Fedora Core 2 upgrade FAILURE

[Scott Talbot]

On Tue, 2004-06-01 at 09:12, 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

	Looking at the info grub file, you should be able to run a command
'setup hd0', or possibly this should be 'setup (hd0)' not sure which,
but you could try each.

Scott