Grub error invalid signature

1. Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   I have 3 hard disks. THe first one has windows, the second windows programs, and the third linux. Grub is installed to the MBR of the third, and it is my primary boot disk. Everything was working fine, but then, when I chose to boot to windows (which I had done before just fine), grub told me «Error 13: Invalid Signature» (or something like that). I made sure it pointed to the right paritition ((hd0,0) or /dev/sda1) and it did. I had wanted to upgrade to grub2 anyway, and I figured that would fix it, so I did that, and had it recheck and regenerate everything on its own. It generated an entry for windows (Windows 7, though it detected it as a Vista loader, but that is normal). Ubuntu booted fine in grub2, but when I tried to boot into windows, i got

   Code:

   Booting 'Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1)'
   error: invalid signature
   Press any key to continue

   Upon pressing a key I was returned to the grub menu.

   I figured it was a problem with windows then, so I booted into a windows 7 install CD, used the bootrec.exe program to repair the boot sector, and for good measure write a Windows MBR to the first hard disk. When booting from grub, same deal, but when I told the computer to boot from the first HDD, windows booted just fine.

   So… anybody got any ideas?

   fdisk -l:

   Code:

   Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x45824581
   
      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/sda1   *           1       12748   102398278+   7  HPFS/NTFS
   /dev/sda2           12749       60801   385985722+   7  HPFS/NTFS
   
   Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x0005bb9c
   
      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/sdb1               1       60801   488384001    7  HPFS/NTFS
   
   Disk /dev/sdc: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x0007e5e0
   
      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/sdc1   *           1          25      200781   83  Linux
   /dev/sdc2              26       65705   527574600    5  Extended
   /dev/sdc3           65706       91201   204796620    7  HPFS/NTFS
   /dev/sdc5              26       38270   307202931   83  Linux
   /dev/sdc6           38271       65705   220371606   83  Linux

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2. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   hey,
   i think your problem is that grub is using the wrong device name. instead of /dev/sda1 it should be /dev/hd0 or something like that.

   what I need you to do is show me

   also show me /boot/grub/menu.lst file

   from there i will determine your problem

   ---

3. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   The output of ‘fdisk -l’ would indicate that the device names are correct, but I am attaching the output of ‘dmesg’ anyway.

   The relevant stuff is probably here:

   Code:

   $ sudo dmesg | grep sd[abc]
   [   34.167023] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors: (500 GB/465 GiB)
   [   34.167028] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
   [   34.167030] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
   [   34.167038] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
   [   34.167076]  sda: sda1 sda2
   [   34.193693] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
   [   35.012733] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors: (500 GB/465 GiB)
   [   35.012738] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
   [   35.012740] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
   [   35.012748] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
   [   35.012778]  sdb:<6>usb 2-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
   [   35.040306]  sdb1
   [   35.040338] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
   [   36.070214] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] 1465149168 512-byte hardware sectors: (750 GB/698 GiB)
   [   36.070219] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
   [   36.070221] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
   [   36.070229] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
   [   36.070259]  sdc: sdc1 sdc2 < sdc5 sdc6 > sdc3
   [   36.115180] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
   [   39.540724] kjournald2 starting: pid 922, dev sdc5:8, commit interval 5 seconds
   [   39.553978] EXT4-fs: mounted filesystem sdc5 with ordered data mode
   [   44.592423] EXT4 FS on sdc5, internal journal on sdc5:8
   [   45.265730] kjournald2 starting: pid 2277, dev sdc1:8, commit interval 5 seconds
   [   45.266803] EXT4 FS on sdc1, internal journal on sdc1:8
   [   45.266868] EXT4-fs: mounted filesystem sdc1 with ordered data mode
   [   45.272555] kjournald2 starting: pid 2278, dev sdc6:8, commit interval 5 seconds
   [   45.272939] EXT4 FS on sdc6, internal journal on sdc6:8
   [   45.281889] EXT4-fs: mounted filesystem sdc6 with ordered data mode

   As to the menu.lst, grub2 doesn’t have one. It has been replaced by /boot/grub/grub.cfg (attached in first post). That file is automatically generated from scripts in /etc/grub.d/ and is updated whenever ‘update-grub’ is exectuted. (you can also prefedine fixed entries that it will include).

   the relevant bit of the grub.cfg is:

   Code:

    51 ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
    52 menuentry "Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1)" {
    53     set root=(hd0,1)
    54     chainloader +1
    55 }

   (the line numbers are because I copied it out of vim).

