GRUB Loading Stage2Read Error

From: alan (misc_at_alanroter.com)
Date: 11/29/05

  • Next message: mst: "Re: GRUB Loading Stage2Read Error" 
    Date: 28 Nov 2005 22:05:08 -0800

    I'm having trouble booting a new install of Fedora Core 4 running on a
    home-built system with an AMD Athlon 64-bit Processor 3000 with 1Gb RAM
    using an Abit NV8-V motherboard and two IDE drives plus DVD, etc. Its a
    pretty standard system.

    At boot time, the system reads from the master drive (/dev/hda) and
    gives an error "GRUB Loading stage2Read Error".

    I've installed this off a downloaded set of iso's burned to CD for
    FC4-x86_64. All of the disk checksums were good.

    I have partitioned the hda drive according to my desires, but given
    this problem, even tried a complete re-install with the default Fedora
    partitioning. I still got the same error at boot. My second drive has a
    Fedora 2 32-bit install on it from my old system, from which I intend
    to copy data once I'm up and running. Just in case it is causing
    problems, I've renamed the stage1 and stage2 files in /boot/grub so
    they won't be found by grub. I believe I opted to install the boot
    loader on the /boot partition.

    The partition maps as reported from fdisk are:

    Disk /dev/hda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

       Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
    /dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
    /dev/hda2 14 6387 51199155 83 Linux
    /dev/hda3 6388 6637 2008125 82 Linux swap /
    Solaris
    /dev/hda4 6638 24321 142046730 83 Linux

    Disk /dev/hdb: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

       Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
    /dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
    /dev/hdb2 14 6387 51199155 83 Linux
    /dev/hdb3 6388 6452 522112+ 82 Linux swap /
    Solaris
    /dev/hdb4 6453 30515 193286047+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
    /dev/hdb5 6453 19200 102398278+ 83 Linux

    I believe this is a fairly standard partitioning, with a small /boot
    partition (hda1), a 50Gb root partition, a swap partition and a large
    /home partition.

    The /boot partition contains the kernel and the /boot/grub directory
    with all of the grub files. The grub.conf file looks like this:

    # 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/hda1
    default=1
    timeout=5
    splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
    hiddenmenu
    title Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4)
            root (hd0,0)
            kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
            initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img

    Again, this all looks quite standard, but the system does not boot up
    and stops at the "GRUB Loading stage2Read Error".

    So reading this group and looking for anything related to grub errors
    on the net, I've tried a number of things, still with no success:

    1) I'm booting off the FC4 rescue CD, mounting the hda partitions and
    chroot'ing /mnt/sysimage to get my hda partitions online.

    2) In grub (GNU GRUB 0.95), I've done the following:

    sh-3.00# grub
    grub> find /grub/stage2
    find /grub/stage2
     (hd0,0)
    grub> root (hd0,0)
    root (hd0,0)
     Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
    grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root=/dev/hda2
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root=/dev/hda2
       [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1e00, size=0x1da85c1
    grub> initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img
    initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img

    Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory
    grub> boot
    boot
    sh-3.00#

    which bounces me back to the shell prompt without a reboot. I've seen
    some info on the web dating back to RedHat 8.0 in 2002 that suggested
    there was a hardware incompatibility that was causing this. Could this
    still be the case?

    The sizes for the kernel and initrd files are 1,951,836 and 1,303,392,
    respectively, so it is not clear that this error message is accurate
    with 1Gb of RAM. I saw a note about limited RAM-disk space on one
    posting, but I don't believe I am using one nor did I understand the
    issue, but it is possible that the rescue CD is setting up a RAM-disk
    and that is memory limited?

    3) I've also tried grub-install:

    sh-3.00# grub-install --recheck /dev/hda
    Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
    Installation finished. No error reported.
    This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map;.
    check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
    fix it and re-run the script 'grub-install'.

    (fd0) /dev/fd0
    (hd0) /dev/hda
    (hd1) /dev/hdb

    sh-3.00# vi /boot/grub/device.map
    [deleted fd0 and hdb lines, saved]

    sh-3.00# grub-install /dev/hda
    Installation finished. No error reported.
    This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map;.
    check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
    fix it and re-run the script 'grub-install'.

    (hd0) /dev/hda
    sh-3.00#

    4) Finally, I've set the BIOS to boot off the hda drive first. I've
    checked and DMA is enabled. I haven't tried booting from a "grub boot
    floppy" but I think the Fedora rescue CD is allowing me to do something
    similar.

    After all of the above, I remove the rescue CD and reboot, and the
    machine stops at "GRUB Loading stage2Read Error".

    Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    --alan

  • Next message: mst: "Re: GRUB Loading Stage2Read Error"

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