[64studio-devel] Version 2.0 boot failure

[William McCanless]

On 10/1/07, tim hall <tim at 64studio.com> wrote:
> William McCanless wrote:
> >  I suspect the problem lies somewhere in the boot
> > files written into the master boot record by the installer, but I
> > don't know enough about Linux to access that area.  This suspicion
> > comes from a previous experience trying to install Debian. On that
> > occasion the MBR was re-written in such a way as to cause Suse not to
> > boot on hda.
> >
> > I hope this info helps someone to help me and others,
> >
>
> Sorry I can't give an immediate answer.
> I am very interested in boot failures and am currently on an information
> gathering exercise myself.
> If I come across anything pertinent I'll post it.
>
> cheers,
>
> tim
>
>
I have done some more research on how the system is booted, and found
that info is hard to acquire.

I know that the OS must appear in the boot menu, and it does. But I
can't seem to recognize anything concerning Debian or 64Studio in the
"menu.lst" file.  Here's what I found so far:

    linux-prompt:~ # cd /boot/grub
    linux-prompt:/boot/grub # ls
    default        ffs_stage1_5      menu.lst.old       stage2
    device.map     iso9660_stage1_5  minix_stage1_5     ufs2_stage1_5
    e2fs_stage1_5  jfs_stage1_5      reiserfs_stage1_5  vstafs_stage1_5
    fat_stage1_5   menu.lst          stage1             xfs_stage1_5
    linux-prompt:/boot/grub # cat menu.lst
    # Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Thu Mar  1 15:58:26 EST 2007
    color white/blue black/light-gray
    default 0
    timeout 8
    gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message

    ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
    title SUSE Linux 10.1
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x314
resume=/dev/hda1
    splash=silent showopts
        initrd /boot/initrd

    ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
    title Floppy
        chainloader (fd0)+1

    ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
    title Failsafe -- SUSE Linux 10.1
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma
    apm=off acpi=off noresume edd=off 3
        initrd /boot/initrd

I also found this:

    grub> find /sbin/init
     (hd0,1)
     (hd1,0)

    grub> find /boot/vmlinuz
     (hd0,1)

To me this means that grub can't find the Debian kernel, although it
does find the second hd on my system.

Can anyone tell me how to access my second hd to look around a bit
(safely if possible)?