Grub

catbacker · n00b Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 11

Greetings,
Hardware:
PIII 733, 384MB PC133 SDRAM.
Adaptec SCSI host adapter, (2) 18GB SCSI hard drives.
IDE CDROM Drive.
No FLoppy

Windows 2000 Professional is installed on The first SCSI hard drive.

I followed the installation instructions, putting gentoo on sdb.
sdb1 is boot, sdb5 is root sdb6 is swap. Everything went fine.
Got to the grub setup stage, and set it up according to the directions.

first hitch: in grub are all hard drives hd? as sd didn't work. So,
grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub > quit

built the grub.conf as per instructions. Added the Windows entry as per
example in the installation instructions.

unchrooted, unmounted, rebooted. Zap!
All I see when booting (after post) is LI and the system hangs.

Went through the process again, this time
grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> setup(hd1)
grub> quit

unchrooted, unmounted, rebooted. Same story different verse.

How do I do this?

sisyphus · Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2002 3:13 pm Post subject:

Have you ever had another Linux on the machine? That looks like a stuffed Lilo install.

I'm at least pretty sure that Grub doesn't do LI when it's knackered - that's Lilo's trick.

Can't remember what LI signifies off the top of my head - I'll go check and repost.
_________________
wibble

bluesky · Apprentice Joined: 14 Aug 2002 Posts: 230 Location: USA

>All I see when booting (after post) is LI and the system hangs.

you probably had lilo before. So you should do "fdisk /mbr" first before you install grub. The difference between grub and lilo is that lilo will wipe the mbr then install itself in but grub doesnot.

_________________
bluesky

"free as the wind"

sisyphus · Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2002 3:21 pm Post subject:

Here ye goes:

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue55/tag/10.html

Basically, you need to bin your MBR as per the message before but Grub should be doing that anyhow.

In grub type:

catbacker · n00b Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 11

oops fogot to tell. Previously had Mandrake 8 on drive.
is fdisk available on gentoo ?

When I tab complete in grub it shows hd0 and hd1.
I thought hd0 was the first drive (where windows is installed) and
hd1 was the second scsi drive where mandrake previously was installed.

sisyphus · Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2002 4:07 pm Post subject:

Right.

If this goes wrong - don't blame me. Make sure you've got a back up

If you want to boot from the first disk

bluesky · Apprentice Joined: 14 Aug 2002 Posts: 230 Location: USA

>is fdisk available on gentoo ?

You need to use a win9x which has fdisk to do "fdisk /mbr". When you installed grub, grub does not wipe the mbr that 's why lilo is still there.

For some reason, run "fdisk /mbr" from a linux partition does not work. I tried it.

_________________
bluesky

"free as the wind"

catbacker · n00b Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 11

I tried the
grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> setup (hd0)

first. That didn't work, and I believe its because LILO is stuck sideways
in the MBR. I think I need to fdisk /mbr before doing the grub thing
again.

Can I use the win98 version of fdisk to fix the mbr (the drive has
win2000 pro on it) ?

1. fidisk /mbr
2. boot from livecd, etc. run grub
3. grub> root (hd1,0)
4. grub> setup (hd0)

I'll have to try it out.

bluesky · Apprentice Joined: 14 Aug 2002 Posts: 230 Location: USA

>Can I use the win98 version of fdisk to fix the mbr (the drive has
win2000 pro on it) ?

Yes, you can. I just did it a few days ago.
_________________
bluesky

"free as the wind"

catbacker · n00b Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 11

At lunch, I used win98 fdisk /mbr. It generated a message that the boot code was not updated.

I then used the livecd to get to my gentoo on sdb. started grub
then did : root (hd1,0)
setup (hd0)

my grub.conf looks like
default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd1,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=gentoo
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/sdb5

title=windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

When I reboot, the grub menu shows (yipee). If I choose gentoo,
I get the boot messages on the screen, the last few are:

kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, error=2
ds : no socket drivers loaded

VFS: Cannot open root device "sdb5" or 8:15

Please append correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic VFS unable to mount root fs on 08:15

If I reboot and choose windows, I get
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

and it just hangs.

What did I screw up on my Gentoo (I tackle windows after Gentoos
running) ?

thanks,

bluesky · Apprentice Joined: 14 Aug 2002 Posts: 230 Location: USA

1. my menu.lst for window 2000 have an extra line "makeactive" just before the chainloader line.

2. I am not sure about the grub's error. Did you compile the kernel with scsi supports?

You can try to hit "C" then play with grub command line.
_________________
bluesky

"free as the wind"

catbacker · n00b Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 11

I think I did. How can I check ?

I all the makeactive line and see what that does.

hielvc · Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2002 10:19 pm Post subject:

There was another "grub" post awhile back, a week or two I think, after trying the normal things that youre trying and normlly work he had to map the drives. If you continue to have probs you might try "info grub" .... err try posting :oops:

if youre at stage 1.

hielvc

Delphiki · Guru Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 337 Location: A2

For the kernel panic you should double check that the file system of your root drive is compiled into the kernel and not as a module. I had a similar error before when I only had ReiserFS support in as a module and this fixed it.
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Excellent..

s0be · Apprentice Joined: 23 Nov 2002 Posts: 240

ok, I've made it pretty far(ok, everything is built and happy) just I can't get grub to work. I've verified that I have grub configured properly. It's installed in the first scsi hard drive with an IDE drive present, thus making it (hd1). I did:

root (hd1,0) //which is the boot partition

then:

setup(hd1)

and everything seemed happy

Rebooted, it tried to boot and it came up and said GRUB then halted. It didn't freeze the system, because num/caps/scrolllock still work and I can Control-Alt-Delete to reboot. I'm trying to figure if I have any other options.

s0be

bluesky · Apprentice Joined: 14 Aug 2002 Posts: 230 Location: USA

> and everything seemed happy

why did you say that.

I think it should be: setup (hd0). :wink:

_________________
bluesky

"free as the wind"

s0be · Apprentice Joined: 23 Nov 2002 Posts: 240

It would be (hd0) if (hd0) where the boot device. (hd0) is not the boto device, (hd1) is.

I say happy because it installed successfully, like it has whenever I've installed GRUB under other distributions. The problem is that in other situations, the grub setup was more atuomated.

s0be

sisyphus · Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2002 8:19 pm Post subject:

hehe.

But ain't it fun doing it by hand. That's one of the great things about Gentoo. You have to get your brain a bit dirty to get it going the way you want it.

It's fair to say that I've learned a shed load over the last couple of months mucking about with Gentoo. As an added benefit, it's been fun and mu laptop is fast as hell now. It's had Redhat 7.3, Slackware 8 and now Gentoo on it. I know which one I'm sticking with.
_________________
wibble

s0be · Apprentice Joined: 23 Nov 2002 Posts: 240

you want by hand? the last disto I did was LFS

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

s0be

sisyphus · Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2002 10:47 pm Post subject:

I keep thinking about giving it a pop but I really haven't the time at the mo. It'd be a really useful experience though - I'll have to buy another box to play on :wink:

.

Gentoo is a really nice compromise between LFS and the trad. distros.

Best of both worlds - Ground up build and optimisation but with a really powerful package manager to go with it.
_________________
wibble