GRUB will not load. Toshiba Satellite M30 - Centrino M

frozenJim · Last edited by frozenJim on Sun Feb 05, 2006 7:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

Fresh install from 2005.1-r1 Universal CD on a Toshiba Satellite M30. Dual-Booting with XP.

I have installed Gentoo many times but still, a new problem is a big problem :-)

After completing the final installation of GRUB, I rebooted. Grub doesn't actually load, I just see the word GRUB in the top corner of my screen.

I have read (literally) hundreds of posts on GRUB problems and spent 12 hours rebooting and chrooting. I have tried at least a couple of dozen fixes that I found. But still, no matter what I do, I get the word GRUB in the top left corner of my screen.

Most recently, I have deleted my /dev/hda1 (reiserfs) partition, recreated it using ext2, marked it as active, created the filesystem using mke2fs /dev/hda1, chrooted into my system, re-emerged GRUB, and rebuilt my grub.conf. Rebooting gets me the same result: the word GRUB in the top corner of the screen.

I have tried using the grub-install --force-lba. I have tried using grub-install --recheck.

I have removed grub.conf entirely - just to get an error from grub. But guess what? I just get the word GRUB in the top left corner of my screen.

At this point, I would be happy with AN ERROR even! But nope, I have never seen any errors, just the word GRUB in the top left corner of my screen - no matter what I do.

Please help. My boss (my wife) is getting angry that I'm "playing" when I should be working.

My fdisk /dev/hda:

jpl888 · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 11:37 pm Post subject:

I used to have a similar kind of problem with LILO on older versions of Linux.

Basically if you did a standard partition copy using Norton Ghost, the new copy wouldn't boot. You would just get a "LI" or "LILO" prompt at best and that was all.

If you then did a phorensic copy it would work perfectly, so to give you a vague idea it must be a MBR or partition problem.

You are dual booting, so what filesystems have you where?

jomen · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 11:39 pm Post subject:

Would you care to read the 101-st hint?
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/grub-error-guide.xml#doc_chap11
And also - maybe I just dont get it right - but your /etc/fstab looks as if it is missing /
(/bin /etc /lib /sbin /tmp)
-edit-
in your grub.conf it reads: kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hdb9 vga=791
is'nt /dev/hdb9 really supposed to be /dev/hda9 ? - you just posted fdisk from /dev/hda
neighter one does show up in fstab...

frozenJim · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:06 pm Post subject:

Yeah, sorry. I had to type the values into the message while looking at my other computer (after 12 hours of typing and retyping these values over and over). They are typos. By the end of the day I couldn't even type my own name correctly. :oops:

But listen, even if I delete grub.conf - or fill the file with garbage - it makes no difference. The process never makes it that far. fstab is never read and the kernel is never looked at. I should be getting an error message for all of the things that we have mentioned here, but only if GRUB were loaded.

It appears that GRUB isn't even loading.

I turn on the computer and less than an second after the bios loads I get the word GRUB in the top left corner of the screen.

I deleted the /dev/hda1 partition entirely and rebooted. I STILL get the word GRUB in the top left corner of the screen immediately after the bios loads.

Perhaps I am missing something about how the MBR works - because once I delete the partition entirely how does the word GRUB even exist? WHERE is the word GRUB coming from if the partition is deleted?

Say, where IS the MBR? Maybe it isn't on (hd0,0) precisely... is there some "magic" area that I can rebuild? (Still, having run grub-install many times with no error message must mean that GRUB can find the MBR?)
_________________
Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.

jomen · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:30 pm Post subject:

(hd0,0) is /dev/hda1 - the MBR is on the "beginning" of the whole disk - it gets loaded (if this disc is set in BIOS to boot from) as the very first thing...this is where grub is installed and that is why you still see it even after you delete _all_ your partitions.
If you want to overwrite the MBR of /dev/hda - use this:
but this is not necessary - when you install grub - it writes to the same location

frozenJim · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:51 pm Post subject:

Well, I deleted the MBR using jomen's idea:

jomen · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:16 pm Post subject:

...too bad - my edit came too late obviously - and I said it was not necessary...
Have you written down your partitioning data - they are _NOT_ gone - just the info about their locations on HD are gone with the wipeout of the MBR
If you just recreate the partitions with fdisk as and where they were - all will be as it was before - all your data is still there!
There are tools to do this job too - parted/qtparted is one of them - you would need a LiveCD like knoppix with this program on it

frozenJim · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:31 pm Post subject:

I'm kind of glad that I wiped the partition table. It occured to me that I could recover it but I decided to start fresh anyhow. I don't know what "magic" the Toshiba installation CD worked when it installed XP. And I don't actually WANT XP on my machine anyhow.

