Re: Grub troubles.
Wm. G. McGrath wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
> 1. I am in the midst of a controller upgrade trying to
> install a Promise Ultra 100 IDE UDMA controller.
>
> 2. I don't want to reinstall unless I absolutely have to.
> I'd rather just install the card and keep my present
> setup.
>
> 3. I've recompiled my kernel to support the Promise 20267
> chip and it seems to recognize the card and disk when I
> try to boot.
>
> 4. My attempts to boot the disk attached to the Promise
> card succeed only partly. The card is recognized, as is
> the disk, and the hard disk gets set up as hde with the
> correct address on IRQ11.
>
> 5. Later on the partition table is read - hde3, hde4
> <hde5, hde6, hde7....etc>
>
> 6. In my judgement the hardware side of things seems ok.
>
> 7. However, I still cannot boot successfully. I get all
> sorts of kernel panics and failures to find the root
> partition etc. This seems to be a grub problem.
>
> 8. To my way of thinking I ought to be able to a)
> reconfigue grub, b) transfer the hard disk connector
> cable from the motherboard to the Promise controller, and
> c) reboot.
>
> 9. However, grub will not allow me to grub-install to a
> non-existant disk ie hde. grub-install '(hd4,2)' produces
> the error message selected disk does not exist - since
> the disk is presently connected to the motherboard.
Did you run that command from the linux command line or the grub
command line? It looks like the linux command line to me
(grub-install). If this is the case then you have in fact
selected the wrong disk - if you install grub from a linux
command line then you have to use linux device names. So;
grub-install /dev/hde3
The other option is to run 'grub', and from its command line
try something like:
root (hd4,2)
setup (hd4,2)
Now all of this begs the question of why you are trying to
install grub into the boot sector of your third partition
rather than into the mbr of the disk (assuming it has one).
IF that is what you really are trying to do, then the
respective linux and grub commands become;
grub-install /dev/hde
and
root (hd4,2)
setup (hd4)
Setup may not be fully successful; sometimes menu.1st
doesn't get loaded correctly for instance so a more drawn
out procedure using 'install' from the grub command line is
needed.
>
> 10. I tried using a grub floppy but the kernel would not
> mount the selected partitions. Other attempts led to
> various kinds of kernel panic due to not being able to
> mount the root file system in some way.
>
> Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions??
>
A useful command is 'find' from the grub command line. If
you know the name and path of a file but are unsure of its
hd/partition this is a good way to find out what it is.
Are you using a 2.4 kernel? If so then you need more than
just the path to the kernel; you also need the initrd image
path.
--
David P. James
Ottawa, Ontario
http://members.rogers.com/dpjames/
The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe.
-Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek IV
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