GRand Unified Boot misery and Fedora Core 4

From: ### Coralys.com ### (tiredofspam_at_abolish.now)
Date: 11/19/05

  • Next message: Jan Gerrit Kootstra: "Re: GRand Unified Boot misery and Fedora Core 4" 
    Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 12:29:38 +0100

    I was sure this GRUB thing was not to be trusted and like I said it was
    thanks to a couple of GRUB disasters back in 2002.

    My system has the following:

    1. DVDRAM/DVD recorder (/dev/hdc)
    2. First SATA disk: 160GB Windows XP Professional (several partitions) -
    Seen as /dev/sda by Linux & Knoppix
    3. Second SATA disk: 160GB - Seen as /dev/sdb

    It is a Pentium V HT 3.0GHz (so Linux sees two processors). On an ASUS
    P4P800 motherboard, 800MHz FSB.

    Since I did not want Linux and Windows to coexist I bought that 2nd SATA and
    installed it. Then I installed Fedora Core 4 from CDs (4). Having had some
    aweful experiences with GRUB I opted for NOT (and THANKS GOD I CHOSE NOT
    TO!!!!) install a boot loader (since it no longer gives the chance to
    install LILO) on ANY disk. The installation went ok except for the fact that
    it somehow did not recognize my PS2 mouse (Knoppix does).

    I then followed a procedure to make a Linux floppy with GRUB in it. I am
    first doing manual grubbing but it fails:

    a) Select my 2nd SATA disk (/dev/sdb) where my /boot partition is at
    /dev/sdb1

        grub> root (hd1, 0)

       That goes ok, tells me it is an ext2fs filesystem (even though it was
    formatted as ext3fs and Knoppix sees
       it as ext3fs)

    b) Select the kernel image

        grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4

        It goes OK, I get a message about finding a bzimage.

    c) Select the initrd image

        grub> initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img

       Apparently ok too, get a message saying it found it. No error messages.

    d) Attempt to boot the FC4

        grub> boot

    And then it get a bunch of booting progress messages, mounting, devices etc.
    and then it craps out and starts dumping some totaaly nerdish messages about
    printk etc. etc. etc. There is no possibility to scroll back or anything.

    The only thing I get to read for a short while is some message about "Kernel
    panic" and "Unable to mount /dev/sdb1" or something like that.

    I am able to mount those partitions when I boot a Knoppix 4 DVD. I see that
    the kernel/initrd images are there as well where expected, and that that
    /boot is indeed /dev/sdb1

    So what on earth is going on here? hopefully somebody comes up with some
    good idea before I reformat that "Linux" disk as NTFS ;-) I am VERY GLAD I
    did not install GRUB on the MBR.

    Help anybody?

  • Next message: Jan Gerrit Kootstra: "Re: GRand Unified Boot misery and Fedora Core 4"

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