Re: GRand Unified Boot misery and Fedora Core 4

From: ### Coralys.com ### (tiredofspam_at_abolish.now)
Date: 11/20/05 

Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 20:39:55 +0100

I finally got the bloody thing to work. All documents that I read failed to
mention that the device in the "root=" parameter was not meant to be the
/boot partition :-) I am still booting from a grubbed floppy -as I still
don't trust GRUB on my MBR- only it fails to see my configuration file
menu.lst in the /boot/grub directory of the floppy.

"Jan Gerrit Kootstra" <jan.gerrit@kootstra.org.uk> wrote in message
news:2c641$437f255e$50396f05$26855@news.chello.nl...
> ### Coralys.com ### wrote:
>> 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?
>
> Coralys,
>
>
> Where is your root= ... directive on the kernel line? the kernel need to
> know where your root filesystem can be found
>
> root (hd0,0)
> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-22.0.1.ELhugemem ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
> initrd /initrd-2.6.9-22.0.1.ELhugemem.img
>
> example comes from my grub.conf
>
> the rhgb and quiet directives are not neccesary
>
> ro is to avoid destruction of the root filesystem by the first e2fsck
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Jan Gerrit

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