So, it's a fresh start! (currently I have chrooted and am finalizing the setup, I shall reboot - while crossing my fingers - and see if it boots.)

_________________
Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.

jomen · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:43 pm Post subject:

OK. - and good luck then! ( luck does not have anything to do with it though :wink:

)
About the "magic" of your install-CD - if in fdisk you see no partitions not created by you - there are none - WYSIWYG
But if you don't need windows anyway - you get to use some more space.

frozenJim · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject:

OK, reinstalled EVERYTHING after deleting my MBR and partitions.

I did NOT install Windows. Only Gentoo.

Rebooted....

It just says GRUB in the top left corner!!!!!!

I can't even think of anything else to try. I have never found a PC that I couldn't get Gentoo running on... but I've never had one that GRUB wouldn't load on either. '

'

----------
[edit]

I read somewhere that perhaps the Toshiba Satellite M30 (some of them) cannot boot from the beginning of the drive because of a failure to load grub stage-two(?). Well I don't know what THAT means, but here's what I tried:

Booted LiveCD
Created /dev/hda9 (ext2,bootable)
Removed bootable flag from /dev/hda1
mounted /dev/hda1 on /old_boot
mounted /dev/hda9 on /new_boot
cp -R /old_boot/* /new_boot
mounted /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo
nano /mnt/gentoo/etc/fstab (updated to show /dev/hda9 for /boot)
nano /new_boot/grub/grub.conf (updated to show (hd0,

for both root and splashimage) <--smiley is an 8
removed all three mounted drives and rebooted.

No change. Big "GRUB" in the top left corner of my screen.
_________________
Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.

jomen · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 7:58 pm Post subject:

I'm confused:

frozenJim · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:08 pm Post subject:

Sorry, another typo.

In short, all I did was delete /dev/hda1 and replace it with the new /dev/hda9.

I do have a bootable Knoppix DVD. Are you suggesting that I use this rather than chrooting from my LiveCD?

How do I boot my kernel from the grub command line?
_________________
Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.

jomen · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:21 pm Post subject:

frozenJim · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:33 pm Post subject:

Sure.

Since my Gentoo LiveCD was already booted, I just typed "grub" at the prompt.

then

jomen · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:54 pm Post subject:

...but you literally wiped your disk - then you reinstalled - the "GRUB" you are seeing is from this new installation
why would you have to delete hda1 and replace it...after this
and - no - it is not possible to do this - apply the suggestions I gave to your already running system.
This has to be done from "outside" (Knoppix...) - since you believe that your grub is not working.
The point is to use the TAB to see what grub is seeing when trying to boot your machine and avoid any errors you might have in the config-file
I really don't have any picture of what is going on - and that is why I (for instance) cant explain what to give at the prompt.
I'm poking around here - the things I asked for would enable me to be specific.
and while you are at it - the output of "mount" would help too

chunderbunny · Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 1:08 am Post subject:

Just for information, when you get the grub command prompt it means that grub has loaded, but it can't find a config file. You can normally boot by issuing

jomen · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 12:49 pm Post subject:

There is very probably no bug at all.
chunderbunny has a good point here - and I was just trying to make sure the same thing by asking for the output of some commands (was not sure whether your /boot actually ended up being at /dev/hda1)

Cheers

frozenJim · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 6:58 pm Post subject:

jomen · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 7:27 pm Post subject:

No grub. No command line. But the word GRUB.
I (and I believe chunderbunny also) got that!
That is why I was asking about "mount" and all the others...
and he was pointing out the two most common causes of this happening - this may sound as if he missed the point, but that does not matter as the possible solutions appear worthy to be checked.
One last suggestion - you really should use the Knoppix-CD because with it it might easily be possible to even use the internet whithout much effort - as well as to have a nice graphical environment to cut+paste in, have multiple terminals open - all in all more convenient to do some troubleshooting - it will work just as well and the same way as your Gentoo LiveCD

frozenJim · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:05 pm Post subject:

Yeah, good idea.

