Why do I get GRUB error 22?
I recently installed Macrium Reflect and created a disk image on an external hard drive that is connected to a SATA PCI card. Everything went smoothly and I tested the boot CD for Macrium Reflect. I did not go as far as restoring the disk image. I want to have a disk image created on a weekly schedule, so I want to leave the external SATA drive connected. When I boot the computer, I get an error message GRUB error 22 and the computer stops there. If I disconnect the external SATA drive, the computer boots normally into Windows XP Professional. How can I leave the external SATA drive connected and still have the computer boot normally?
ASKER
Yes, the Macrium software uses Linux to restore a drive image, so I guess that is why I get the error message on booting. I can boot OK from the Macrium rescue CD created during setup. The BIOS setting is for the CD to boot first. If I were to connect the external drive using USB rather than SATA, would that solve the problem? I would really like to be able to leave the external drive connected all the time, but wouldn't the USB be a slower connection than the SATA?
Not knowing your BIOS, I can't answer exactly what setting or option needs to be changed; perhaps using USB does solve the boot issue (USB should not be higher boot priority than your internal hard drive of course).
Otherwise, you should carefully look at the various BIOS settings, both the internal drive you normally boot from and the external drive are seen as hard drives. The key thing is to make the internal drive the one to boot from first (or the only one), out of 2 hard drives. Sometimes there's an option that enables or disables booting off drives connected to add-in cards, or change its priority, which should do the trick. This is assuming that your normal internal drive is not connected to the same PCI SATA controller.
Also a possibility is looking for configuration options of the PCI card itself. It may display a message during boot time like "press Ctrl-A for configuration options" or something to that effect. There may be boot options to configure there that could help.
Otherwise, you should carefully look at the various BIOS settings, both the internal drive you normally boot from and the external drive are seen as hard drives. The key thing is to make the internal drive the one to boot from first (or the only one), out of 2 hard drives. Sometimes there's an option that enables or disables booting off drives connected to add-in cards, or change its priority, which should do the trick. This is assuming that your normal internal drive is not connected to the same PCI SATA controller.
Also a possibility is looking for configuration options of the PCI card itself. It may display a message during boot time like "press Ctrl-A for configuration options" or something to that effect. There may be boot options to configure there that could help.
ASKER
I changed the boot order so the external drive is listed after the internal drive. Now it boots OK, but much more slowly. There is message that the Intel boot is exiting, but Windows than loads normally.
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ASKER
Yes, I can simply unplug the external drive until I want to use it (once weekly for image creation). Thanks for your help.
To clarify, I actually meant remove the external drive as an available boot drive in BIOS (to try and remove the slowdown), if that's possible. If that works you could leave it plugged in at all times.
Thanks for the points.
Thanks for the points.
I suspect that since GRUB (a boot loader) is installed on the external drive, it might contain the Macrium software to help you restore an image. If you must be able to boot from the drive to restore its data if it ever comes up, you should investigate why this fails. If you're ok booting from CD in that case, you don't necessarily have to worry about that of course.