   Actually, looking at that now, I wonder if it shuoldn’t be (hd0,0) instead… I will reboot and the post another update about that.

   Oh, apparently the output of dmesg is too large a file to attach as a text file. Oh well.

   EDIT: So I tried changing it to root=(hd0,0) but it said «no such partition». So, that wasn’t the problem. Or at least not the solution. It could be related to the problem. «Invalid signature» seems to suggest that it is finding something, it just doens’t like it for some reason.

   Last edited by cak3; September 12th, 2009 at 03:05 AM.

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4. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   So, a google search for «grub invalid signature» returned this thread as the first result, which isn’t entirely helpful. I guess google gives ubuntuforums.org high priority. Oh yea, anyway… bump.

   ---

5. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   If you change the boot order in bios, is there still a valid windows MBR on that drive to boot directly into windows. I suspect the problem may be a windows problem rather than grub. You should probably check that out. Post back your results.

   12.10 Quantal w/grub2/Mint13 installed on raid0, Gigabyte AMD MB, AMD 64×4 CPUs at 3.2GHz, 16 GB ram, HD7770 ATI video, dual boot win7 on 64gb ssd and win8 on 1Tb SATA raid. 13.04 installed on raid0 and ssd

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6. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   Originally Posted by ronparent
   

   If you change the boot order in bios, is there still a valid windows MBR on that drive to boot directly into windows. I suspect the problem may be a windows problem rather than grub. You should probably check that out. Post back your results.

   Yea, I kinda mentioned that in the first post, though it wasn’t very clear. I have a windows MBR on the first HDD, and if I choose to boot from that HDD (via the BIOS boot selection menu, same idea as changing the boot order) I can get into windows. I didn’t have a windows MBR on that drive until I wrote it from the win 7 disk after I started having this issue, since I couldn’t get to windows via grub.

   I agree that it seems likely that it has something to do with windows, but the error is within grub, so I am hoping to at least figure out what «invalid signature» means and what needs to be done to fix it.

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7. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

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8. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   Considering the fact that you are able to boot into that same Windows installation (at least this is what I gathered) when not using GRUB, it would appear that the Windows installation is fine — e.g., I’d say the issue is with GRUB and its interpretation of your Windows drive. Maybe it’s having issues with the boot sequence, or the way the hard drives are connected physically?

   You have two partitions on hd0. What is on each one? I personally find it odd that GRUB2 didn’t find partition 0 on hd0, considering that should be this one:

   /dev/sda1 * 1 12748 102398278+ 7 HPFS/NTFS <<<<<<
   /dev/sda2 12749 60801 385985722+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

   … but maybe I’m just talking out my *rse.

   It doesn’t help your situation that the grub.cfg file isn’t to be edited manually even if we knew what was wrong with it!

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9. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
   

   The second partition on hd0 is all my user data for windows (the first one begin just the system itself). I was looking at the cfg file, and it seems grub2 calls the first partition (hdx,1) instead of 0 (which matches the /dev/sdx1 scheme). I assume this is so at least, since it uses (hd2,1) as the root when booting linux (which works) and the boot partition is the first one.

   It could be something with the drive, thats a good idea. I’ll try writing grub to the MBR of one of the others and see if it works. Won’t be able to do that till later today though.

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10. Re: Grub «Invalid Signature» error when booting windows
    

    hd0,0 (equal to /dev/sda1) would be the first partition on the first hard drive, which I believe is the one GRUB2 should be pointing at as that’s the system partition, according to what you’ve described (makes sense size-wise as well). As such, I personally cannot see any issues with your grub.cfg file and its reference to the Windows drive; it would appear that the problem lies elsewhere.

    Did anything at all change before all this happened, especially hardware changes? Could you find out what the exact error was that you got when you were still using GRUB Legacy? GRUB2 isn’t exactly a well-known entity as it stands.

