other Linux distributions: download Grub Customizer @ Launchpad (you'll have to get it through BZR).

For a similar BURG only tool, see Burg Manager.

BURG Manager 1.0 Released With Option To Boot ISO From BURG, New Themes, More

Burg Manager is an application to easily install Burg (along with the default Burg themes and a Burg emulator) and change most of the Burg settings such as the timeout, download and install new themes, remove Burg and restore Grub 2, set the default operating system and many advanced options.

Burg Manager 1.0 has been released today, the major highlights of this release being an option to add an ISO to the BURG menu (and thus boot an ISO - however this doesn't seem to work right now -> see the comments), an option to restore BURG into MBR after a Kernel upgrade and an option to remove old kernels and its menu entries.

Other changes in BURG Manager 1.0 include new themes, option to reset all settings to their default values, a live updated and notificator and bug fixes. Unfortunately the GUI remains a bit unpolished and is almost unusable on a netbook.

(New themes in BURG Manager 1.0)

Download Burg Manager 1.0

To be able to install Burg Manager 1.0, you'll have to remove any previous version along with configuration files using the following commands:

sudo apt-get purge burg-manager
sudo rm -rf ~/.burg-manager
sudo rm -rf /root/.burg-manager

Then you'll have to download and install BUC. And finally you'll be able to download Burg Manager 1.0 from its author blog and install it.

For a complete how-to on using Burg Manager, see our Install And Configure Burg In Ubuntu With Burg Manager post.

Update November 13: both the BURG Manager and BUC servers seem the be very slow or don't work at all so I've uploaded BURG 1.0 and BUC to some file hosting websites until the BURG Manager / BUC servers issue is fixed:

BUC (you only have to download BURG Manager from one of the links below, I've only added multiple links in case some don't work for you):

• 32bit: Link 1 | Alternate link 2 | Alternate link 3
• 64bit: Link 1 | Alternate link 2 | Alternate link 3

BURG Manager (you only have to download BURG Manager from one of the links below, I've only added multiple links in case some don't work for you):

• 32bit: Link 1 | Alternate link 2 | Alternate link 3
• 64bit: Link 1 | Alternate link 2 | Alternate link 3

Image in the beginning of the post: Dark Shine BURG theme @ Deviantart (included in BURG Manager).