Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 7 dual boot, lost grub, can't boot, can't live boot even

So I've been running Ubuntu 12.04 64bit and Windows 7 on my Samsung laptop. Yesterday I went to choose my OS in grub and scrolled all the way to the bottom on accident, which is some retarded system recovery. Going to this, as I've done before, makes me lose grub for some reason. Last time I live booted in Ubuntu and found some command online to fix grub, this time though I can't even get it to live boot. I'm stuck at a bluish screen which says Unetbootin at the top, along with some options, such as Default, Help, Try Ubuntu without Installing, Install Ubuntu, Check disc for defects, Text memory, etc. After I choose an option, which I am able to, then everything freezes right there in place. Other than that the only other thing I've noticed is, if I don't try to boot from USB and try to boot normally, I can push F2 at anytime to go into the BIOS. Also F4 is supposed to let me go to system recovery, but it doesn't. Any help is appreciated!

Here's a screenshot of the screen I'm stuck on:

http://imgur.com/fbr4k

Edit: Just made some progress. I downloaded and burned the 32bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 and was able to live boot into that. Going to try and restore grub now if it's possible. If anyone has any ideas about restoring grub, or any pitfalls let me know.

Edit 2: Tried using http://www.howopensource.com/2012/05/reinstall-recover-grub-from-ubuntu-12-04-live-cd-usb/ . Got error saying "64bits detected. Please use this software in 64bits session". So back to the drawing board. However I did get this output from the tool. http://paste.ubuntu.com/1160214/

Edit 3: So my issue is fixed and I'm now posting from Ubuntu! I ended up reinstalling grub from the 32bit live boot that I was able to get in with. My grub was installed on sda6 which can be seen from the paste.ubuntu.com link in Edit 2. So I ended up finding I could reinstall grub using the command:

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

I was worried I'd blow something up because of a 32bit/64bit issue, but I didn't so all is good. Hope anything here helps someone else in the future. Also I'm still not sure why I was able to live boot into 32bit 12.04 but not 64bit. Which is funny because my installed version of Ubuntu and Windows are both 64bit. If anyone has any ideas let me know, as I'm still curious.

Posted Aug 22, 2012, 4:14 AM UTC · edited

91
Napes90•

Glad your problem is fixed but for future reference theres a handy live cd called rescatux which can reinstall grub in a couple of clicks.

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