I'm doing a third fresh install, just in case I made the same mystery mistake twice. Once I'm installed, I'll boot with my Knoppix DVD and do some more precise copying and pasting.

But does anything really matter besided /dev/hda1 being the /boot drive? All the rest doesn't come into play until AFTER grub is loaded. So if I installed grub succesfully onto /dev/hda1 and this drive is the only drive marked with a * in fstab, then grub should load. Period. I would welcome an error.

Even if I forget to put my kernel on the boot drive - or if my grub.conf or fstab were incorrect - i would get the grub prompt and an error message from grub IF grub were loaded. Wouldn't you think?

After emerging grub, I have tried grub-install (no errors) as well as manually installation using grub (no errors). Neither method makes any difference. Nothing I have done has ever lead me to more than the big GRUB (which is not the grub prompt) which is why I believe that the problem is in the way a Satellite M30 handles it's boot loading - or something equally frustrating.

Troubleshooting anything past /dev/hda1 seems kind of like checking the air pressure in your tires when the car won't start.

But I won't bet my life on any of that. :-)

_________________
Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.

jomen · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 9:39 pm Post subject:

frozenJim · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 10:17 pm Post subject:

Here is a peek at my (unfinished) HOWTO for installing onto an M30 (a specific M30 with Centrino M and NVidia). While it is unfinished, it is the guide that I am following as I install. As I find errors in my installation, I update my guide until the final version is ready for gentoo-wiki and forums.gentoo.org.

When I can do an install 100% from this guide, I will publish it. For now though, it will give you an exact look at what I am doing. If there is an error, it is right here.

Can YOU see why grub won't load?

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Installing Gentoo Linux (Universal) on a Toshiba Satellite M30 (Model# PSM33C-YSJ00E)

1. Introduction
The Toshiba Satellite M30 uses some special components. Most importantly, it uses the 82801DB Pro/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller. There is no driver available for this network adapter on the liveCD so using the Universal CD is the easiest solution.

This document is based on my installation which is, in turn, based on the very detailed GENTOO HANDBOOK {TODO: link to handbook}.

{TODO: lspci output}
{TODO; lsmod output}
2. Boot from LiveCD
I'm not going to explain how to find and burn a LiveCD. You already know how. But remember, if you want more in-depth information, just look up the GENTOO HANDBOOK {TODO: link to handbook}.

3. Preparing the disks

3.1. Create Partitions

* fdisk /dev/hda

= /dev/hda1 /boot +32M 83-Linux (primary,bootable)
= /dev/hda2 swap +500M 82-Linux Swap / Solaris (primary)
= /dev/hda3 / +7000M 83-Linux (primary)
= /dev/hda4 <extended partition>
= /dev/hda5 /opt +7000M 83-Linux
= /dev/hda6 /usr +10000M 83-Linux
= /dev/hda7 /var +3000M 83-Linux
= /dev/hda8 /home +20000M 83-Linux

3.2. Creat Filesystems

* mke2fs /dev/hda1 /boot
* mkswap /dev/hda2 <swap>
* swapon /dev/hda2 <swap>
* mkreiserfs /dev/hda3 /
* <extended partition>
* mkreiserfs /dev/hda5 /opt
* mkreiserfs /dev/hda6 /usr
* mkreiserfs /dev/hda7 /var
* mkreiserfs /dev/hda8 /home

3.3. Mount Drives

* mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo

* mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
* mkdir /mnt/gentoo/opt
* mkdir /mnt/gentoo/usr
* mkdir /mnt/gentoo/var
* mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home

* mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
* mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/gentoo/opt
* mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/gentoo/usr
* mount /dev/hda7 /mnt/gentoo/var
* mount /dev/hda8 /mnt/gentoo/home

Just to be sure, have a peek in your mtab file and make sure you didn't make any spelling mistakes.

