[64studio-users] Fwd: Version 2.0 boot failure

[tim hall]

William McCanless wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: William McCanless <emccanless at gmail.com>
> Date: Oct 1, 2007 12:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [64studio-users] Version 2.0 boot failure
> To: tim hall <tim at 64studio.com>
>
>
> 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
> (safelyif possible)?
>   

Basically this is the grub configuration from a SUSE box. This suggests 
that either the 64studio (Debian) installer failed to complete its 
process, which would have run grub and overwritten your MBR before 
rebooting; or that you have in fat overwritten your 64studio install 
with SUSE, in which case we won't be able to help. Actually, from 
experience I'd guess it's fairly likely that grub installation failed. 
As you seem comfortable with the grub command line, I'd suggest 
following the instructions in 
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/index.html which 
should explain how to look around on your second HD and re-install GRUB. 
I probably have some similar work to do, so I'm happy to compare notes. 
Let us know how you get on.

cheers,

tim