Boot problems (still)

[Jim Cornette]

zephod at cfl.rr.com wrote:
> I reported this problem some time ago but I still cannot boot my FC6 
> disk. I have been poking around the GRUB source and I now have a 
> better understanding of what GRUB does but I don't understand this 
> problem.
> 
> I have 2 disks, one is a SATA disk that has Windows XP on it. The 
> other disk is an IDE that has my FC6 on it. When I try to boot to the 
> FC6 disk, the machine just reboots over and over again. I then boot 
> from the rescue disk and look at the partitions using fdisk. 
> Everything looks normal. The Windows stuff is on /dev/sda and the FC6 
> stuff is on /dev/hdk. /boot/grub/device.map contains:
> 
> (hd0)  /dev/sda
> (hd1)  /dev/hdk
> 
> If I enter GRUB in interactive mode and do
> 
> # geometry (hd0,0)
> 
> I get the output I expect but when I do
> 
> # geometry (hd1,0)
> 
> GRUB tells me that there is no such disk. The reason GRUB won't boot 
> is that is fails the root (hd1,0) command in the grub.conf file.
> 
> I even re-installed GRUB
> 
> # grub-install /dev/hdk
> 
> with no problems but when I go back inro GRUB it still tells me there 
> is no hd1.
> 
> Can anyone give me somewhere else to look for clues? If GRUB looks at 
> device.map to figure that hd1 means /dev/hdk and grub-install is OK 
> installing on /dev/hdk, why doesn't GRUB recognize the 2nd disk?
> 
> Steve
> 

The problem with rebooting without a rational cause happened to me 
booting from a xen kernel. Are you booting from a xen enabled kernel?
Chances are that this is not your problem but just in case it is your 
problem.

Regarding the no such disk problem. I had problems on two different Dell 
computers which the secondary drive was disabled in BIOS. Fedora itself 
recognized the disks but grub did not because of the BIOS setting. Are 
your BIOS settings set to show all disks?

Regarding Grub interactive. I had to use it myself today for the first 
time. It is highly cryptic but not too hard once you get through the 
vague documentation.

CAUTION: (I don't know what the heck I'm doing in the grub shell yet 
this is a question only)
What would happen if you entered
root (hd1,0)
followed by
setup (hd0)

Basically, boot is the first partition on the second hard drive and grub 
is booted from MBR.

I had to do this on a computer which I moved boot from sdb2 to sdb1 
changed fstab reference and /boot/grub/grub.conf references but did not 
run grub-install before rebooting.

Why are you trying geometry?


Jim

-- 
QOTD:
	"If he learns from his mistakes, pretty soon he'll know everything."