Bug#462159: grub-pc: doesn't boot: "free magic is broken"

[Robert Millan]

severity 462159 important
thanks

On Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 11:24:36PM +0100, Piotr Kaczuba wrote:
> Package: grub-pc
> Version: 1.95+20080116-2
> Severity: critical
> Justification: breaks the whole system
> 
> After having done a 'grub-install --recheck --no-floppy /dev/hda' and
> 'update-grub' the system has become unbootable. After 'Loading grub' the
> message 'free magic is broken at (some address): (some number)' shows up
> and grub won't load. Unfortunately, recent versions of grub-pc aren't
> available any more at ftp.debian.org so I can't say which is the last
> working version.

Sounds like memory corruption.  Could you run memtest86 on that machine?

-- 
Robert Millan

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