Boot Issues with FC2

[Jeff Vian]

Lonnie Santella wrote:

> Can someone please take a shot at this?  seems like a fundamental 
> problem, but I've exhausted all my resources. All support docs seem to 
> suggest the same thing, which doesn't work: directories relative to 
> /boot.
>
> Bottom line is, Red Hat 9.0 installs fine on same machine - but FC2 
> always produces the same problem (below).
>
> Here?s a quick review of my environment:
>
> (1) Always a COMPLETELY clean install ? using Drive Image utility to 
> erase all partitions and restore MBR.
>
> (2) Two machines, both Asus P4 clones with 1 GB RAM, and 1 Western 
> Digital 20 GB hard drive each.
>
> (3) Both machines have subsequently loaded Redhat 9.0 and ran 
> flawlessly ? no problems at all.
>
> (4) I have two different ISO image CD?s from two different mirrors ? 
> both with verified MD5Sum?s and both producing the exact same problem 
> each time.
>
> So I?ve been trying to install FC2 ? I?ve just finished my 11th 
> attempt. Following the advice of different threads and release notes, 
> I always go back to a fresh install before trying anything new.
>
> To minimize variables, I keep the install as simple as possible. I 
> choose ?Automatic Partition?, which creates a 100MB /boot on hda1, a 
> 17GB ?/? (root) on hda2, and a 2GB swap on hda3. I also choose a 
> ?minimal? install to eliminate possible variables from the other CD?s 
> ? this way I only have to use CD1.

Try doing a manual partition.  Also verify that the bios is set to lba 
for these drives and that fdisk shows the correct lba CHS parameters for 
the drives.


>
> Each time, the install itself is flawless. But after the first reboot 
> ? and naturally each time thereafter, immediately following the POST, 
> I get a black screen with the word ?GRUB? in the upper left corner. No 
> response to keyboard strokes or mouse movement at that point.
>
> I have to rule out hardware ? since this problem with FC2, I have 
> successfully installed and ran RedHat 9.0 and FreeBSD 4.10. I always 
> use a tried and true utility to erase the hard drives of all 
> partitions and restore MBR before installing anything new. This 
> guarantees a pristine physical drive during the install.
>
> I compared the grub.conf files on each machine after the FC2 install. 
> They are identical. No big surprise there I guess. Then, just for 
> further comparison, I isolated one machine and wiped it clean, and 
> loaded RedHat 9.0. Then I compared it?s grub.conf to that of the FC2 
> install. Almost identical except for the ?/? (root) and swap 
> partitions. In each case the /boot partition is always the first 
> (hda1). In FC2, the ?/? root partition is the second one (hda2) 
> followed but the swap on hda3. But in RedHat 9.0, the swap is on hda2, 
> followed by the / root on hda3. No big deal there, the grub.conf files 
> compensate for this but looking to hda2 on FC2 and hda3 on RedHat 9.0 
> as one would expect.
>
> Both grub.conf files from FC2 and RedHat 9.0 list an entry as follows:
>
> Root (hd0,0)
>
> ? I?m not sure if having different root partitions should affect this 
> or not, but it?s the same in both OS?s.
>
> One other thing I thought was odd is that on both machines, the 
> standard FC2 install puts a strange format or partition table on the 
> physical drive; so much so that it takes a few extreme steps to wipe 
> the partition info off the drive. Normally I would just use the 
> ?delete? function of the utility, which works for all the RedHat 
> dirstros and FreeBSD ? but in FC2 it generates and error stating that 
> it can?t delete the partition. I have to use a utility called 
> ?bigfdisk? then put a dos partition on it, then delete the dos 
> partition ? to get everything set back to a completely empty hard drive.

This is the clue that you may need to check the CHS values and do a 
manual partiton

I suspect you are seeing the bug related to some mobo/bios and the lba 
parameters with the 2.6 kernel and partitoning.

My MSI mobo had this problem and after I manually set the CHS parameters 
on the disk it worked perfectly.

I thought I had the link to the fix for this bookmarked but I can't find 
it right now.

Maybe someone can repost the link here.

>
> I?d really like to give FC2 a test run ? been looking forward to it. 
> I?ve read the release notes, and browsed for two solid days through 
> news threads and docs. I?m stuck, could you please help me out here?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Lonnie
>
>
>