warning: this LDM has no Embedding Partition; embedding won't be possible

Bug #1053793 reported by Laurie Bradshaw
This bug report is a duplicate of:  Bug #1061255: GRUB recognizes defunct LDM headers. Edit Remove
22
This bug affects 4 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
grub2 (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Since grub 2.00-4ubuntu1 I've been getting:

/usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: warning: this LDM has no Embedding Partition; embedding won't be possible.
/usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for RAID and LVM install.

when trying to update grub, which results in an unbootable system, which I've worked around by downgrading to grub 1.99-22ubuntu2 and running grub-install /dev/sda

This system is a self-build that has never had windows on it.

$ fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 300.1 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders, total 586072368 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8f83bc52

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 562628430 586067264 11719417+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 63 562628429 281314183+ 83 Linux

As suggested, attached are dumps of the first and last megabytes of /dev/sda

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Laurie Bradshaw (lauriebradshaw) wrote :
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Laurie Bradshaw (lauriebradshaw) wrote :
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Laurie Bradshaw (lauriebradshaw) wrote :

Hello?

This is still happening (14/10/12)

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YannUbuntu (yannubuntu) wrote :

Hi Laurie
please indicate your Boot-Info URL. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info , so that we know your exact situation.

You probably need to increase the empty space before your sda2 partition (now 63 sectors):
1) use Gparted to make it 1024 or 2048.
2)reinstall GRUB (eg via Boot-Repair)

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Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

Yep, you have leftover LDM signatures on the disk.

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
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Hari Menon (hari-menon) wrote :

Upgraded yesterday to Ubuntu 12.10 and I keep getting grub rescue prompt. Tried boot-repair from Live-USB and here's the pastebin - http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/1290132/

The boot-repair gave me the same error as in this bug report

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Mike Voegele (mvoegele) wrote :

I cannot get dual boot running with ubuntu 12.10 and windows 7. I spent a lot of time trying to get it work, without success. With boot repair, I get either windows 7 running by repairing MBR, or ubuntu 12.10 by reinstalling grub. But I cannot start windows 7 after grub install, I get always "Invalid Signature".

Boot repair: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1311856/

I get also this warning:
grub-pc (2.00-7ubuntu11) wird eingerichtet ...
Creating config file /etc/default/grub with new version
/usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: Warnung: Dieses LDM hat keine Einbettungspartition, Einbettung würde unmöglich sein.
/usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: Warnung: Einbettung ist nicht möglich. GRUB kann in dieser Konfiguration nur mittels Blocklisten installiert werden. Blocklisten sind allerdings UNZUVERLÄSSIG und deren Verwendung wird daher nicht empfohlen..

Also compared to grub 1.99, the win7 partition needs to be be mounted in order for grub 2 os-prober to detect it. update-grub does not detect win7 when partition is not mounted, this was different with 1.99.

Also update-grub always produces an error:
Linux-Abbild gefunden: /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic
initrd-Abbild gefunden: /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic
Windows 7 (loader) auf /dev/sda1 gefunden
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: Fehler: Unbekanntes Dateisystem. (Error: Unknown Filesystem)

Can you please tell me how to downgrade to grub 1.99 on ubuntu 12.10?

Revision history for this message
YannUbuntu (yannubuntu) wrote :

> Also compared to grub 1.99, the win7 partition needs to be be mounted in order for grub 2 os-prober to detect it. update-grub does not detect win7 when partition is not mounted, this was different with 1.99.

Please create a new bug report for this (and indicate the report link here, so that we can follow-up).

> Can you please tell me how to downgrade to grub 1.99 on ubuntu 12.10?

I think BURG is based on 1.99 so it may help: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Burg
Else, you may be able to workaround this bug by installing GRUB-Legacy (Boot-Repair --> Advanced options --> GRUB options --> tick GRUB Legacy --> Apply)

Revision history for this message
Mike Voegele (mvoegele) wrote :

I created a bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1072794.

I installed BURG, thanks for the tip, it works out of the box, and is even nice! So also GRUB before 2.0 would work.

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Teodori Serge (teodori-serge) wrote :
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