How grub drove me crazy

**bauglir** · 01-30-2006, 12:21 AM

hello all.
first, what i have done so far.
i had a working W-XP system with 2 IDE-HDD... one was the OS, the other a save disk.
Then, along came my lab tchnician exposing all the amazing things a free-OS can do for you, and convinced me to install debian into the storage HDD. so he kindly downloaded and burned the 2 dvds for me, and here i go home all happy...
So i back up my stuff and install debian, with grub as the boot loader. wonders and bells, i have a dual OS system working pretty neat....
Then i realize i still need a windows Storage HDD. i go out and get myself a MAXTOR diamond 10 SATA (250GB)... when i plug the HDD, grub starts hating me, and spits error 5 at me. so i think, maybe i should try to reinstall debian with the SATA disc attached.... i do that and, angrry grub spits out error 17...
what i fail to uunderstand is why grub hates my SATA disc... it loads fine if i unconnect it , but that error 17 keeps showing up when the SATA is connected. now it's my turn to get angry at grub, i go fixmbr, and load windows, repartition the linux HDD into ntfs(!!!!!!!)... and here i am.
So, i am ready to Start over, give grub a second chance., but, i would like to know how to avoid the grub error, or, and be prepared to handle it when it hapens.. and this is what i ask...
1) what can i do to fix the grub error
2) if i get the error, how can i do anything if my system dosent boot into any of the into the OS'S

Thank you for any info.

**soulestream** · 01-30-2006, 12:37 AM

You might want to mention what/where the drives are. As in drive order and what OS is going on which drive.

If windows is not on the first drive, you are going to have to make some changes(simple) to grub.

soule

**bauglir** · 01-30-2006, 01:10 AM

im not sure what you mean by order.. i know that the windows drive is set as slave, and the "to-be' linux drive is set as slave... i dont know what the sata is set as, because i bought it OEM, and i see no markings on the jumpers.. actually, i dont even recognize these jumpers... anyhow.. if what you mean by order is the boot order, i have it floppy, CD, windows disk... if you mean something else, just tell me where i can find the info, and il get back to you...

**je_fro** · 01-30-2006, 02:58 AM

both drives set as slave? that won't work at all...
since your tech friend failed to do it, I'll tell you the bad news now - you're going to have to read (gasp!) documentation. I recommend starting with the grub manual. You can find it at http://www.google.com/linux <--our own search engine

**saikee** · 01-30-2006, 04:25 AM

It is up to a PC owner how to use Grub.

Since Grub is booting 100+ systems in my PC I suppose I am the one who drive it crazy.

I did read the Grub Manual and used to carry it in my signature.

There is nothing wrong with Grub because I can't find a PC system it can't boot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the poster problem is more to do with the understanding of the disk booting order in the BIOS.

For a multiple disks application thery must be arrnaged as a queue in the booting order so that the BIOS can know which one is to be booted first.

Grub obtains the disk order from the BIOS. If a Linux or a Winodws is installed in the second disk and an owner came along and inserted another disk in the middle, forcing the second disk to become the third disk, then there isn't one chance in hell any boot loader can find the system according the orginal address.

The owner should always dictate the booting order of the disks from the BIOS or at least be aware of the order being arranged there.

Setting up two slaves in an IDE cable will force the BIOS into an impossible position.

**bauglir** · 01-30-2006, 02:52 PM

i see. but as ive said, the master is the windows ide, and the slave is the linux ide, the sata is the third disk.. what i fail to understand is why grub wont load even when the order is predefined before the grub instalation. anyways, il have a look at that grub manual.. thanks

**je_fro** · 01-30-2006, 05:01 PM

Can you paste us a copy of your grub.conf file?

**bauglir** · 01-30-2006, 06:01 PM

where can i find it, bearing in mind that i can only access the system through the bootable debian cd?

**saikee** · 01-30-2006, 08:27 PM

The orginal boot disk order is the the /boot/grub/device.map

When you boot into any Linux with Grub inside you can invoke a Grub shell by typing

Code:

grub
geometry (hd0)
geometry (hd1)
geometry (hd2)

That would be current disk order

You need to look at the partition type and the had disk size to know which disk is which.

NTFS has type 7 and Linux should be type 83. The disk with tpe 82 has got swap partition.

**soulestream** · 01-30-2006, 08:54 PM

i know that the windows drive is set as slave, and the "to-be' linux drive is set as slave.

ut as ive said, the master is the windows ide, and the slave is the linux ide,

soule

**bauglir** · 01-31-2006, 12:40 AM

hi.
sorry for my error above.. i really should try to be carefull..
ok, so i got a grub floppy, but i have fixed the mbr, in order to be able to use the system,.. still i did the grub geometry command and these are the results:

grub > geometry:
(hd0) drive 0x80: C/H/S =1023/255/63, the number of sectors = 240121728, LBA Partition num:0, File system type unknown, partition type 0x7

(hd1) drive 0x81: C/H/S = 1023/255/63, The number of sectors = 40031712, LBA
Partition num:0, filesystemtype is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 4, filesystem type unknown partion type 0x82

(hd2) drive 0x82: C/H/s = 1023/255/63, the number of sectors = 490234752, LBA
Partition num: 0, filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

i hope this is usefull

**saikee** · 01-31-2006, 06:37 AM

It is obvious to anybody that your Linux is in the 2nd disk or (hd1) as Grub counts from 0.

The 1st bootable disk is 120Gb large while the other two are 20Gb and 250Gb as 1 sector is 512 bytes or 0.5k. As the 250 Sata is in the last of the booting queue it doesn't appear that it should have any effect on your booting sequence.

The root of your Deian Linux is therefore (hd1,0), with the last 0 being the partition number.

You can actually boot up Debian "manually" with the following instructions.( I use Debian Sarge or version 31r0a as an example)

Code:

root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.7-1-386 root=/dev/hdb1 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.7-1-386
boot

The red bits are my guess of your current partition reference. The only one I am unsure is hdb1 and here is how you can find it out

Before you issue the above commands and while at a Grub prompt you can ask Grub to tell you how it boots Debian by displaying its configuration file /boot/grub/menu.lst on the screen by this command

Code:

cat  (hd1,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst

You should find something similar to my suggested instructions but do change the blue bits to suit your case and use your own version of "root=/dev/????".

You Linux will boot once the correct partition reference has been amended. The manual instructions you boot it up are the commands you need to put inside the /boot/grub/menu.lst eventually.

If you have difficulty with the above explanation have a look at "Just booting tips" showed at my signature as there are expliation there too.

**bauglir** · 01-31-2006, 08:21 PM

ok, i did what you recomend above, and get the following error when trying to boot:
Kernel panic: attempted to kill init

any ideas?

**je_fro** · 01-31-2006, 09:19 PM

Use tab completion to find another kernel? Try passing init=/sbin/init in the kernel line? I need more lines of that error to say....

**saikee** · 02-03-2006, 12:59 PM

Paste here Debian's

(1) /boot/grub/menu.lst
(2) /boot/grub/device.map
(3) /etc/fstab

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