Hi

We have recently upgraded our e326m machines ( Machine Type : 7969-I9S) to RHEL4U4 and also updated the BIOS to the V1.32b. Both the OS installation and BIOS upgrade were done through our PXE server.

But after the os installation is over the machine will reboot and stop at "Grub loading stage 2". We tried installing grub manually, but it did not help.

We had made some changed to the BIOS . We had configured BMC, and configured console redirection.

Fortunately, we tried to put the BIOS to default settings, and then try to reboot the machines. And it worked. The machines were able to go beyond grub and reboot.

We tried the same process with multiple machines,and we found that it is coming up randomnly .. and not every time.

What we are not able to find is How is the machine affecting the os boot. ?
And if it is which BIOS setting is causing a problem. Or is it a problem with the BIOS update or PXE.

Please let me know... if any one has any idea on this issue. Or any more info is required.

Thanks

thankyou for your troubleshooting attempts so far....
it is not good that you have inconsistant pass or fails.

1)....I assume all have the same hardware for you to be doing a network style upgrade?

2) does that mean your machines do NOT have a floppy drive.

if that is the only issue....it is easily fixed....you can use a cdr that has a bootable msdos style floppy image on it....so the cdr acts like a bios boot floppy and you have the relevant bios upgrade on it....

3) naturally you should have backed up your original bios....I assume you have a copy.....and if there is a glitch....you may need a real floppy drive to rescue the rescue...heh heh.

edit found the link I have made it a separate post for search purposes.

here is the source to save you the effort
http://linux.inet.hr/how-to-flash-mo...ppy-drive.html

Thanks for ur replies.

But after going through a lot of r&d... we replaced the m/b on one of the machine. That one machine is working fine.

Although we are not stopping us from further experiments at this point.. but doesn't this indicate some incompatibility between the bios and the m/b.. ..Moreover the machines would work fine with the default bios settings.. but they would fail after making some changes to the bios.. mainly configuring "console redirection".

Well i assume.. nothing to do with linux here...

Thanks once again for ur time and suggestions..

Take care