Re: Grub error 21 confusion
Zach DuBord wrote:
>
> I ran the Sarge install to make a dual boot system yesterday. I had it
> install its partitions on my slave drive, making hdb1 the large
> partition and then hdb5 the swap partition.
>
> Install went well, went to reboot after first boot from cd, and got
> Grub Error 21 message.
>
> I spent all day googling this topic and looking at various manuals and
> e-mailing one or two debian gurus I know, and to no avail. The weird
> thing is when I run knoppix I can see and access all the files on hdb
> but when I run setup for BIOS it indicates:
>
> Primary Drive 0: Hard Disk
> Primary Drive 1: Off
> Secondary Drive 0: CD-ROM
> Secondary Drive1:Off
>
> I don't know much about Bios but this struck me as odd, because it
> seems to me that Secondary Drive 0: should read Hard Disk as well. Yet
> even when I try to set those paramaters by hand or auto, Bios doesn't
> even pick up my second hard disk. All jumpers are set correctly.
> Absolutely no response from tech support.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Zach DuBord
I guess you've already seen this from the Grub manual:
21 : Selected disk does not exist
This error is returned if the device part of a device- or full file
name refers to a disk or BIOS device that is not present or not
recognized by the BIOS in the system.
The thing is, Linux itself will see the drive even if it's not enabled
in the BIOS setup, but GRUB won't because it depends on the BIOS to do
that. That explains why you can see it from Knoppix, and why you could
install Debian there to begin with.
Seems pretty clear that the drive is there and working as far as Linux
is concerned. Why the BIOS won't recognize it is the question. Does it
get detected if you (temporarily) move it to another position like the
secondary slave?
Tom
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