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Re: grub doesn't worj on my primary drive...



From: draeath <draeath@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: grub doesn't worj on my primary drive...
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 19:19:13 -0500

On 1/1/07, Douglas Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> wrote:

On Mon, Jan 01, 2007 at 10:06:48PM +0000, Michael Fothergill wrote:
> I installed Etch on my old Gateway 2000 PC.  The slave drive is 13GB in
> size and Etch is parked on it.
>
> The primary drive is a smaller 1GB drive with Windows 98 on it.

>
> It didn't work properly because on booting I get an error from GRUB
>
> GRUB 1,5
> Grub fails (or something like that)
> Error 18


Dear Debian folks,
Thanks a lot for the advice. I have been reading the GRUB documentation. I found out that my error is of the following nature: 

18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general). f the following nature:
I didn't get this problem when I installed Sarge. It might have been because I chose the ext2 filessystem not the default for Etch which is Ext3 (I think). I could do a minimal install of Sarge and then upgrade to Etch.
I am now getting the idea that rescue mode means any old way of getting a basic shell working in your newly installed OS and then going to the directories where grub lives and messing with them until you can get grub working properly.
Suggestions on a potential cure to this old BIOS and too new disk problem is welcome. 

Regards,

Michael Fothergill


>
> I can't fire up Windows or Debian.
>

At least you get grub so all is not lost.  If you get a grub menu you
can edit debian's grub entry pointing it to the correct (to grub) drive
for your debian partition.  It would be best if you had access to the
grub documentation (e.g. the html manual).  Finding the right grub drive
can be done interactivly from the grub edit functionality but can be
arcane without the manual.  It involves using the tab key to get grubs
list of possibilities.  E.g. kernel ( TAB will show the drives grub
sees, ditto later for partitions.

Don't give up, grub will do it, but find and read the manual.

Doug.




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You can find the HTML manual here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html


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