Repair, Restore, Reinstall Grub2

August 24, 2018 - Reading time: 3 minutes

Mount the partition your Ubuntu Installation is on. If you are not sure which it is, launch GParted (included in the Live CD) and find out. It is usually a EXT4 Partition. Replace the XY with the drive letter, and partition number, for example: sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sda1 /mnt.

sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sdXY /mnt

Now bind the directories that grub needs access to to detect other operating systems, like so.

Now we jump into that using chroot.

Now install, check, and update grub.

This time you only need to add the drive letter (usually a) to replace X, for example: grub-install /dev/sda, grub-install –recheck /dev/sda.

grub-install /dev/sdX grub-install --recheck /dev/sdX

Now grub is back, all that is left is to exit the chrooted system and unmount everything.

Shut down and turn your computer back on, and you will be met with the default Grub2 screen.


eject / safely remove vs umount

April 10, 2018 - Reading time: ~1 minute

If you are using systemd then use udisksctl utility with power-off option:

power-off

Arranges for the drive to be safely removed and powered off. On the OS side this includes ensuring that no process is using the drive, then requesting that in-flight buffers and caches are committed to stable storage.

I would recommend first to unmount all filesystems on that usb. This can be done also with udisksctl, so steps would be:

udisksctl unmount -b /dev/sda1
udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sda

If you are not using systemd then old good udisks should work:

udisks --unmount /dev/sda1
udisks --detach /dev/sda