Cannot boot from hda

[airwerx]

My system has never booted from anything other than a floppy. I was forced to install Red Hat 8.0 in text mode due to a problem between X and my gforce video card. The kernel and GLX RPM's from nVidia are in and startx works great but I cannot get grub to load any kernel from (HD0,0).

When I attempt to load a kernel from grub;

grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20 boot=/dev/hda1

Error 12 Invalid Device Requested

Any idea's where I've messed up?

Compaq D-315
AMD Athlon XP 2000+
Western Digital 60GB 7200 RPM

Cannot boot from hda

[root@localhost root]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2 55G 2.4G 49G 5% /
/dev/hda1 100M 11M 84M 12% /boot
none 54M 0 53M 0% /dev/shm

[root@localhost root]# cd /boot/grub
[root@localhost grub]# cat grub.conf
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title NewOS Red Hat Linux (2.4.20)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20 ro root=/dev/hda1
initrd /initrd-2.4.20.img
title SuperOS Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-14)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda1
initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14.img

[root@localhost grub]# cd /etc/
[root@localhost etc]# cat fstab
/dev/hda2 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda1 /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

[root@localhost etc]#


Does Red Hat 9.0 work any better with nVidia hardware?

Sincerely,

Steven Thompson
Ford, WA

[galaxor]

Originally posted by airwerx
My system has never booted from anything other than a floppy. I was forced to install Red Hat 8.0 in text mode due to a problem between X and my gforce video card. The kernel and GLX RPM's from nVidia are in and startx works great but I cannot get grub to load any kernel from (HD0,0).

When I attempt to load a kernel from grub;

grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20 boot=/etc/hda1

Error 12 Invalid Device Requested

Any idea's where I've messed up?

your devices/special files are located in /dev NOT in /etc (see your "boot" parameter).

If your system still doesn't boot check your harddisc's jumpering (master/slave/single-setting) and try repeating the Grub setup procedure.

good luck!

[airwerx]

My mistake, please replace /etc/ with /dev/ ...

I ran a new grub setup the other night, here's the output:

Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exist.... NO
Checking if "/grub/stage1" exist.... YES
Checking if "/grub/stage2" exist.... YES
Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1.5".... exist YES
Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1.5 (hd0)
22 sectors are embedded
succeeded
Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0)
(hd0) 1 + 22 p (hd0,0) /grub/stage2
/grub/grub.conf... Succeeded
Done

Bios set to:

HD=1
CD=2
FL=3

I'll double check the HD strap. New Western Digital 60 gig drive was installed in new Compaq D-315. Factory 20 gig drive with WinXP was removed... Box has single drive with Red Hat only installed. Three partitions were created during install using auto-format... hda1 = boot, hda2 = filesystem, hda3 = swap...

Thank you galaxor

[briansladecek]

Howdy,

I think your problem is in your `grub.con' file. I can only assume that since you had to install from a floppy, something in your `grub.con' file got confused.

YOu have 3 partitions:

(hd0,0) /boot
(hd0,1) /
(hd0,2) swap

You need to change the "ro root=/dev/hda1" settings in `grub.conf' where it loads your kernel to "ro root=/dev/hda2". "hda2" is your second partition and grub needs to know what partition to mount your root filesystem. Apparently, and I don't know how, it is trying to mount your root partition on the same /boot partition.

* Grub can be kind of confusing in how they refer to the first partition as (hd0,0) and then you have to remember that the "/dev" syntax (from the kernel) refers to that same partition as "hda1", *not* "hda0" (and similiar for other partitions).

Make that change and it should work.

thanks,

Brian Sladecek

[briansladecek]

By the way,

I just noticed something from your output of your `grub.conf' file in your first post. If you check the first couple of lines (preceeded by #, which are comments), anaconda even gives you an example and shows that the line should read: "ro root=/dev/hda2", not "ro root=/dev/hda1"

Very strange indeed...

thanks,

Brian Sladecek

[airwerx]

Thanks for the reply Brian,

This is a strange problem. I've tested both hda1 and hda2. Swap is hda3 so no reason to go there.

What ended up solving one problem I was having turned out to be resetting the system bios. Upon reboot I now get the grub screen giving me the option of which kernel to boot.

The distribution kernel is 2.4.18-14. I've also configured and installed 2.4.20. Neither will boot from the lone hda. Here's what I'm getting after selecting either kernel with grub.conf pointing to either hda1 or hda2;

**********
root (hd0,0)

Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda2 mem=128M
[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1400, size=0x10ea0d]

Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory

**********

This very kernel will boot from a 1.44MB floppy but won't boot from a 128MB Compaq Business PC.

Thanks again,

Steven Thompson

[briansladecek]

Howdy,

Steven, keep the change I gave you earlier. You definitely want the "hda2" option and *not* "hda1". That, I'm sure of...

I think what problem you may be having is this. You use a ram disk I believe. I think I saw "initrd" in the last line of either kernel entry. With that said, you can run into danger passing the "mem=" option (*if* you specify a number less than the actual system memory).

I'm not sure of your exact setup, machine, etc...but here's what I would do:

Remove the "mem=" option at the end of the line which loads your kernel. You can also remove the usage of "initrd" and still boot, but you just won't have a ram disk, and may get an init script error.

Whatever the case, try that, reboot and see what happens.

* I remember seeing earlier how you installed grub, and that part is correct. You went into the grub shell and did all the commands you needed to.

I assume that, *without* using a floppy disk, you can boot from hda but grub just bombs when trying to load the kernel. If I understand correctly, you just use the boot disk so that you can at least get back into the OS and make any changes.

Another suggestion would be to check the `grub.conf' or `menu.1st' file on your floppy and compare those options against the `grub.conf' on your hard drive.

Hope that helps...

I'm a little confused on how some of those options got in your `grub.conf' to begin with since I've used a ram disk ("initrd") before and my `grub.conf' never had that "mem=" option...and it worked fine. I assume the normal install created all those options? If so, did you change any of the default grub install options during the initial setup of Redhat. I think you do have the option of setting some of those with the "Advanced Options" menu entry during the initial install.

thanks,

Brian Sladecek