Fedora Core 2 upgrade FAILURE

[Aaron Hughes]

If you can boot the first cd do linux rescue at the first prompt follow 
the instructions including chroot /mnt/sysimage and then you can get the 
name of the kernel and initrd in /boot.  Sorry I don't know how to get 
it at the grub command line.



Richard Emberson wrote:
> Phil Schaffner wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 2004-06-01 at 08:09 -0700, Richard Emberson wrote:
>>
>>> I have an older machine that can not boot from cdrom. Also, I had
>>> some user data in one of the accounts.
>>>
>>> So I mounted disc1, copied vmlinuz and initrd.img to /boot, unmounted
>>> disc1, added entry to /etc/grub.conf, then rebooted:
>>>
>>> mount /dev/cdrom
>>> cp -a /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/vmlinuz /boot/FC2-install
>>> cp -a /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/initrd.img /boot/FC2-install.img
>>> umount /mnt/cdrom
>>> and add entry like:
>>> title Fedora Core 2 Installation
>>>         root (hd0,0)
>>>         kernel /FC2-install
>>>         initrd /FC2-install.img
>>> to /etc/grub.conf (use /boot/FC2... when not relative to /boot)
>>>
>>> Everything was going along fine; I did an upgrade (not install) and 
>>> after 1 1/2 hours it said that the installation was a success and that
>>> I should click the reboot button ... which I did.
>>>
>>> Well, reboot started out ok, there was a single boot option on the
>>> grub boot page, but then it asked me to insert disc1. I did so
>>> and it then asked me if I wanted to upgrade or install.
>>>
>>> hmmm.....
>>>
>>> I selected upgrade and it proceeded to "upgrade" a php rpm from disc1
>>> and compat-db rpm from disc3 and announced that the installation was
>>> successful and that I should click on the reboot button.
>>>
>>> Ok, reboot started and then once again it requested that I insert disc1
>>> and once again it installed the same two rpm's, php from disc1 and
>>> compat-db from disc3 and announced that the installation was a success.
>>>
>>> I tried one more time with the same result.
>>>
>>> So how do I break out of this? I really dont care about either
>>> php or compat-db, I'd like to somehow bypass installing them and
>>> get on with the boot. Are there parameters one can give at the grub
>>> command line to force a kernel load?
>>>
>>> Help! Thanks.
>>
>>
>>
>> Hummm... Looks like anaconda didn't correctly update the bootloader,
>> which should have been the default.  Did you tell it not to update GRUB
>> during the upgrade?  Possible confusion between MBR and boot record of
> 
> 
> During the upgrade I did NOT tell it to upgrade GRUB (I followed the
> recommendation to not upgrade...) During the first and second attempt
> to reboot, again, I did not tell it to upgrade. During the third attempt
> I did tell it to upgrade, but at the end of the upgrade it told me that
> because no new kernel was installed there was not need to upgrade.
> 
>> the active partition?  If you did request that the bootloader be
>> updated, and don't find another head-slapper cause, then this is one for
>> Bugzilla.
>>
>> You should be able to recover either by booting from the rescue disk
>> image and following directions, or by using the command line in GRUB.
>> GRUB command-line completion with TAB should help.
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, my machine, an old VA Research box (when they were
> in Moutain View), does not have boot from CD capability.
> I will attempt to recover via the GRUB command-line. THANKs.
> 
> Question: How from within the GRUB command line interface can I get
> the names of the kernel and initrd files in the /boot directory?
> What if they are not: vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 and initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img?
> 
> 
>>
>> At the menu type "c" for a command line, then assuming a standard
>> kernel, /boot is /dev/hda1, and / is labeled:
>>
>> root (hd0,0)
>> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/
>> initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
>> boot
>>
>> If you get it started, then add the following stanza
>> to /boot/grub/grub.conf
>>
>> title Fedora Core (2.6.5-1.358)
>>         root (hd0,0)
>>         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358 ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
>>         initrd /initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
>>
>> May need to run "grub-install" if the boot device (e.g. MBR vs. active
>> partition) is/was incorrect.
>>
>> Phil
>>
>>
>>
> 
>