> On August 10, 2016 at 3:01 AM Simon Hobson <linux@???> wrote:
>
> Peter Olson <peabo@???> wrote:
>
> > I have a machine in that state right now, and rather than try to debug it at the Grub prompt, I am just going to reinstall the system.
>
> That's a bit like the old "I'm buying a new car because the ashtray is full" joke.

Actually it is not. Turns out, I had managed to screw up my partition table. So Grub would never in a million years be able to boot anything off that disk. I found this out during reinstallation when I was presented with a partition table different from what I expected.

Nevertheless, my complaint is that Grub is not helpful in these circumstances, lacking even a help command at its prompt. You really need impeccable Grub-fu or another computer with net access.

Anyway, the reinstallation worked well, and I will restore the data off my original disk (I was replacing a 20 GB disk with a 160 GB disk when I ran into the problem).

Peter Olson