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Ringo Chen
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 4:57 am    Post subject: GRUB error I've never seen before --- [SOLVED] Reply with quote

I read around and posted off topic before I found this thread - mostly because I was in a panic due to not being able to work on my system.
Today I installed a new video card and took out one stick of ram to check it at the store so I could buy more ram - put the ram back in and the new nvidia card and BEWM! I started getting a grub error:

"GRUB Hard Disk Error"


I dont have a "live-cd" untill tomorrow when a friend (my system is down and I didn't make or keep a backup of the live-cd) of mine makes me one. So Im using dragonfly distro to boot to for now.

I've done as suggested here and ran fdisk -1 and it's spits out:
Parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=4865 heads 255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 131, (Linux filesystem)
start 63, size 144522 (70 Meg), flag 80 (active)
beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
end: cyl 8/ head 254/ sector 63

I'm really at a loss as to what is going on and really need to use my system -- do I need to reinstall Gentoo or can this be fixed?

Really need some help and thanks in advance.

PS -
I have tried putting the OLD video card back in and have the same results and for the obvious questions - The system does see the HD and knows it's there and all cables are attached and working.

I wanted to post the solution here so others that may run into this issue can find it.
It seems that the Older BIOS was causing all the problems on my ASUS motherboard and I had to FLASH the BIOS with the most current version to correct the issue.
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jmbsvicetto
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ringo Chen,

if I understood your post correctly, you were able to solve your problem with a BIOS upgrade. Am I correct?
If so, were you using the same motherboard, before and after removing the video card and the RAM stick? It's pretty weird that the same motherboard would give such an error just by removing a video card. Furthermore, it seems that putting the video card back didn't solve the issue, right?
Perhaps you could post the motherboard and video card specs, just in case anyone else is aflicted by the same issue.
Thanks for the report.
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mhelvens
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've installed GRUB to load Windows XP or Gentoo. Windows XP starts fine, but Gentoo doesn't. Though I can mount/chroot into the Gentoo installation fine using the live-cd. I use a SATA drive.

Partitions:

sda1: Windows XP, NTFS
sda2: Gentoo boot, Linux ext2
sda3: Gentoo swap, Linux swap
sda4: Gentoo root, ReiserFS

grub.conf:

Code:
default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

# Gentoo

title=Gentoo Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.12-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/sda4

# Windows XP

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


The error:

VFS: Cannot open root device "sda4" or unknown-block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

I'm not 100% sure the problem is grub, but it looks like it to me, so I'm posting here. Could someone help me out? Should I give more information?

Thanks in advance!
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mutex
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What's the output of running fdisk on /dev/sda and typing "p" and hitting enter? This should give us a good idea of what your partition table looks like.
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mhelvens
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here it is:

Code:
Disk /dev/sda: 74.3 GB, 74355769344 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9039 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device     Boot Start   End  Blocks     Id  System
/dev/sda1  *        1  4462  35840983+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2  *     4463  4466     32130   83  Linux
/dev/sda3        4467  4590    996030   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4        4591  9039  35736592+  83  Linux
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Michiel_H,

Code:
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
means that grub has done its stuff and loaded the kerenl and the kernel has started. Unfortunately you have a piece missing from your kernel.
The missing part is either the SCSI high level Disk driver, the low level SATA driver for your SATA chipset or you have turned off DOS Partion table, (which is quite hard to do). All of these options must be built in [*] in menuconfig, not [M].

lspci will tell you what SATA chip set you have.
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mhelvens
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes! It was the wrong SATA chipset. The kernel had an intel one. I needed nVidia. Thanks a lot! (Now I have to fix the networking, which also doesn't work.)
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jesus_phreak
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 4:07 pm    Post subject: Grub problem? Reply with quote

I just installed Gentoo last night on a Gigabyte K8N mobo, AMD64 3200+. Everything went flawlessly right along with the documentation. The Hard drives I have in the system are as follows:

Two 20GB PATA HDD's Primary Master and Slave
Two DVD burners Secondary Master and Slave
1 IBM SCSI ULTRA320 on an adaptec dual channel controller
1 Seagate SATA 200GB

BIOS on mobo is set to boot to the IBM SCSI drive and when I boot the LiveCD it shows up as /dev/sdb.
I partitioned the drive as follows:

/dev/sdb1 200MB formatted as ext3
/dev/sdb2 <rest of drive> as ext3

I partioned /dev/hda with a 2GB type 82 partion for swap.

