FlexNet
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1661254
It is one of those problems that grub2 had to work around. The boot area is for booting not DRM.
Adobe Photoshop, CAD/CAM, Rosetta Stone, Matlab others
Sector 32 or similar is already in use by FlexNet
http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Photosho...ews/B001EUDGO2
The problem turned out to be Adobe's digital rights management software [DRM]. Do your own search for "FlexNet," formerly known as "SafeCast." What I have read is that FlexNet is a viral rootkit that replicates in multiple locations whenever a CS3 or CS4 product is installed, including trial versions.
see google search on others with same issue: flexnet site:ubuntuforums.org
One from above search:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1605076&page=3
The problem turned out to be Adobe's digital rights management software [DRM]. Do your own search for "FlexNet," formerly known as "SafeCast." What I have read is that FlexNet is a viral rootkit that replicates in multiple locations whenever a CS3 or CS4 product is installed, including trial versions.
Once something like this is installed you are trapped. The above link discusses the zero out of everything and reinstall. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnansweredPo.../SolvedThreads
For info on UEFI boot install & repair:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnansweredPo.../SolvedThreads
For info on UEFI boot install & repair:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295
It is not just Flexnet which may be part of many different windows programs. Colin Watson from the grub2 team was looking for disk signatures as the windows software kept overwriting grub2. They obviously now have a workaround for flexnet, but may not for all software. Just be aware of other windows programs also.
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/0...B-2-Unbootable
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~cjwatson/blosxom/debian/2010-08-28-windows-applications-making-grub2-unbootable.html
Windows applications making GRUB 2 unbootableIf you find that running Windows makes a GRUB 2-based system unbootable (Debian bug, Ubuntu bug), then I'd like to hear from you. This is a bug in which some proprietary Windows-based software overwrites particular sectors in the gap between the master boot record and the first partition, sometimes called the "embedding area". GRUB Legacy and GRUB 2 both normally use this part of the disk to store one of their key components: GRUB Legacy calls this component Stage 1.5, while GRUB 2 calls it the core image (comparison). However, Stage 1.5 is less useful than the core image (for example, the latter provides a rescue shell which can be used to recover from some problems), and is therefore rather smaller: somewhere around 10KB vs. 24KB for the common case of ext[234] on plain block devices. It seems that the Windows-based software writes to a sector which is after the end of Stage 1.5, but before the end of the core image. This is why the problem appears to be new with GRUB 2.In Windows 7, had to remove Windows 7 DataSafe.
At least some occurrences of this are with software which writes a signature to the embedding area which hangs around even after uninstallation (even with one of those tools that tracks everything the installation process did and reverses it, I gather), so that you cannot uninstall and reinstall the application to defeat a trial period. This seems like a fine example of an antifeature, especially given its destructive consequences for free software, and is in general a poor piece of engineering; what happens if multiple such programs want to use the same sector, I wonder? They clearly aren't doing much checking that the sector is unused, not that that's really possible anyway. While I do not normally think that GRUB should go to any great lengths to accommodate proprietary software, this is a case where we need to defend ourselves against the predatory practices of some companies making us look bad: a relatively small number of people do enough detective work to realise that it's the fault of a particular Windows application, but many more simply blame our operating system because it won't start any more.
I believe that it may be possible to assemble a collection of signatures of such software, and arrange to avoid the disk sectors they have stolen. Indeed, I have a first draft of the necessary code. This is not a particularly pleasant solution, but it seems to be the most practical way around the problem; I'm hoping that several of the programs at fault are using common "licence manager" code or something like that, so that we can address most of the problems with a relatively small number of signatures. In order to do this, I need to hear from as many people as possible who are affected by this problem.
If you suffer from this problem, then please do the following:
I hope that this will help me to assemble enough information to fix this bug at least for most people
- Save the output of
fdisk -luto a file. In this output, take note of the start sector of the first partition (usually 63, but might also be 2048 on recent installations, or occasionally something else). If this is something other than 63, then replace 63 in the following items with your number.- Save the contents of the embedding area to a file (replace
/dev/sdawith your disk device if it's something else):dd if=/dev/sda of=sda.1 count=63- Do whatever you do to make GRUB unbootable (presumably starting Windows), then boot into a recovery environment. Before you reinstall GRUB, save the new contents of the embedding area to a different file:
dd if=/dev/sda of=sda.2 count=63- Follow up to either the Debian or the Ubuntu bug with these three files (the output of
fdisk -lu, and the embedding area before and after making GRUB unbootable.
