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9342
January 18th, 2004 02:00
Grub does not work on Dell dual boot machine.
This is quite mysterious, so I hope someone can
help me out.
First, some history. I have a Dell 4550 that
runs XP. It has two hard drives. Also, Dell
machines have two partitions on the primary
drive. The first partition is onlY 39 megs,
that does not have a drive letter, and contains
Dell diagnostic tools.
Previously, I had made this a dual boot machine
using Suse and lilo. To "deinstall" Suse, with
my windows boot disk, I ran:
fdisk /mbr
And only Windows booted, as planned.
------------------
I've sinced installed Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1.
Linux is installed in logical partitions on the
second hard drive. It was supposed to use grub
for the dual booting.
I used the same install config that I had used on
another Dell. That grub config worked as planned.
The problem is, grub does not show when booting.
No choices at all. And only Windows boots.
Reinstalling did not help.
I can boot to linux with a boot floppy.
------------------
I've since tried to use grub-install.
/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda
it gave:
grub>
root (hd1,4)
File system type unknown, partition type 0x6
setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 --prefix=/grub (hd0)
Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
quit
Does anyone have any idea how to overcome these errors?
--------------------
Try grub with individual commands:
grub
find /boot/grub/stage1
Error 15: file not found
root (hd1,4)
File system type unknown, partition type 0x6
setup (hd0)
Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
----------------
Pretty strange. The file system on the first
drive, first partition is of type FAT.
----------------
According to grub, the partitions are:
grub> root (hd0,
Possible partitions are:
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xde
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
grub> root (hd1,
Possible partitions are:
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0xc
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x6
Partition num: 5, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x6
Partition num: 6, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 7, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 8, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 9, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 10, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 11, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 12, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 13, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
----------------
fdisk /dev/hd0 shows:
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 7294 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/hda2 * 6 7294 58548892+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
----------------
df -k shows:
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdb6 5162796 211256 4689284 5% /
/dev/hdb5 101089 25432 70438 27% /boot
/dev/hdb8 5162796 32836 4867704 1% /home
/dev/hdb9 10325748 164200 9637028 2% /opt
/dev/hdb13 5162796 32828 4867712 1% /oracle
/dev/hdb14 10325748 32828 9768400 1% /oradata
none 385024 0 385024 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdb12 5162796 35900 4864640 1% /tmp
/dev/hdb10 5162796 2624320 2276220 54% /usr
/dev/hdb11 5162796 117140 4783400 3% /var
----------------
My grub file follows. Although I think the problem is
more fundamental.
# 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 (hd1,4)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb6
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=3
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux Advanced Server (2.4.9-e.3enterprise)
root (hd1,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.9-e.3enterprise ro root=/dev/hdb6 hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.9-e.3enterprise.img
title Red Hat Linux Advanced Server-smp (2.4.9-e.3smp)
root (hd1,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.9-e.3smp ro root=/dev/hdb6 hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.9-e.3smp.img
title Red Hat Linux Advanced Server-up (2.4.9-e.3)
root (hd1,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.9-e.3 ro root=/dev/hdb6 hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.9-e.3.img
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
--------------
macks2
5 Posts
0
January 18th, 2004 23:00
GRUB is evidently not installed in the MBR if NTLDR is still booting Windows.
GRUB can't read that file system. Did you wipe your second hard disk before installing Linux? What does fdisk /dev/hd1 show?
ghamm
1 Message
0
January 19th, 2004 02:00
My problem turned out to be fixed with a simple change in the bios. My dell (as probably most others) ship from the factory with a setting for IDE drive #2 set to NONE. Changing this from NONE to AUTO will allow the bios to recognize and 'boot' the second drive allowing GRUB or LILO to recognize it.
(Once you get to the linux kernel or windows those operating systems are capable of recognizing the drive regardless of bios settings. That's why they work with the bios setting to NONE but GRUB/LILO does not)
darrell22
8 Posts
0
January 25th, 2004 01:00
Well, after MUCH struggle, and MANY hours, I have finally discovered the secret, and got grub to work.
When I first installed Suse, I used lilo, and it worked fine. So, today I thought that I would try
installing Suse once again. Only this time, I used grub. Suse installed fine, and gave me a nice dual boot.
But before installing Suse, I did notice with fdisk that the /boot and / partitions were FAT16!
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 1959 15735636 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb2 * 1960 14593 101482605 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5 1960 1972 104391 6 FAT16
/dev/hdb6 1973 2625 5245191 6 FAT16
Why? This made no sense. When I installed, I instructed Redhat to format the partitions as ext3.