Mounted /dev/sdb2 on /mnt/gentoo
Mounted /dev/sdb1 on /mnt/gentoo/boot
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon /dev/hda1
mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
env-update
source /etc/profile

I modified the fstab to correctly identify and mount all partitions

I created a grub.conf as follows: (I used genkernel all to compile my kernel)

default 0
timeout 30

root (hd3,0)

splashimage=(hd3,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.12-gentoo-r10 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/sdb2
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86_64-2.6.12-gentoo-r10


Ran:

grub-install /dev/sdb

output was a listing of drives and success:

/dev/sdb (hd3)

I unmounted and rebooted, the grub screen booted and was unrecognizable and after the timeout the machine reboots.

Can someone point in the right direction here?

Thanks!
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Lazy_Dewd
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

try commenting the splash image out in your grub.conf, it will then look plain black and white but it might solve your problem

EDIT: overlooked the 'reboot' section. the above might make grub more readable at startup, but won't fix the reboot issue of course. :)
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jesus_phreak
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:27 pm    Post subject: Grub problem? Reply with quote

Thanks for replying, I forgot to mention it but I had already tried that to no avail. It still booted up with an unrecognizable screen. The rebooting is the most concerning part though, I can live with a messed up splash screen. The only bad part is I might be missing an eye opening error message that help me fix this. I will continue to try, maybe just removing some of the complexity in my hardware config and see if I can get it to work period.
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cheapradical
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 8:17 am    Post subject: how to edit from grub? (inane comment/ proof of ignorance) Reply with quote

i have this feeling that, after reading you & nephros' comments, re:
cannot open root dev hdaX, i have to redo menuconfig, (i.e. the whole install, except fdisk, right?), but i wondered, just for future ref., is there a way to edit the whole grub.conf, from inside grub?
i can look at it...

thanks,
(look for me soon in the "how do i config my modem?" section)
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jesus_phreak,

Rebooting is often caused by selecting a CPU type higher than the one you actually have installed.
Use the liveCD to run
Code:
less /proc/cpuinfo
to see your CPU.
Check in make menuconfig, that that is the CPU type thats selected, or a lower one.

For your messed up screen, replace any screen settings you have on the kernel line in grub.conf with
Code:
vga=ask
take the default option on the new menu.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
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jesus_phreak
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:58 pm    Post subject: RE:Thanks Reply with quote

Thanks NeddySeagoon, I have worked through all of my problems. The problem with the splashscreen was in my grub.conf. This is what I think is odd, when I did grub-install /dev/sdb it showed all of my drives, i.e.

/dev/hda (hd0)
/dev/hdb (hd1)
/dev/sda (hd2)
/dev/sdb (hd3)

Since my /boot and / were on /dev/sdb I configured my grub.conf as such

root (hd3,0)

splashimage=(hd3,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

As it turns out, when I reboot and grub loads my SCSI drive is (hd0)!!!!!

So when I modified the grub.conf to use (hd0,0) all was well......................

Thanks to all who posted, the text on these forums can save hours of frustration.
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lukmana
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 8:44 pm    Post subject: My screen blank after type : boot (at grub prompt) Reply with quote

Dear all,

I have a problem in grub, while I try to boot into Gentoo, my screen came into blank, but before that the process just show up for a second. After that, my screen was blank. I think there is a problem with my vga setting. But I don't know exactly how to fix it and from where do I start..

Meanwhile, if we are in grub session, is it possible to change the grub.conf? If yes, what command ?

Oh, here is my grub.conf :

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0) /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

tittle=Gentoo Linux 2.6.14-r5
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc
ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda3 udev
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.14-gentoo-r5

Thanks for your helps...

Rgds,
Lukmana
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 9:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

lukmana,

Code:
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc
ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda3 udev
this must be a single long line. It may just have wrapped in your post.

If you press e while the grub menu appears, you can edit the copy of the grub.conf in memory (not on disk) to get you booted.

To try to fix your blank screen add
Code:
vga=ask
to the kernel line (still all one long line) and accept the defualt on the new menu as it boots.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
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romalong
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hi!

just compiled and added new kernel, added few lines into grub.conf, but Gentoo is not booting producing such error:
kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (1,0).

