Bug#557425: lenny->squeeze upgrade -> system no longer bootable

[Josip Rodin]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 01:49:51AM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote:
> Package: grub-pc
> Severity: grave
> 
> I'm typing this from Windows because the squeeze upgrade a few minutes ago
> rendered all my Linux GRUB menu entries useless - they all report "command
> not found" either for "linux" or for "initrd".
> 
> During the upgrade, I saw three debconf prompts, and just pressed enter on
> all of them. I did not want to change the kernel parameters because there
> was seemingly no need to do so, and I did not want to reinstall grub into
> /dev/sda because I was hoping to avoid rendering my system unbootable
> because of a new version of the bootloader. A quick google search indicates
> this might be just like #497791, so it seems that the lack of reinstalling
> was exactly what caused the problem. Well, that's just inane.
> 
> I'll go reboot and try to insert 'insmod linux' in those Linux menu entries
> that no longer work.

Yep, that worked, together with the removal of the 'search' line which
complained about the no-floppy parameter. I logged in, ran
dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc, explicitly selected /dev/sda to install onto,
and after that rebooted, and all is well again.

So, please detect the situation where leaving the system in its current
state would render GRUB useless, and adjust the default accordingly.

The default setting should be to NOT screw the user. :)

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