But they always showed up again as an unknown file type.
Call me demanding, but I do expect that when I give the format command, and when it does proceed to format, that the partitions would in fact get formatted as ext3. But it must be too much to ask of the Redhat installer. I guess it's just there for a warm fuzzy feeling inside, so you can watch the taskbars slowly move across the screen as you waste your time.
Originally, I had created the partitions with Windows Diskpart. It was very easy to use, and I knew that I
wouldn't be destroying my Windows partitions with it. During the Redhat install, I would then assign the
filesystem (/boot, etc.) Why the first two stayed as FAT16, but not the others, is beyond me.
After Suse's installation worked, I then tried installing Redhat. This time I noticed that the partitions were
actually linux partitions. The installation worked, grub got installed, and it worked. Ta Da!
So, I would say that there is a problem with the Redhad Advanced server installer. It doesn't format
the partitions the way it says it does. Suse's installer worked fine, but Redhat's did not. Go figure.
I must say, that Suse's Yast2 install is so much better than Redhat's. It formatted the partitions
right. It had a nice GUI for configuring the partitions too. It gave a really good tool for configuring
the boot loader, even allowing me to see the grub.conf file before proceeding. And it had all three grub
commands required for grub to boot Windows on Dell. It took me a day to figure how to boot Windows with
Redhat grub, which only inserted two lines in grub.conf.
Suse probed my machine and found so much more that Redhat did. It configured the sound, ethernet, DHCP,
printer, and the video card automatically. I could even test the graphic configuration before proceeding.
When I rebooted, X windows came up cleanly.
With Redhat, it took another number of days to figure out that the video, and ethernet were not even installed,
and more hours to fix it.
Too bad that Suse can't set some other fundamental things: the modem, memory and shmmax. It might make
a good server.
I started this fiasco on Jan. 16th, and it is now Jan. 24th. About 40 hours or more of my time wasted.
Thanks for nothing Redhat.
darrell22
8 Posts
0
January 25th, 2004 01:00
Well, after MUCH struggle, and MANY hours, I have finally discovered the secret, and got grub to work.
When I first installed Suse, I used lilo, and it orked fine. So, today I thought that I would try
installing Suse once again. Only this time, I used grub. Suse installed fine, and gave me a nice dual boot.
But before installing Suse, I did notice with fdisk
that the /boot and / partitions were FAT16!
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 1959 15735636 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb2 * 1960 14593 101482605 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb5 1960 1972 104391 6 FAT16
/dev/hdb6 1973 2625 5245191 6 FAT16
Why? This made no sense. When I installed, I instructed Redhat to format the partitions as ext3.
But they always showed up again as an unknown file type.
Call me demanding, but I do expect that when I give the format command, and when it does proceed to format, that the partitions would in fact get formatted as ext3. But it must be too much to ask of the Redhat installer. I guess it's just there for a warm fuzzy feeling inside, so you can watch the taskbars slowly move across the screen as you waste your time.
Originally, I had created the partitions with Windows Diskpart. It was very easy to use, and I knew that I
wouldn't be destroying my Windows partitions with it. During the Redhat install, I would then assign the
filesystem (/boot, etc.) Why the first two stayed as FAT16, but not the others, is beyond me.
After Suse's installation worked, I then tried installing Redhat. This time I noticed that the partitions were
actually linux partitions. The installation worked, grub got installed, and it worked. Ta Da!
So, I would say that there is a problem with the Redhad Advanced server installer. It doesn't format
the partitions the way it says it does. Suse's installer worked fine, but Redhat's did not. Go figure.
I must say, that Suse's Yast2 install is so much better than Redhat's. It formatted the partitions
right. It had a nice GUI for configuring the partitions too. It gave a really good tool for configuring
the boot loader, even allowing me to see the grub.conf file before proceeding. And it had all three grub
commands required for grub to boot Windows on Dell. It took me a day to figure how to boot Windows with
Redhat grub, which only inserted two lines in grub.conf.
Suse probed my machine and found so much more that Redhat did. It configured the sound, ethernet, DHCP,
printer, and the video card automatically. I could even test the graphic configuration before proceeding.
When I rebooted, X windows came up cleanly.
With Redhat, it took another number of days to figure out that the video, and ethernet were not even installed,
and more hours to fix it.
Too bad that Suse can't set some other fundamental things: the modem, memory and shmmax. It might make
a good server.
I started this fiasco on Jan. 16th, and it is now Jan. 24th. About 40 hours or more of my time wasted.
Thanks for nothing Redhat!