* cat /etc/mtab

4. Installing the Gentoo Installation Files

4.1. Stage3 Tarball

4.1.1. Check Date
Use the date command to check the date. If it's wrong, set it right.

* date

4.1.2. Extract Stage3 Tarball
The stage3 tarball is located in /mnt/cdrom/stages. For us, there is only one to choose from. Later versions may have slightly different names, but there should still probably be only one.

* cd /mnt/gentoo
* tar xvjpf /mnt/cdrom/stages/stage3-x86-2005.1-r1.tar.bz2

4.1.3. Extract Portage

Snapshots are in /mnt/cdrom/snapshots. Again, on the 2005.1-r1 Universal CD there is only one snapshot. In any case, have a peek and make sure that you are using the latest snapshot.

* tar xvjf /mnt/cdrom/snapshots/portage-20050709.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/usr

4.1.4. Copy Source Code Archives
Now copy all source code from the Universal Installation CD

* mkdir /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles
* cp /mnt/cdrom/distfiles/* /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles

4.2. Configure Compile Options
You can do what you like, but these flags work.

* nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf

= CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
= CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

5. Chroot

* mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
* mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev
* chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
* env-update
* source /etc/profile

6. Configuration

6.1. Update Portage Cache

* emerge --metadata

6.2. Configuring the USE variable
Because our Satellite isn't fully functional yet, and because I don't know if you want to use KDE or Gnome etc. We won't go into a fancy USE setting. In fact, the USE= should be used sparingly - just for the things that are universal to ALL compiles.

If you want to specify USE flags, do it in /etc/portage/package.use on a package by package basis.

Having said that, there are a few "universal" variables that we can set.

* nano -w /etc/make.conf

= USE="alsa dbus hal ivman kde kdeenablefinal mmx"

I use KDE, so I also include "kde" and "kdeenablefinal". You may omit these two if you will not be using KDE.

6.3. Timezone
Find your timezone in /usr/share/zoneinfo and copy it into your /etc directory:

* cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime

6.4. Emerge Sources
Emerge the gentoo-sources and then check to make sure that your "/usr/src/linux" symlink was created:

* USE="-doc symlink" emerge gentoo-sources
* ls -l /usr/src/linux

6.5. Configure Kernel
Here are the settings to pay attention to. I'm not telling you to REMOVE any of the default settings - just make sure that these are turned on.

You will notice that I haven't done a complete kernel config: things like the soundcard and such will come later. For now, we just want a bootable kernel - in particular we need the network driver installed.
{TODO: emerge pciutils}
* cd /usr/src/linux
* make menuconfig

Processor type and features --->
Subarchitecture Type (PC-compatible) --->
Pentium-4/Celeron(P4-based)/Pentium-4 M/Xeon)
<*> Toshiba Laptop support
note: no laptopsupport
Bus options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA, MCA, ISA) --->
PCCARD (PCMCIA/CardBus) support --->
<*> PCCard (PCMCIA/CardBus) support
<M> 16-bit PCMCIA support
[*] 32-bit CardBus support
--- PC-card bridges {TODO: which bridge? use lspci}
<M> CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support (NEW)
<*> Cirrus PD6729 compatible bridge support (NEW)
<*> i82092 compatible bridge support (NEW)
<*> i82365 compatible bridge support (NEW)
<*> Databook TCIC host bridge support (NEW)
note: no pcmcia support
Device Drivers
Networking support --->
Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
[*] Eisa, VLB, PCI and on board controllers
<*> EtherExpressPro/100 support (eepro100, original Becker driver)

<*> PPP (Point-to-point protocol) support
<*> PPP support for async serial ports
<*> PPP support for sync tty ports

ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support --->
[*] Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
[*] Use PCI DMA by default when available

File systems --->
<*> Ext2 extended attributes

<*> Reiserfs support (you may need other file systems ie. if you used ext2)

DOS/FAT/NT Filesystems --->
<*> MSDOS fs support
<*> VFAT (Windows-95) fs support
<*> NTFS file system support

Pseudo filesystems
[*] /proc file system support
[*] Virtual memory file system support (former shm fs)

Network File Systems --->
<*> SMB file system support (to mount Windows shares etc.)
<*> CIFS support (advanced network filesystem for Samba, Windows ...)

