System will only boot if bouth cloned HD are installed

bbjam · 09-09-2008, 06:25 PM

The system setup is this:

There is a PCI sata card with 2 sata slots. Conected to each slot is a hard drive. Bouth hard drives have the same data on them, as I just cloned them with dd.
one is a Western Digital, I don't know what the other one is(lets call it HD2).

If I connect the WD to slot 2 and HD2 to slot 1 the system boots using the boot partition on the WD drive and then LVM uses the second partition on the WD as /.

however

If I connect HD2 to slot 2 and connect WD to slot 1 the system still boots using the boot partition on WD(bad) but LVM uses the second partition of HD2 as /(good)

Any configuration with only one drive fails before GRUB with something like:
Boot Failure:System halted

I am using 32bit CENTOS 5

kernel:
2.6.18-92.1.10.el5

/sbin/lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset Host Bridge (MCH) (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801BA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 04)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801BA IDE U100 Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM SMBus Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440] (rev a3)
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM Ethernet Controller (rev 03)
02:0b.0 Mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20375 (SATA150 TX2plus) (rev 02)

I'm not realy sure what other info is needed, please ask.

jailbait · 09-09-2008, 06:35 PM

You probably need to change some of the information in /boot/grub/menu.lst on the clone. If the menu.lst is the same on both drives it means that the clone is probably referencing files on the original drive when it should be referencing the same files on the cloned drive.

-------------------
Steve Stites

bbjam · 09-09-2008, 06:54 PM

What info do you need to help me do that?

bbjam · 09-10-2008, 11:13 AM

Here is my /boot/grub/menu.lst

Code:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-92.1.10.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-92.1.6.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-92.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.el5.img

Here is my /boot/grub/grub.conf

Code:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-92.1.10.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-92.1.6.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-92.el5)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.el5.img

Here is my /boot/grub/device.map

Code:

# this device map was generated by anaconda
(hd0)     /dev/sda

Hope that helps anyone trying to help.

mlp68 · 09-14-2008, 10:37 AM

You didn't say if, when booted with the original HD, you can read the contents of the 2nd disk alright. A dd clone tends to work only if the geometries (cylinders, blocks, and total size) are exactly identical. Please check if you can mount the partitions on your cloned /dev/sdb disk alright. If that fails, please post back what fdisk /dev/sdb (and then "p" for a description of the partition table) gives.

Then, the root device is made by LVM (root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 in the grub config). That is set up in the initial ramdisk, and I'm not sure that this works on the clone the same way. Do you know how to look at the contents of that initial ramdisk?

Please do the first step first.

Cheers, mlp

bbjam · 09-15-2008, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlp68

Then, the root device is made by LVM (root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 in the grub config).

That is strange, the LVM manager GUI tels me that the boot partition is not part of LVM.

I do not know how to mount the other drive because its LVM formated.