Ubuntu won't boot, only displays GRUB terminal

I have a problem with my Ubuntu 11.04 installation. I've installed Ubuntu 11.04 from Windows, it worked fine for days, but today it won't boot.

When I start the machine, GRUB loads. There is the Windows 7 loader, I select Ubuntu from there and after that, I should see the Ubuntu GRUB menu, where I'd select the mode to boot Ubuntu. However, I can't see that anymore. I directly get to a GRUB terminal.

Can anyone help me with this? How would I recover my data or reset the boot loader?

Answer

Try reinstalling your grub2 to the partition with Ubuntu:

• Use an Ubuntu Live CD to start a live session




• Identify the partition where Ubuntu is:

  
  
  
  
  
  • Open gparted (Type gparted in the dash home)
  
  
  
  • Identify the location of the partition. It should be something like '/dev/sda3' or '/dev/sdb2' (in general, '/dev/sd?#' where '?' is a single character and '#' is a digit)
  
  



• Open a terminal




• Mount that partition (substitute 'sda3' with the partition name you found previously):

  
  
  

  sudo -i
  mkdir /media/ubuntu
  mount /dev/sda3/ /media/ubuntu
  




• Reinstall grub in that partition (substitute 'sda3' with the partition name you found previously):

  
  
  
  

  grub-setup -d /media/ubuntu/boot/grub /dev/sda3