About Linux FAQ

Browse More FAQs:

Error /dev/hdX does not have any corresponding BIOS drive and Solution

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: October 26, 2007]

Q. After windows XP installation I lost my Grub boot loader and now when I try to run grub-install command to restore Grub in master boot record. But I am getting an error that read as follows:
/dev/sda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive

How do I fix this problem?

A. grub-install is use to install GRUB on your drive. If you are getting error try to recheck device map.

Type the command as follows:
# grub-install --recheck /dev/sdaWhere,

  • --recheck: Probe a device map even if it already exists
  • /dev/sda : Replace /dev/sda with your actual device name.

Above command should fix the problem.

See also

Subscribe to our free e-mail newsletter or RSS feed to get all updates. You can Email this page to a friend.

Related Other Helpful FAQs:

Discussion on This FAQ

  1. Huffers Says:

    the answer is slightly wrong - you should use “–recheck” rather than “-recheck”

  2. Huffers Says:

    thats two dashes you should use (on my monitor it looks like one)

  3. nixcraft Says:

    Huffers

    Dam html .. sorry for trouble I just put code tag around command.

    Appreciate your post.

  4. Novice Linux User Says:

    This is AWESOME HELP, THANK YOU.

    I am a newbie to Linux, have put it off for about two years.

    Spent three days with trying to reconfigure GRUB, internet search require EXTREMELY focussed searches to find articles like this. SAD, but true. Alls I could do is REINSTALL the ENTIRE LINUX OS, EACH TIME MY GRUB went bad. What an idiotic approach, to a simple problem.

    ClEAR IT ALL OUT in 3 steps:
    1) fdisk /mbr

  5. nixcraft Says:

    Glad to know you liked our solution.

    Appreciate your post.

  6. Igorf Says:

    Thank You for Your help!

  7. mrwiggles Says:

    Thanks for the info! saved me a bunch of time :)

  8. Polygon Says:

    thank you for this, it helped me solve my problem with this error. Im bookmarking this page :D

  9. Patrick B Says:

    I have the same problem but when I do grub-install –recheck /dev/hda I get:

    The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly

    I removed the file and I get the same error

  10. nixcraft Says:

    Make sure you are using correct device name.

  11. attila Says:

    another thanks for here…

  12. teak Says:

    hmmm…
    i tried this and i still get
    /dev/sda1 does not have any corresponing BIOS drive

    not too sure what to do other than reinstalling debian…

  13. Green Says:

    Cheers, this one had me scratching my head for some time

  14. rlouvot Says:

    THANKS a lot. This simple option is the end of many days of discouragement !

  15. Calin Damian Says:

    If you are using devfs you will have no files under /dev in a rescue environment so this why you are getting this message:
    /dev/sda1 does not have any corresponing BIOS drive

    You may check if this is your case by mounting your root filesystem and issuing
    ls /dev
    you will have no files here

    or
    cat /etc/fstab
    and you will see devfs there :)

    As an workaround you may create temporarily devices with mknod

    Check

    Cheers,
    C.

  16. she Says:

    Yeah… this helped me too, thanks!

    PS: weird when google is better than official docu on this…

  17. Deb Says:

    Very nice. I had this problem because I was trying to use a Gentoo live CD to recover a Ubuntu install (after reinstalling Vista (blech)). Gentoo mapped the drives in a different order and made it so my real HD didn’t correspond to a BIOS drive.

Leave a Reply

We encourage your comments, and suggestions. But please stay on topic, be polite, and avoid spam. Thank you very much for stopping by our site!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.
Click to hear an audio file of the anti-spam word

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Copyright © 2006-2008 nixCraft. All rights reserved - TOS/Disclaimer - Privacy policy - Sitemap - Powered by Open source software.