grub rescue>

If the GRUB (version 1) boot loader can't find the right disks or partitions, there's not much it can do, so it drops you into a very primitive shell with the prompt:

grub rescue>

…which has no help command…

To try and get the machine going, first of all find out what disks and partitions you have to play with; if you know what partition the machine is supposed to boot from, so much the better.

grub rescue> ls
(hd0) (hd0,msdos1)

Check that you can find the grub.cfg file:

grub rescue> ls (hd0,msdos1)/boot/grub/grub.cfg

Then try booting the machine:

grub rescue> set boot=(hd0,msdos1)
grub rescue> set prefix=(hd0,msdos1)/boot/grub
grub rescue> insmod normal
grub rescue> normal

The machine should now get you into the "normal" GRUB menu, where you can edit the commands if needed, and hopefully boot the machine.

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