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I confirmed your solution on my HP nc6400 laptop, I deleted HP protecttools and the HP recovery manager installer and now GRUB2 boots normally. Your point is well taken this a problem specific to Windows/HP software. Obviously, it is isn't the responsibility of Ubuntu to support GRUB and Windows XP dual booting. But given the popularity of GRUB and the reality that many linux users dual boot would it really be too much to ask to test Ubuntu/Windows dual boot setups on some standard computers like our HP laptops? Nevertheless, the beauty of linux is that people like you solve these problems just because you care.
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The Protecttools comes in a few parts (Security Manager, Embedded Security, Device Access Manager, etc). So you might have to reinstall a few things depending on what is installed and what you uninstall (see the software - security section).
http://h20000. www2.hp. com/bizsupport/ TechSupport/ SoftwareIndex. jsp?lang= en&cc=us& prodNameId= 1847704& prodTypeId= 321957& prodSeriesId= 1847703& swLang= 8&taskId= 135&swEnvOID= 1093#93211
HP ProtectTools, Dell Recovery, flexnet and a few others write into MBR meierfra.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...b2/+bug/441941
My machine is an HP.
I've read on the web that HP BIOS write in MBR the Microsoft activation code.
After every GRUB2 restore I'm able to run one shot windows.
Clsing windows at startup appear:
GRUB loading.
...
...
20 minutes later
grub rescue>
-------------
I found the culprit. My laptop (a HP6710b) came with Windows XP professional pre installed. HP added a credential manager and HP protecttools, after removing them I'm able to use Windows without corrupting the MBR.
Why it did work with the old grub and not grub2 I don't know, in my opinion this is a Windows problem (or HP) and not a grub problem.
I have a HP xw6200 and also cannot find a service in windows called hpqwmiex.exehttps://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubun...1?comments=all
Some software that may use Flexnet, just so you do not lose it unless you have no need anymore for it.
Adobe Photoshop, CAD/CAM, Rosetta Stone, Matlab others
=====================
http://pissedoffadmins.com/general/usrsbingrub2-bios-setup-warning-sector-32-is-already-in-use-by-the-program-flexnet-avoiding-it-this-software-may-cause-boot-or-other-problems-in-future-please-ask-its-authors-not-to-store.html
now lets remove it.
the next couple of commands may cause a lot of damage to your partition table so be cautious.
lets first make a backup of the mbr and 62 sectors:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/mbr.img bs=512 count=63dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=62 seek=1=====================
2. Zero out the MBR and reinstall grub. Much better and as follows :
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1661254
BACKUP FIRST :
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=~/first_63_sectors bs=512 count=63 To zero all sectors do this (take a backup first !) :
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=62 seek=1 Or just the sector 32 :
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 seek=32 Seems that there are several other programs that perform similar tricks.
To chroot and reinstall grub
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1
sudo mount --bind /dev /media/sda1/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /media/sda1/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /media/sda1/sys
sudo chroot /media/sda1
sudo update-grub
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sudo chroot /mnt
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http://askubuntu.com/questions/195390/grub-gives-messages-about-the-boot-sector-being-used-by-other-software-what-sho
you need to wipe sector 32. To do that you have many choices:
1.Wiping the whole harddisk
2.writing zeros to Whole sectors in your MBR and reinstall your Grub
3.Writing zeros to sector 32 in your MBR and that what we'll do.
To do that follow the following steps:
1.BACKUP your MBR :
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=~/first_63_sectors bs=512 count=63
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 seek=32
sudo mount /dev/sda* /media/sda*
sudo mount --bind /dev /media/sda*/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /media/sda*/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /media/sda*/sys
sudo chroot /media/sda*
Now Update your grub.
sudo update-grub
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This thread gives a very good explanation of the problem. This thread gives a nice easy cookbook recipe for cleaning things up.
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After I installed Grub, I rebooted the PC, but I wasn't able to get Ubuntu to boot up. I eventually decided to explore the Sector 32 problem to see if that was the cause.
It seems a lot of people encounter this problem but I haven't seen one solution for it on the web other than to "wipe your hard disk". Total nonsense.
So I'm gonna try put together a solution in this thread. Let's take a look at the problem:
A hard disk is made up of sectors. A sector on a modern hard disk is 512 bytes. The first sector is called Sector 0, and it stores the Master Boot Record. The MBR consists of:
* 440 bytes for bootable code (such as Grub)
* 4 bytes for the disk signature
* 2 bytes of nulls
* 64 bytes for the partition table
* 2 bytes for the MBR signature
The partition table contains the list of partitions, saying what sector they start at and what sector they finish on.
