FC3 install and grub failure on HP Proliant DL380, kernel issue?

[Otto Haliburton]

On Mon, 2004-12-13 at 11:57 -0500, Sam Hart wrote:
> When installing FC3 on an HP Proliant DL380 w/ HP SmartArray 5i
> controller grub fails to install successfully (leaving the system unable
> to boot). In essence, when Anaconda is nearly finished and gets to the
> grub install, grub fails and Anaconda does not report it (instead it
> gives you the "Reboot" screen saying installation is complete).
> 
> However, by switching the proper console (5, as I recall) you can see
> the actual error:
> http://hackers.progeny.com/~sam/ZZ-Images/hp_bug.png
> 
> As you can see, grub identifies the filesystem type, but cannot actually
> read any files from it (there it is failing to read stage1, but I have
> verified it can't read any files on the system).
> 
> Now, I haven't filed this as a bug in Bugzilla yet because this seems to
> be a problem well beyond just FC3. I have verified that other distros
> exhibit the same behavior.
> 
> Also, I have isolated it down to some sort of kernel issue. In checking
> with some custom FC2-based distros, I've verified that the problem only
> occurs with kernel versions after 2.6.5. I have tried both stock and
> patched Fedora kernels.
> 
> Has anyone else encountered this problem? Note that if you install FC2
> on the machine and then upgrade, everything works except for future Grub
> installs ;-) To see the bug the installer must be running on a kernel
> newer than 2.6.5.
> 
> Since this is not really a FC3 bug, does it even have a place in RH's
> bugzilla? FWIW, I would wager that RHEL would have the same problem,
> even though I have not verified it myself.
> 
> BTW, since this is grub-legacy, I'm yet to find anyone in the grub
> community who's willing to diagnose it ;-)
> 
> Here are the outputs of dmesg/lspci from the machine after a successful
> FC2 install:
> http://hackers.progeny.com/~sam/ZZ-Docs/dmesg.out
> http://hackers.progeny.com/~sam/ZZ-Docs/lspci.out
> 
> -- 
>                                             '''''''''''''''''''''''''
> .O.                                         Sam Hart, sam at progeny.com
> ..O                                        Progeny Linux Systems, Inc
> OOO                                         <http://www.progeny.com/>
> 
It failed to read the file type.  I'm confused though you see grub gets
installed in the installation process and it is there that stage1 is
written to the MBR.  so when the boot occurs is when stage1 is executed
to either read stage1.5 or stage2.  I'm not sure what you have here.
And your exclamation is not clear to me.  I have not ever gotten this
sort of thing with GRUB, but it maybe an incompatibility with your
computer.  But I can see where you might have problems having people
diagnose it because, your explanation and the info supplied doesn't come
close to anything I have seen with grub.

The first question I have is that you seem to be suppling info from a
grub-install.  Is that true?

Anyway, Try to give a clearer picture including the command you are
executing to get the info you are suppling.
-- 
Otto Haliburton <ottohaliburton at comcast.net>