Unable to boot from HDD after changing my parent board

hello everyone,

i'm using red hat linux 8.0. my computer failed to boot from HDD after I replaced its AMD parent board with a Pentium parent board.

the computer goes all the way to the GRUB screen. however instead of booting up, it restarts.

is the linux operating system processor dependent? if so, is there any way to take the system back without reinstallation?

any ideas will be very much appreciated.

doris

possibly h/w support issue. can u try an upgrade install? or have u tried booting in resuce mode via the installation CD?

I just switched from a Via chipset motherboard to an nForce2 chipset motherboard with no problems. It might be a GRUB-specific problem you're having or maybe just a funky BIOS setting (or even an under-powered power supply!). Can you boot into anything else (boot disks or CDs or anything)?

Yes, it can boot from CD. I tried upgrade install but the hard disk still fails booting.

anytime you get a new piece of hardware like a motherboard you should reformat anyway, its just good practice

??What?? I strongly disagree with doralsoral that getting a new mobo would also require a reformat of a hard drive. No offense but that not only is unnecessary but it would destroy (presumably) valuable data that you would be interested in saving.

Doris - This issue sounds like a BIOS problem more than anything else. Clearly the CMOS settings on the new mobo will not likely know about the HDD that you've just connected to it. During boot up, press F2 (or whatever key is appropriate) to get into Setup mode. Most likely there will be an "auto-detect' mode for the hard drives, make sure it is enabled. (Alternatively you can specify the number of heads, cylinders, and sectors/tracks, but that's a hassle.) Once the new mobo correctly recognizes what kind of drive is connected, it should boot up smoothly. Along those lines, you also should check that all necessary ribbon and power cable connections are snug and tight. I once was pulling my hair out over a PC that wouldn't recognize a drive due to a bad cable connection. Save yourself a lot of trouble and re-check both the power and cable connections. To answer your original question, No, Linux is not CPU dependent. -- J.W.

While linux itself is not cpu dependent, a kernel optimized for one cpu type may not work with another. If you compile a kernel optimized for an AMD athlon it will probably not boot on a pentium 4. Most kernels that come with the distributions are not optimized in this way, but if you've compiled a kernel yourself this may be your problem.

I don't think it's a matter of hardware support inside the kernel since your kernel doesn't even get loaded.

Can you boot from cd onto your hard disk ? I.e. add a 'root=/dev/hdxx' kernel boot parameter on startup, with /dev/hdxx your root partition ? If so, boot like this and run lilo again, and see if that works.

BlackUnicorn makes an *excellent* point, and one that I hadn't originally considered. If you are dealing with a stock kernel then I'd stand by my original suggestion, however, if you've got a custom kernel then BlackUnicorn's point is hugely relevant, and very well may turn out to be the source of the problem. Well done and best regards -- J.W.

thank you very much, J.W. and BlackUniCorn.

i use the stock kernel, without any customization. also, i put the HDD on the primary master, and the BIOS can correctly auto-detect my hard drive. after booting it up with the installation CD, i can access the entire hard disk under /mnt/sysimage. therefore my hard disk should be connected correctly. next, i followed BlackUniCorn's suggestion and modified this line in /etc/grub.conf:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=LABEL=/

to:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda2 ## /dev/hda2 is my root dir.

but it still refuses to boot, with exactly the same symptoms.

any further suggestions? please help... i hate the idea of re-installation.

doris

What kind of motherboard did you install?

I don't have a lot of experience with GRUB (I am reading the examples in the manual right now, that's about it ) but shouldn't that line be :

kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda2 ## /dev/hda2 is my root dir.

This would let GRUB know on what partition to look for the kernel, but I don't know if it's absolutely necessary.

BlackUniCorn, i understand that it might not be necessary to put /dev/hda2 on the kernel entry, but it's perfectly valid to do so. there are two other lines i omitted. here is what my grub.conf looks like:

default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splashimage.xpm.gz
title ......
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda2
initrd ......

michael, my motherboard is 651M-L/650GM-L Series (MS-7005) v1.1 Micro ATX mainboard.

thanks,
doris

I was actually referring to the (hd0,1), (being /dev/hda2) behind 'kernel'. My guess is that, in your configuration, GRUB would look on (hd0,0) (/dev/hda1) for your kernel image, where it wouldn't be able to find it.

if i put anything behind 'kernel', (hd0, 1) in grub.conf,
kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda2
i got this error message:

"""
root(hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda2

Error 15: File not found
Press any key to continue...
"""

i also tried this,
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda2
thinking that the vmlinuz file is in the boot partition /dev/hda1, but got the same "Error 15".

to my intuition, this is a pretty simple problem. after the CD bootup, i can read and write the hard disk. the /boot (/dev/hda1) and everything else are intact there, why it just cannot boot? i'm a little pressed for time so i decided to do a re-install.

guys, thank you all for your help.

doris