Diagnosing boot issues

Issues related to booting your Linux computer may happen due to any one of several reasons. However, most startup issues seem to be caused by Windows. If you dual-boot Windows and Linux, it's not uncommon to have issues with booting Linux at some point. When upgrading from one version of Windows to another, Windows will typically not respect the fact that you dual-boot into Linux and may even wipe out your Linux boot sector. To solve this particular issue, see the Reinstalling GRUB section later in this chapter. Typically, when you reinstall GRUB, it will discover that you also have Windows installed and create an option to boot it along with Linux. Windows, on the other hand, will wipe out your Linux boot options when its boot loader (NTLDR) is reinstalled.

Other issues that can cause your computer to cease booting normally include hard drive corruption, faulty RAM, UUID changes, and invalid GRUB configuration. In the case of faulty RAM, this chapter includes...