Grub Error Collection [Part 8] [POST GRUB QUESTIONS HERE!]

desultory · Bodhisattva Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 9410

Are you certain that /boot/kernel-2.6.22-gentoo-r8 and /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz exist and are regular files? The error indicates that a file which grub was attempting to use was not a regular file, being instead a directory, symbolic link, pipe or the like.

abra · n00b Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 9

Thanks for all the work that's been done, and members posting here. It really, really helps !
I have a PC that has 2 SAS drives and 2 SATA drives that boot off a LSI controller. It was a bear to get grub right, but it's finally is working, but strangely:
When the PC boots, the "Grub" screen doesn't really come up; something flashes by there really quick and then the screen's blank for a few seconds.
Then the system is starting, but the video is all blurry, like I can barely make out a few words and guess at some phrases.
After it hits dhcp, it magically clears up, or close to that. The video becomes perfectly clear.
I've had to recompile the kernel once after reading the reason that the VFS: Panic msgs are usually caused by. I have the Intel ICH chipset, and the LSI controller, and most of them (drivers) were set to be made as modules. I changed that, and now the PC boots up, but in that strange way mentioned.
BTW, the drive that the system is on is the second SAS drive, 18GB, SDB. Grub looks kinda like:

root (hd1,0)
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/sdb3

The system just has sdb1,2,3 for the boot, swap, root partitions.

Should anything related to the "livecd" or "/mnt/gentoo" be taken out of MTAB ?
Thanks !

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:50 pm Post subject:

abra,

You don't have the timeout statement in your grub.conf, or its set to 0.

hookooekoo · Apprentice Joined: 02 May 2004 Posts: 196

jasiu85 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Posts: 38

Hey there,

Here's another GRUB question:

I'm trying to install Gentoo on an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and Asus P5K motherboard. Unfortunately I don't have a CD drive. I wanted to create a bootable usb stick and i ran into following problems:

1) I first tried to port MinimalCD to the USB stick (can't use LiveCD because my pendrive is too small), but then kernel complains that it can't mount VFAT.
2) So I took the kernel from LiveCD, but again, it didn't mount VFAT. I could do that manually, but after that I can't resume the booting process.
3) I tried to use extlinux instead of syslinux to switch from VFAT to EXT2, but the bootloader seems to freeze.
4) I tried to create a bootable USB using GRUB.

And here we go: GRUB freezes and all it outputs to the screen are letters "GRUB". What is going on? My previous attempts show that _some_ bootloaders can boot _some_ kernels, but why not GRUB? And why there is no error reported by GRUB? I searched the Web, but noone described such behavior.

Regards,

Mike

brow27 · n00b Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 6

Ok, I just installed Gentoo on a slightly older Xeon (P4-based one I think) with SCSI hard drives. It's been a long time since I've used Gentoo, and I'm far from a Linux guru, but it did work the last time I installed it (with ide drives). The SCSI hard drive is sda, and I have it set as sda1 as boot, sda2 as swap, and sda3 as the root. When I boot, I get this:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject:

brow27,

It looks very much like your SCSI driver is missing from the kernel. After failing to mount /dev/sda3 as root, the kernel looked everywhere it could, including the network (NFS) and your floppy drive. unknown-block (2,0).

You do no need to start over. Follow these instructions to get back into the chroot as if you had never left it and rebuild and reinstall your kernel. If you don't know what options you need, run lspci from the liveCD and post any SCSI/SATA/IDE/Raid related lines, or the whole thing if its easier.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

brow27 · n00b Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 6

Thanks so much for the help. I had a suspicion it was SCSI driver related, though I tried to select everything I needed when doing kernel config the first time. The chroot guide was very helpful, I just did that and am now compiling with genkernel, because I'm feeling to lazy atm to figure the scsi stuff. Guess if I have further trouble, I'll post em in the appropriate place (being that grub wasn't really the problem).

meeneque · n00b Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 26

Hello everybody.

I'm getting this error while trying to boot Gentoo with this setup

bluepass · n00b Joined: 23 Nov 2006 Posts: 41 Location: /dev/null

If your /boot partition is actually on on hdc1, then you should use:

meeneque · n00b Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 26

Hi, it was so, so, so obvious

(as always)
The second drive was set into CHS mode instead of LBA, and it made grub confused.
Now it works beautifully (off course I've spent all the day trying to find the solution).

Phoenix76 · n00b Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Posts: 13

This is my first time trying to install Gentoo. I have read the documentation several times, but I still need to ask for some help. I really would appreciate any help anyone could give me. I used Gentoo on a friend's PC, and I loved it. I really want to have it on my PC. I think my post is in the right section of the forum but I apologize if it isn't.

I have an AMD Athlon 64 dual core, and I am using the 2007 installation CD. I already tried to install Gentoo with the automatic kernel installer (genkernel), and I got all the way to the part where I'm supposed to unmount everything, take the CD out, and reboot. When I rebooted though, I got an "Error 15." So I rebooted and checked my configuration again.

Here is what my partitions are:
Name Flags Part. Type FS Type Size(MB)
hda1 boot Primary ext3 25
hda2 Primary swap 512
hda3 Primary ReiserFS 160000

When I boot from the CD, I type:
#swapon /dev/hda2
# mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo
# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# env-update
# source /etc/profile
# export PS1="(chroot) $PS1"
(Is this the correct procedure?)

Next I type:
# cd /mnt/gentoo

Here is what is in my /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf contains:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:10 pm Post subject:

Phoenix76,

Welcome to Gentoo.