You might expect the 1st partition to start at Sector 1, but actually it tends to start at Sector 63 on a lot of computers. (The 1st partition tends to start at Sector 63 because there's 63 sectors in a cylinder, and MS-DOS wanted every partition to start at a cylinder boundary). So that means there's 62 unused sectors between the MBR and the 1st partition.
(To find out where your own first partition starts, do fdisk -lu /dev/sda. On modern PC's this could be all sorts of numbers because of the way recovery partitions are laid out. By the way make sure that fdisk says that the sector size is "512 bytes"... because emm... I don't know what to say if it doesn't!).
It so happens that more than one program likes to make use of those 62 free sectors between the MBR and the 1st partition.
Grub has 440 bytes available to it in the MBR to store its bootable code, but it wants more space than that, so it uses the space between the MBR and the 1st partition. But Grub isn't the only program that wants to use that space, a thing called FlexNet does too. FlexNet is some sort of software license manager, and according to the warning issued by Grub, it likes to store data in Sector 32.
When you try to install Grub over FlexNet, Grub refuses to overwrite Sector 32 if it sees FlexNet data in it. It would be great if you could just tell Grub to overwrite Sector 32, but it provides no such facility. For me, this caused a problem and Ubuntu wouldn't boot up for me.
So what's the solution to get Grub working? You don't need to go wiping your entire hard disk, you just need to wipe the area between the MBR and the 1st partition.
EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED: Wiping the storage area between your MBR and the 1st partition is an inherently dangerous activity. Doing so may result in serious injury and even death. Programs which make use of this storage area, such as FlexNet, may cease to function. You willingly accept the serious risks involved. You accept as your own responsiblity any harm that comes about as a result of following this guide, even if the guide contains errors or oversights.
First, make a backup of the first 63 sectors of your hard disk (i.e. the MBR along with the 62 free sectors):
Code:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=~/first_63_sectors bs=512 count=63
Next, erase Sector 1 through Sector 62 (i.e the 62 free sectors):
Code:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=62 seek=1
I'm not sure if FlexNet stores data in sectors other than Sector 32, but that's not a problem since we've just wiped everything between the MBR and the 1st partition.
If you want to target one individual sector to erase, then you can erase Sector 32 as follows:
Code:
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 seek=32
If anyone sees any error in this post then please post here ASAP -- I'd hate for someone to lose data because of an error made in this guide.
Last edited by Virchanza;-------------------
The cookbook worked for me, although I made a mess of the chrooting bit... (see below)
I am lucky in that my computer is single-boot and I have no plans EVER to re-install Windows. But it seems that if you have a dual-boot Windows system with software that uses FlexNet or similar software, you can expect to have regular problems. Also I think some Windows viruses may use this part of the disk. The first thread discussion offers a solution for Ubuntu users, to install an app called boot-repair on your live-CD USB booter.
I also found the boot-repair program referred to above invaluable when things go wrong. IMHO this is so useful it should be on the Live CD by default. See this link.
=================
Well, I "fixed" it. Did a low level format with this free product: http://www.killdisk.com/
=================
http://trombotic.blogspot.com/2012/01/sector-32-is-already-in-use-by-flexnet.html
Este error es debido a que algunos programas utilizan los primeros sectores de discos duro para guardar datos. En este caso se trata de FlexNet y de los sectores 32 y 33. Al estar estos sectores ocupados, el comando grub-setup, utilizado por el comando grub-install, muestra ese error.
La solución mas rápida es poner a cero los sectores 32 y 33, eliminando así los datos de FlexNet.
Antes de nada es conveniente hacer una copia de seguridad de los primeros 64 sectores del disco.
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=primeros_64_sectores.bin bs=512 count=64
What the fuck?
Y después poner a cero los sectores 32 y 33.sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=2 seek=32
Luego se completa correctamente el comando
sudo grub-install /dev/sda
Por último, si hemos añadido otro sistema operativo, para reconfigurar el GRUB ejecutamos
sudo update-grub2
LibreOffice
Firefox
OpenSUSE
Seems like something in your Windows is overwriting the embeding area.
The only workaround for this, which isn't recommended, would be to install GRUB 2 to a bootsector and use some MBR code which doestn't use the embed area, like Microsoft's or the one from the mbr package.
In that case the partition with the GRUB 2 bootsector needs the boot/active flag.