GRUB Error 17 on start up???

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 1:59 am Post subject: GRUB Error 17 on start up???

I recently installed Gentoo from the stage 3 tarball onto my computer. I am dual booting Gentoo with Windows ME (which is probably the source or some of my problems ). The problem that I am having now is that every time I turn on my computer it comes up with the message

GRUB Loading stage1.5.

GRUB Loading Please Wait...
ERROR 17

The only way to get my computer to get past this is to put in the live cd and reboot from it. It only comes up with this error message after I shut down and not after I just reboot.

My computer is a Dell Dimension 8100 with a 1.5 Ghz pentium 4.

If anyone can help me out with this I would really appreciate it and you would save me a lot of headaches.

Anacific · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 5:20 am Post subject:

Error 17 means:

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 12:49 am Post subject:

My grub.conf file looks like this (which is how the Gentoo instructions told me to make it).

cyrillic · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:00 am Post subject:

Your kernel line should start with "kernel (hd0,2)..."

Unless the kernel is located on your Windows partition.

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:04 am Post subject:

Sweet A. Thanks

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:12 am Post subject:

Changing that kernel line in the grub.conf didn't change anything. It still comes up with the error 17. Where can you find out where your kernel is located?

cyrillic · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:23 am Post subject:

When you boot to the GRUB menu, press "c" to get a command prompt, then use GRUB's find command :

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:28 am Post subject:

This is what grub says when I typed in those three things.

cyrillic · Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2003 1:32 am Post subject:

So, it should work if you do this from the GRUB prompt :

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:58 am Post subject:

I'm not sure if that changed anything but that error 17 thing keeps coming up.

Jason

Dillinger · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2003 8:05 am Post subject:

It looks to me like hda3 is small enough to be the boot partition and hda4 is the root. If that's the case then it should look like this:

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 12:04 am Post subject:

Well I changed that in my grub.conf file and that error 17 still comes up.

I was wondering if it was because there are two bootable partitions in the primary partitions section (hda1 thru hda4) and maybe I should switch the linux boot partition to something like hda7? Does that make any sense?

Jason

cyrillic · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 1:55 am Post subject:

FYI, only the Windows bootloader cares about the "bootable" flag. GRUB and LILO can boot from any partition.

Which command is giving you the "error 17" ?
root (hd0,2)
or
kernel /bzImage
or
boot

or does the error only happen when you select Gentoo from the menu.

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 6:20 am Post subject:

I double checked and my Windows primary partition (/dev/hda1) is the only one that is checked bootable.

I'm not sure which command is giving me the error 17 because it doesn't even get to the grub boot menu. It does the Dell start screen and then says this:

cyrillic · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 10:45 pm Post subject:

At this point, I would try reinstalling GRUB.
Boot with the LiveCD, mount your / and /boot partitions, chroot, then :

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 12:06 am Post subject:

Alright I'll try that, but just to clear up one point. It only comes up with the error 17 when I turn the computer on. If I reboot then it works fine every time.

I have tried reinstalling GRUB but I'll try it again anyway. I'll let you know in a couple days.

Jason

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 12:27 am Post subject:

After I have booted from the LiveCD and mounted /, it won't let me mount /boot because it says

cyrillic · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 1:13 am Post subject:

You should mount the partitions and chroot the same way you did during the original install :

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 1:31 am Post subject:

Well I reinstalled GRUB and it still does the error 17 only when I shut the computer off and then turn it back on.

Jason

SnowDeath · n00b Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 64 Location: Florida, USA

Just out of curiosity, you don't happen to have an nforce/nforce2 chipset or a built-in display adapater, do you?

ea · n00b Joined: 18 Jul 2002 Posts: 6

Hi!

I've just installed windows XP along with my gentoo system. This however nuked my GRUB bootloader.

I tried to reinstall it with the LIVE CD just as suggested above but encountered the same error (error 17) with grub

I write:

grub> root (hd0,0)
>> responds something about partition being 0x83 but not recognizing it's
>> type
grub> setup (hd0)
>> Error 17 (cannot mount partition)

The only thing I can think of is that it's a Reiserfs and that this confuses grub, but thats just a longshot guess.

Please, if anyone have a suggestion (short of total reinstallation, which really isn't an option), let me know.

cyrillic · Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2003 4:28 pm Post subject:

GRUB and Reiserfs work just fine together (on all of my machines).
How are your partitions setup ? Post the output from "fdisk -l"

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2003 12:39 am Post subject:

Here is fdisk -l:

cyrillic · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2003 1:19 am Post subject:

smellycheeseboy :
Your partitions look fine. I suspect something strange is going on in the BIOS because your bootloader should respond the same way if you reboot or turn the computer on. You might be able to fix this by changing the boot order in the BIOS or even with a BIOS update (or just leave the computer on 24/7)

ea :
What does "fdisk -l" look like on your computer ?

smellycheeseboy · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2003 1:48 am Post subject:

I had the boot order going cdrom, floppy, hard drive. I changed it back to the original order of floppy, hard drive, and then cdrom but it still came up with the error 17. I looked up a BIOS update and they didn't have one for my computer. And last but not least I can't leave my computer all the time because I am in college so I move back and forth between there and home.

Thanks for your help and I hope that you have some more ideas.

Jason[/quote]