Error 15 means grub cannot find a file it needs. look at your ls /boot. It contains

Phoenix76 · n00b Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Posts: 13

Oh wow, I guess that would cause a problem, huh! Thanks so much for your help. I'll try to fix this tonight. Thanks much!

slaterson · Guru Joined: 26 Feb 2003 Posts: 313

i just installed amd64 from the minimal livecd and i can't boot into my new install.

grub auto-completion does NOT work during setup (with x86 it worked), thats the first oddity.

here is my config and what i have tried... i'm dual booting windows xp and linux. my root partition is /dev/sda8, boot is /dev/sda6, swap is /dev/sda7. i am using the windows boot manager first, where i select gentoo which in turn starts grub.

i setup grub manually by running grub in my chroot during installation. i used 'root (hd0,5)', 'setup (hd0,5)' and then copying the boot sector using 'dd if=/dev/sda6 of=gentoo.lnx bs=512 count=1'. i copy the gentoo.lnx file to my c: drive in windows and configure boot.ini, of course.

when i boot and select gentoo from the windows boot manager it just shows a blank screen. very odd, i just installed amd64 after removing x86 gentoo, which was working perfectly and setup the using the same method above. any clues?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:59 pm Post subject:

slaterson,

So, it boots the NTLDR, you select Gentoo, then you get a blank screen instead of the grub menu and splash screen.

Some things to check. As you have a separate /boot partition, you must have the recursive symbolic link in /boot the shows as

slaterson · Guru Joined: 26 Feb 2003 Posts: 313

thanks. i actually got it to boot, it was late last night and i was tired when i had the problem, when i re-setup grub it worked like a charm.

thanks a lot for the reply!

nenuphar87 · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1

please, help me ... or i''m sorry, if ere this question has been answer ...

i install windows xp, after Gentoo, but i install windows again on same place as first,
and it rewrite MBR WITH loader, fortunately i save copy grub.conf,
now boot windows, no grub, no linux

pls, how install or repair it, i'm beginner and speak very badly English, please simply

Thanks very much, nenuphar87

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 8:53 pm Post subject:

nenuphar87,

Both grub and NTLDR use space outside of the filesystems on your hard drive.
They both use the same space so only ome may be installed at a time.
As you say, installing Windows has removed grub from the MBR, however, you Gentoo install is fully intact, including your grub.conf. You just cannot get to it.

To recover, follow this guide when you are back inside the chroot, repeat the steps you used to install grub to the MBR. If you used the installer the first time, the manual steps are documented here
That page is available in languages other than English
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Spidey · Apprentice Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 269

I've already compiled GRUB and installed it in my machine.

The first time I did it, I forgot to mount my boot partition, mas it installed OK.

After installing Gentoo, I've managed to boot correctly (I've got a Error 15 message that was caused by the savedefault feature, don't know why but removing it did the trick) and now I'm using a full feature AMD64 Gentoo box.

The problem started when I remembered that I've got a boot partition, and I didn't mounted it. The first thing I did was mounting it and recompiling the kernel.
Everything went ok. Then I unmerged grub and emerged it again (now in the correct /boot, the mounted one).

Confused by the dillema of being able to mount a partition in a non-empty folder, I've umounted the /boot to check the root partition /boot. To my surprise, it was full with grub and old kernels.

Without any fears, I did a "rm -Rf /boot/*" and deleted everythin in there. I've mounted my boot partition again, in the same folder, just to check that the REAL files were there. And they are.

The question is. Now that my grub is still faulty, 'cause of the ERROR 15 message, I want to re-emerge it and re-install it, but I can't! The emerge process fails unexpectably.

Let us take a look at the messages.

First, the error itself:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:01 pm Post subject:

Spidey,

A few things.
Grub builds a 32 bit binary. Thats ok if you have a multilib install, which from you profile I believe you do.
Can you try with grub-static, which should build in a pure 64 bit environment.

When you emerge grub, it installs to your /boot and as you have discovered, you have two places called /boot on your system.
When you install grub to the MBR, so you can boot a part of grub, the stage 1 and stage 1.5 for the filesystem on the partition holding grub is written to the MBR, (and some spare space following) which is outside of any filesystem.

The install process modifies this code to tell it where to find the rest of grub (stage 2).

When you moved the contents of /boot from one partition to another, you did not reinstall grub to the MBR, so it continues to look for stage 2 in the old location and fails - hence Error 15.

You don't need to emerge grub to fix this. you should find all the stage files in /lib/grub and the grub binary at /sbin/grub
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Spidey · Apprentice Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 269

Actually, as I said, the Error 15 was caused by the savedefault command, don't know why yet. I'm pretty sure of this, since I just remove savedefault from windows or gentoo boot command list and I can boot normally.

I've fixed the emerge error (don't know how, anyway), cleaned the root /boot folder and emerged grub. It automatically mounted my boot partition (as described in /etc/fstab) and sent its file to /grub folder correctly. I, again, installed grub, without errors, but the Error 15 keeps showing up.

Some questions, thought.

1) In grub CLI, root (hd0,0) means that /dev/hda1 (or sda1) is the boot partition (where grub stages 2 and 3 are present) and setup (hd0) indicates that /dev/hda is the HD to write the MBR. Is that true?

2) In grub CLI while booting (or in grub.conf/menu.lst), root (hd0,0) means what? System root partition? I'm asking because I'm booting Gentoo using this script:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:56 pm Post subject:

Spidey,

Spidey · Apprentice Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 269

Oh thank you, I've understand everything now.
The BIOS recognition part I already knew, the problem was the root part.

Anyways, thank you again.

edit: Ah, btw, I don't see the purpose on having multiple kernel options at boot if not for some testing/benchmarking. I always point grub to vmlinuz and, if something goes wrong, I just correct, at boot time, to vmlinuz.old or another older kernel. Isn't that OK?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:55 pm Post subject:

Spidey,

Thats fine as long as you do't have an accident with your only working kernel.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.