Grub/LVM boot problem
 

Hi,

I have a problem with the grub bootloader, as follows. I have a
laptop, with an 80G disk, with Windows XP on the first half of
the disk (NTFS), and Fedora core 4 (LVM) on the rest. Dual boot
is managed by grub, installed with the Fedora install.

I wish to clone this disk, so I don't lose hours of setup/installs
on both OS's, and my work, in case of a crash. I did the following:

1) Installed Acronis 10 under Windows, and cloned the entire disk
to a 120G USB disk.
2) Restored from that clone onto a new 80G disk of the same geometry,
and replaced the existing disk with the newly cloned one.
3) On start-up, got a grub hang, so did the following:

a) Boot from Fedora core 4 rescue CD
b) chroot /mnt/sysimage
c) grub-install /dev/hda
d) Enter grub
e) grub> find /grub/stage1 -> gave me (hd0,3)
f) grub> root (hd0,3)
g) grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4 ro root=/dev/hda4
h) grub> initrd /initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img -> gave me
"Error 16: Inconsistent filesystem structure"
i) Exit grub, repeat to step b) above, and rebuild initrd:
"mkinitrd -v -f initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img 2.6.17-1.2142_FC4
j) Repeat from d) again, and get the same Error 16 as above.

4) Note that after step 3-c) above, I got past the grub hang, and was able
to boot Windows. But selecting the Linux installation gave me "Error 17:
Cannot mount selected partition". That's when I did the remaining steps
above.

Sorry about the long-winded explanation, but this is frustrating, and I
wanted to provide all the details, in the hope that some-one could throw
some light on the dark innards of grub vis-a-vis LVM, to resolve this.

Thanks in advance.

regards,
John

Boot from Fedora core 4 rescue CD
chroot /mnt/sysimage
grub
grub> find /grub/stage1
grub> root (hd0,3)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

hi
 

{QUOTE=jkoshi]Hi,

a) Boot from Fedora core 4 rescue CD
b) chroot /mnt/sysimage
c) grub-install /dev/hda
d) Enter grub
e) grub> find /grub/stage1 -> gave me (hd0,3)
f) grub> root (hd0,3)
g) grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4 ro root=/dev/hda4
h) grub> initrd /initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img -> gave me
"Error 16: Inconsistent filesystem structure"

[/QUOTE]

As You have already mentioned your ROOT fs is LVM, the root=/dev/hda4 is the problem. Generally it is going to be something like this

root=/dev/VolGroup001/LogVol001

Where VolGroup001 is the Volume Group name & LogVol001 is the Logical Volume name. To get the correct values for your system get into rescue mode and choose automatically mount FS option. Then use the mount command to find out what you named your LVM as. The root fs would be mount on /mnt/sysimage.

The inconsistent FS error comes because you are trying to access the partition rather than the LVM.
:cool:

Hi Duck2006,


Thanks for your feedback.

Tried this, too, with the same result.


John

sai_kiran,


Thanks for your reply.

I did try "root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00", and "root=/LABEL=/",
in place of "root=/dev/hda4" on the "kernel" line, but got the
same result.

However, you mentione Group and Volume 001, rather than 00.
What is the reason for this?


John

John,

What i gave is an approximate value. Generally in RHEL swap is also created as a the first Logical Volume, So the root vol comes to be the second. You have to find the correct values by going into the Rescue environment. During Installation the VG & LV names can be changed from default values. So check and use the correct values.

Follow-up on grub dual-boot problem
 

Hi everyone, any ideas on a solution to the problem below?