grey screen on boot from grub

Message

brainyguy · Post by **brainyguy** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:31 am

I just installed gentoo, and followed the handbook step by step (stage1), and everything went well. When I boot from grub, the screen just goes grey and nothing happens. Nothing will load.

My grub.conf is the same as the handbook, except with my partitions substituted in. I can't find anything wrong with the installation.

Any suggestions?

deadaim · Post by **deadaim** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:32 am

How did you partition your drive? If you can, please post your grub.conf.

brainyguy · Post by **brainyguy** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:48 am

here's my grub.conf

Code: Select all

default 0
timeout 20
splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.5
root (hd0,4)
kernel /kernel-2.6.5 root=/dev/hda7

title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

My hard drive is set up as follows

C: - windows
extended partition
/dev/hda5 - /boot
/dev/hda6 - swap
/dev/hda7 - /

the last three are logical partitions, with my windows partition being primary. The numbers are messed up a bit, but there are no other partitions on the hd other than windows, the extended partition, and the three linux partitions.

Anything anyone can notice that is wrong?

deadaim · Post by **deadaim** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 4:32 am

This is off the top of my head, but when you were installing gentoo, did you remember to do the following:

Code: Select all

mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/gentoo/boot

rockyNBA · Post by **rockyNBA** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:23 am

It seems that the kenerl cannot locate while booting.
What is your boot partition? If you use the same partition as root partition, you should add parent directory /boot to your kernel path.

brainyguy · Post by **brainyguy** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 4:18 pm

I mounted my boot partition when installing, you cant install grub if you don't

my boot partition is /dev/hda5, so should i change root to equal root=/dev/hda5 ? instead of root=/dev/hda7?

Its just that in the installation guide they had /boot on /dev/hda1 and / on /dev/hda3, and they had root=/dev/hda3 so i put /dev/hda7

I'll try adding /dev/hda5 to the parent directory.

linux_weenie · Post by **linux_weenie** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:47 pm

i'm not sure but i think this might be a problem with the Windows BootLoader battling with grub. When I dual booted my system I had to use a chainloader to get the Windows and gentoo to cooperate. just look at GRUBs website to see how to use the chainloader command, hopefully that will help.

-Will

linux_weenie · Post by **linux_weenie** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:48 pm

oh yeah and install GRUB to the MBR

-Will

monkey89 · Post by **monkey89** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:33 pm

Perhaps try editing grub.conf (in a chroot from the livecd) and comment out/remove the splashimage line. That usually fixes problems like this.

-Monkey

brainyguy · Post by **brainyguy** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 3:45 am

tried commenting the splashimage line in grub.conf

no success tho

Any more ideas?