Re: Grub problem
On Sat, Nov 08, 2008 at 10:22:15PM +0200, Bela Balazs wrote:
> Hello all.
> I installed Debian, but the installer failed to install grub.
I have that problem whenever I install Etch: the installer says its
installing Etch but it doesn't. I end up rebooting the installer in
rescue mode and doing it from the menus again.
> I also have Ubuntu, so I installed grub manually by chrooting to the Debian
> partition.The two systems are installed on separate disks.
> Debian is installed on a SATA disk.I didn't have a Sata controller on the
> motherboard so I had used a PCI SATA card.My bios can't boot on that disk
> (not sure why).
I don't know if your bios can boot a kernel on a drive from which it
can't boot, even if it can load grub. You may need to put a 64 MB
partition on the Ubuntu disk and use that for Debian's /boot.
> My only option to boot Debian is trough Ubuntu's grub.
Remember that you'll have to manually update the boot loader every time
you update debian's kernel.
> So I copied the two
> entries from Debian's menu.lst to Ubuntu's,but when I select Debian in the
> menu I get an error: "Could not mount selected partition" (or something
> similar).I've also tried reinstalling grub from Rescue mode on the Debian
> DVD, but no luck.
>
See above re booting from a disk that the bios can't boot.
Is the "Could not mount" error coming from grub (e.g. couldn't find the
kernel) or from the kernel (e.g. couldn't find the root partition).
> The two menu.lst entries:
>
> title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.24-1-686
> root (hd0,1)
> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-1-686
> root=UUID=5dd1a349-c311-40ca-82f4-a7a39ca134a3 ro
> initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-1-686
>
> title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.24-1-686 (single-user mode)
> root (hd0,1)
> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-1-686
> root=UUID=5dd1a349-c311-40ca-82f4-a7a39ca134a3 ro single
> initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-1-686
>
>
I'd go to the grub command promt and try entering things manually, using
grub's tab-completion to ensure that devices are correct. For example,
should root be (sd0,1)?
> I tried changing the UUID to /dev/sda2 but still no luck.
> I'm sure that Debian is installed on that partition (I know from fdisk -l in
> Ubuntu).
>
> Ubuntu is installed on (hd0,2).
Booting issues are where a serial console (or logging the output
directly to a printer on lp0) is very helpful. You can see the
serial-console HOWTO for how to set that up, as well as the grub manual
for how to have grub talk to a serial console.
Doug.
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