Boot Problem after Playing with Powervault

[Rick Stevens]

On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 22:42 -0700, Bret Stern wrote:
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
> [mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Rick Stevens
> Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 12:31 PM
> To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> Subject: Re: Boot Problem after Playing with Powervault
> 
> On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 12:19 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
> > On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 10:47 -0700, Bret Stern wrote:
> > > So..
> > > 
> > > Last night I added a recently purchased Dell Powervault 210s to my 
> > > Dell 2450 running Fedora 5.
> > > 
> > > As I browsed the uninitialized drives on the PowerVault, I 
> > > accidentally/on purpose initialized a disk with a linux boot partition.
> > > It's just my tinkering habit.
> > > 
> > > Now my system boots to grub> (that's it). Certainly I hosed my Grub 
> > > boot.
> > > 
> > > Where i'm at..
> > > 
> > > I found that there were two bootable partitions on the machine.
> > > One on sda1, and one on sdb1. I toggled the boot flag on sdb1 (off) 
> > > because I only run Linux and sda1 is the logical boot.
> > > (Is the above correct thinking). I can always restore the flag.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I have booted my machine using the Fedora cd and typee "linux rescue".
> > > 
> > > This found my install and I have chosen to "chroot /mnt/sysimage".
> > > 
> > > I can see all my data.
> > > 
> > > When I tried "grub-install /dev/sda", I get the following.
> > >  "/boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly"
> > > 
> > > 
> > > What's my next step (maybe I should get into landscaping)  ?
> > 
> > Well, gee. My first guess is that you're using a separate /boot 
> > partition and it's not mounted, so grub-install can't even find the 
> > stage 1 boot code.  After the "chmod /mnt/sysimage", try doing a
> 
> Grr!  "chroot /mnt/sysimage".  Fingers not working well today!
> 
> > 
> > 	# mount -a
> > 
> > That will force all of the other mounts that are normally done in your 
> > operating environment, including mounting /boot if it _is_ a separate 
> > partition.
> > 
> > Once that's done, verify that your /boot/grub/stage1 file is 512 bytes 
> > in length.  If it is, then try your "grub-install /dev/sda" again and 
> > see if it goes OK.  If it does, then enter "exit" twice (first to get 
> > out of the chroot environment, second to exit the rescue boot), pop 
> > out the CD and see if she'll boot up.
> > 
> > As for landscaping, I hate raking leaves and mowing lawns (did enough 
> > of that when I was a teen 40 years ago).  I have a gardener.  :-)
> > 
> 
> 
> ..sorry about the incorrect bottom posting
> 
> 
> Tried the mount -a. Got these two messages
> 
> mount: special device LABEL/=boot does not exist

I'm guessing that's really "...LABEL=/boot..." and is a bit disturbing.
You do use a separate boot partition, and it looks like the filesystem
label for it has been stomped on.  If you know what the physical disk
name for it was, then do a

	e2label /dev/devname /boot

For example, I know that my boot partition is /dev/sda3, so:

	e2label /dev/sda3 /boot

If you don't know, try "fdisk -l /dev/device-name" and look for the
entry with a "*" in the second field.  In my case:

[root at ss-1a root]# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 36.3 GB, 36364615680 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4421 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1             1         8     64228+  de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2             9       335   2626627+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3   *       336       360    200812+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4           361      4421  32619982+   f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           361      1634  10233373+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6          1635      2908  10233373+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7          2909      3169   2096451   83  Linux
/dev/sda8          3170      3300   1052226   83  Linux
/dev/sda9          3301      3554   2040223+  82  Linux swap

Note the "*" in the second field for /dev/sda3.  That's my boot
partition.  So find yours and make sure it's labeled.  Then do the
"mount -a" again and make sure /boot gets mounted.

Now that you have all of your filesystems mounted (except /dev/shm which
is no biggie), you'll want to do your infamous "grub-install /dev/sda"
again.  Since /boot is now mounted, it should work a treat.

> mount: mount point /dev/shm does not exist.
> 
> I believe /dev/shm the drive from the Powervault that I
> initialized in the LVM Manager.

No, that's the shared memory segment for System V IPC stuff, and I
wouldn't worry about it in this case.

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-              Where there's a will, I want to be in it.             -
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