Code:
dev ~ # cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
default 0
timeout 10
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

#========================================================================


title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.11-r11
root (hd0,0)

kernel /kernel-2.6.11-gentoo-r11 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/sda3 udev splash=silent,fadein,theme:livecd-2005.1 quiet CONSOLE=/dev/tty1
initrd /initrd-2.6.11-gentoo-r11


#========================================================================


title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.14-r5
root (hd0,0)

kernel /kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/sda3 udev splash=silent,fadein,theme:livecd-2005.1 quiet CONSOLE=/dev/tty1
#initrd /initrd-2.6.14-gentoo-r5


#========================================================================


title=W2K
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify=(hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


if i'd uncomment initrd /initrd-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 line, i'd have error: 15 file not found as there's no initrd-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 file and i don't know how to create it.

any ideas?
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romalong
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

is it ok message:
Code:
dev linux # make && make modules_install
...
  INSTALL sound/soundcore.ko
if [ -r System.map -a -x /sbin/depmod ]; then /sbin/depmod -ae -F System.map  2.6.14-gentoo-r5; fi
dev linux #
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

romalong,

The message in your last post is the kernel installation script that calculates module interdependancies.
This allows modprobe to satisfy all the dependenancies whenerver a module is modprobed. Its normal at the end of
Code:
make modules_install


Your error
Code:
unknown-block (1,0)
means that the kernel cannot find your initrd file to mount. This is because its commented out.

Error 15 is 'file not found' because, as you rightly say, there is no /boot/initrd-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 file. I don't know how to make an iniitrd file either. Maybe you have outgrown genkernel. See[url=https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2431534.html#2431534 this post[/url]
If your kerenl can boot without the use of an initrd file, you need to change the kernel line to
Code:
kernel /kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/sda3 udev splash=silent,fadein,theme:livecd-2005.1 quiet CONSOLE=/dev/tty1

This requires that everything required to boot is compiled into the kernel file.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
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romalong
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
Your error
Code:
unknown-block (1,0)
means that the kernel cannot find your initrd file to mount. This is because its commented out.


someone told me it's not necessary to have this string to boot
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

romalong,

Thats true. If you don't have an initrd, you need to stop trying to use it on the kernel line.
I posted the changes you need to your kernel line (It must be all one line - my post wrapped).

The
Code:
initdr /...
line loads your initrd file and attaches it to /dev/ram0.
The kernel command
Code:
root=/dev/ram0
askes the kernel to mount your initrd as its root filesystem
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
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ToddH_
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:42 pm    Post subject: dual booting hda=gentoo hdb=windows grub.conf [solution] Reply with quote

jmbsvicetto wrote:
Hi.

Have you tried using the following section on GRUB?
Code:
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


Thank the lord. Or jbsvicetto.

What I'd done was take my windows box with one hard drive, make the windows drive into the slave of the primary channel, then I took a minty fresh new drive as primary master and installed gentoo on it. Gentoo booted fine withthe grub.conf created in installation, but I wanted to have the ability to use grub to get to windows.

I'd been dealing with having to change my friggin bios settings for about a year until I finally found this. I'd had my windows entry being rootnoverify (hd1,0), makeactive, chainloader +1 and it just wasn't working.

The addition of these map statements, however, are exactly what I needed. Evidently, windows is pretty dumb about where it's installed and needs the map statements to make things look sane to it. The map statements evidently emulate what changing the boot drive does in the BIOS, and they are needed as in my case when windows is on the primary slave disk (hdb).

Good times.
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dragonzkiller
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hey,
I'm trying to get into "/usr/src/linux" to run "make menuconfig" but it won't let me get to "/usr/src/linux" I've made sure that everything that I did was what the instructions told me, but I still don't know why it won't let me in. Can anyone help me with this?
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NeddySeagoon
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dragonzkiller,

/usr/src/linux doesn't actually exit. Its a file that holds a name for another file.
If you follow the instructions too closely, you can make this symbolic link incorrectly.

Code:
ls -l /usr/src
will show two files :-
linux -> /.... pointing to another file and
linux-2.6.14-gentoo-r6 (say)
The file pointed to needs to be the real kernel file. What thats called depends on emerge sync. It may well have moved on the the example in the handbook.

If thats your problem
Code:
rm linux
and do the
Code:
ln -s
again.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
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dragonzkiller
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well for some reason i don't have any file that looks like "linux-2.6.14-gentoo-r6" I know it could be different, but the only thing that is in there is "linux". Do you know how I'd get one without having to redo the entire process?
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dragonzkiller,

Code:
emerge gentoo-sources

After you are back inside the chroot - do you know how to do that ?
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