Save your changes and then compile your kernel.

* make && make modules_install
* cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage

6.6. Setup fstab

* nano -w /etc/fstab

/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda3 / reiserfs noatime,notail 0 1
#dev/hda4 <extended partition>
/dev/hda5 /opt reiserfs noatime,notail 0 0
/dev/hda5 /usr reiserfs noatime,notail 0 0
/dev/hda5 /var reiserfs noatime,notail 0 0
/dev/hda5 /home reiserfs noatime,notail 0 0

6.7. Network Information
A notebook is usually meant to be portable so DHCP is the only way to go. So I won't worry about setting up anything but the default DHCP.

* #nano -w /etc/conf.d/hostname

= HOSTNAME="spore"

* nano -w /etc/conf.d/domainname

= DNSDOMAIN="flower"

* rc-update add domainname default

* rc-update add net.eth0 default

7. System Information

7.0.1. Root Password

* passwd

8. Install System Tools

8.1. Optional Tools
You don't have to install any of these tools. I want to so I'll walk through the steps to install a system logger (syslog-ng), a cron daemon (vixie-cron) and a file indexer (slocate):

* emerge syslog-ng
* rc-update add syslog-ng default

* emerge vixie-cron
* rc-update add vixie-cron default

* emerge slocate

8.2. File System Tools
We need to install the right file-system tools to go with our chosen file system. In this setup I have chosen to use reiserfs exclusively. You should make sure to emerge the right tools for whatever file system(s) you are using (xfsprogs for XFS, reiserfsprogs for ReiserFS, jfsutils for JFS)
# emerge reiserfsprogs

Step 9.e. - Networking Tools
Install a DHCP Client
You do not NEED a DHCP Client if you are not using DHCP. But know what? It's a laptop - one day you'll need DHCP. In fact I strongly recommend that you use ONLY DHCP on your laptop for just this reason.
# emerge dhcpcd

OPtional: Installing a PPoE Client
I don't know much about this - I always run through a router so ppoe has never been an issue. But If you need ppoe then emerge it:
# USE="-X" emerge rp-pppoe
note: later, when X has been installed, you should re-emerge rp-pppoe in order to get the graphical user interface.

Step 10. Configuring the Bootloader

We're going to use GRUB. And we are NOT going to use framebuffer because it messes up our (soon to be installed) NVIDIA drivers.

# emerge grub
# nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf

Here is what goes into your grub.conf. It gives you 10 seconds to decide which O/S to boot and after that it defaults to Gentoo:

default 0
timeout 10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title=Gentoo Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3

Setting up GRUB using grub-install
This is standard stuff so I'll just paste from the Gentoo Handbook:
-------------------
To install GRUB you will need to issue the grub-install command. However, grub-install won't work off-the-shelf since we are inside a chrooted environment. We need to create /etc/mtab which lists all mounted filesystems. Fortunately, there is an easy way to accomplish this - just copy over /proc/mounts to /etc/mtab, excluding the rootfs line if you haven't created a separate boot partition. The following command will work in both cases:
Code Listing 5: Creating /etc/mtab
# grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab

Now we can install GRUB using grub-install:
Code Listing 6: Running grub-install
# grub-install /dev/hda

------------------------

Step 10.d. - Rebooting the System

We have to exit the chrooted environment now and do all of the regular cleanup. Then we can cross our fingers and reboot.

# exit
# cd /
# umount /mnt/gentoo/boot
# umount /mnt/gentoo/opt
# umount /mnt/gentoo/var
# umount /mnt/gentoo/usr
# umount /mnt/gentoo/home
# umount /mnt/gentoo/proc
# umount /mnt/gentoo/dev
# umount /mnt/gentoo
# reboot
_________________
Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.