I seem to have some curious things going on with my grub install.

I can't fathom whether it's a grub issue, or possibly a gentoo thing, but suspect grub.

If I boot the system, I get a black screen. It doesnt' seem to matter whether I'm passing the kernel instruction (I think that's what it's doing) with splash=silent or verbose. It comes up the same black screen.

Now, also, I have 2 entries for different kernel versions, though the second one is for a kernel upgrade that "doesn't want to play.

The grub.conf, looks like this:
It could easily be something to do with the splash image, though I'm not sure about that, because it's in the /boot/grub directory.

If from the black screen, I hit the down arrow, and then enter, it will boot the 2.6.11-gentoo-r3 kernel version, but I get a very quick, but corrupted boot list, before it goes into the boot sequence OK and boots fine.

If I just hit return, as if to boot into the 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 kernel, I get an almost unreadable screen, though I've managed to decypher that it says I've done some sort of incorrect video/screen selection, and offers the list or scan of possible video modes.

If I then select, say 3, it will then change and start to boot, but only until it gives me the error of /dev/hda3 not being a valid root block device.

So does anyone know what else I'd need to look into/check please ??

regards

John

So lose it - comment it out !!!.
Sounds like you have classic framebuffer problems - lose the "vga=...", or make it something like "vga=normal".

Nope. That doesn't seem to be the problem. I tried to see what would happen if I made splash= silent and vga=normal, it still booted, but made virtually all the boot sequence dialogue unreadable.

So I've put it back to what it was, but at the same time, I've deleted the entry for 2.6.11-gentoo-r8 and the corresponding entries in /usr/src so if I understand it correctly, it's not there now.

So now does anyone know how I can check the system to find out why I don't get anything but a black screen and then only unreadable text for a second or two before it boots???

regards

John

p.s. the grub.conf now looks like this

So since this morning, I've re-emerged the kernel (2.6.11-gentoo-r8) and then tried again.

Zilch

So, I've unmerged grub, emerged lilo and written the /etc/lilo.conf and done the /sbin/lilo, then rebooted the system.

Zilch

I'm still getting the same problem i.e. that it doesn't want to recognise block device /dev/hda3 as root. I can still boot the system with the older kernel version fine.

I'm thinking that this is not a bootloader problem, but some sort of system problem.

Any advice on what to look at next or where to go for ideas???

regards

John

Wasn't what I suggested - I said to try commenting out the bootsplash - the splash on the kernel options is much later (time-wise) in things.
Interference at/prior to the boot menu is much more likely to be bootsplash. SATA drive by any chance ??. If so try /dev/sda - don't forget fstab as well.
2.6.11 has SATA support in by default - if you had an old kernel, it might have been using "compatible" support, and hence /dev/hda.

Oh, sorry, didn't read it correctly.

Anyway, thus far, I've managed to get the grub re-installed. Plus it seems that it may be something to do with the "VESA video mode" thats selected.

I can't sus out where that might be to change. I did try changing the consolefont too see if that made any different.

Oh plus I managed to get the newer kernel version booting, but that was by changing lots of the arguments/switches of genkernel.

Now it's just a case of getting the bootloader going. I'll try and comment out the bootsplash.

regards

John

p.s. and no it's just a normal ATA/EIDE drive - so that's out of the equation.

Thanks for your suggestion about commenting out the "splash" entry syg00.

That seems to have restored the normal grub dialogue OS selection box. I've also found a howto, too see if I can get "it" going, but i'm not gonna try that until I've worked out how to compile a kernel myself, as I've just done my daily "emerge -uD world" and it's emerged the latest "kernel-2.6.11-gentoo-r9", and I want to have a crack at doing that myself first, as I've noticed (with make xconfig) that there seems to be a whole world of shite that I probably don't need compiled in when I use "genkernel".

I understand that IF I can get it right, it has potential to make the system boot/load faster, but I'll wait and see if that's really the case.

Again, thanks for your suggestion - it's worked a treat.

regards

John