    ---

Hello everyone.

I am trying to dual boot Arch and Windows 7. I am boot into Arch with no problem but when I select Windows 7; I am greeted with the ‘Error: Invalid Signature’ and redirects back to the Grub 2 menu.

I have googled and have tried many times, so I thought I would come to the endless supply of knowledge of the bbs.archlinux forums.

I can boot into Windows when I have it as the first boot drive in the BIOS, so I Windows is fine. It’s got to be one simple step I’m missing here.

P.S. I really wasn’t sure where to put this post.

I’ll go ahead and list some (hopefully) useful information:

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *          63     1992059      995998+  83  Linux
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdc2         1992060     9992429     4000185   82  Linux swap / Solaris
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdc3         9992430   976773167   483390369   83  Linux
Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 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: 0x0ca96061

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048  1953521663   976759808    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes, 117231408 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: 0x4df1d31e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048   117227519    58612736    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Where /dev/sda is Windows
           /dev/sdb is an extra disk that holds music and documents
           /dev/sdc is Arch
                   sdc1 is /boot
                   sdc2 is swap
                   sdc3 is root

Also my BIOS are set up to boot the Arch disk, then Windows, and final the extra disk.

/etc/grub.d/40_custom:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry "Windows 7" {
	set root=(hd0,1)
	drivemap -s (hd0) (hd1)
	chainloader +1
}

/boot/grub/grub.cfg

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
insmod part_gpt
insmod part_msdos
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
  load_env
fi
set default="0"

if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then
  menuentry_id_option="--id"
else
  menuentry_id_option=""
fi

export menuentry_id_option

if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
  set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
  save_env saved_entry
  set prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
  set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
  if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
    saved_entry="${chosen}"
    save_env saved_entry
  fi
}

function load_video {
  if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then
    insmod all_video
  else
    insmod efi_gop
    insmod efi_uga
    insmod ieee1275_fb
    insmod vbe
    insmod vga
    insmod video_bochs
    insmod video_cirrus
  fi
}

if [ x$feature_default_font_path = xy ] ; then
   font=unicode
else
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='hd2,msdos3'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd2,msdos3 --hint-efi=hd2,msdos3 --hint-baremetal=ahci2,msdos3  c15450d4-4fe6-4124-aa4e-a6419188845b
else
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root c15450d4-4fe6-4124-aa4e-a6419188845b
fi
    font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2"
fi

if loadfont $font ; then
  set gfxmode=auto
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm
fi
terminal_input console
terminal_output gfxterm
set timeout=5
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Arch GNU/Linux, with Linux core repo kernel' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-true-c15450d4-4fe6-4124-aa4e-a6419188845b' {
	load_video
	set gfxpayload=keep
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='hd2,msdos1'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd2,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd2,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci2,msdos1  4637508e-7f78-4f2d-9cd7-90868f1de62f
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 4637508e-7f78-4f2d-9cd7-90868f1de62f
	fi
	echo	'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
	linux	/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=c15450d4-4fe6-4124-aa4e-a6419188845b ro  quiet
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/initramfs-linux.img
}
menuentry 'Arch GNU/Linux, with Linux core repo kernel (Fallback initramfs)' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-fallback-c15450d4-4fe6-4124-aa4e-a6419188845b' {
	load_video
	set gfxpayload=keep
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='hd2,msdos1'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd2,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd2,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci2,msdos1  4637508e-7f78-4f2d-9cd7-90868f1de62f
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 4637508e-7f78-4f2d-9cd7-90868f1de62f
	fi
	echo	'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
	linux	/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=c15450d4-4fe6-4124-aa4e-a6419188845b ro  quiet
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
}

### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry "Windows 7" {
	set root=(hd0,1)
	drivemap -s (hd0) (hd1)
	chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
if [ -f  ${config_directory}/custom.cfg ]; then
  source ${config_directory}/custom.cfg
elif [ -z "${config_directory}" -a -f  $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then
  source $prefix/custom.cfg;
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###

Thanks in Advance for anyone that is willing to help. Let me know if you need anymore information.

I am going to keep on researching and trying.

Last edited by pjk1939 (2012-12-02 23:22:35)