cannot boot into opens suse 10.3
 

Hello,
I installed open suse 10.3 live on an usb flash. During the installation I installed grub on sdb3 .When it asked me where I want my MBR I said I want it on the boot partition sdb3. sdb2 is the swap and sdb1 is a fat partition. When I try to boot from the flash it says "loading Grub .. root hd(1,2 ) /boot/message file not found"
Then it shows me a text mode grub menu where I choose open suse and it gives me : error 18 : cylinder exceeds maximum alloowed by bios.

Can somebody tell me how I could avoid this ? It's important for me .Thank you.

What do you have on sda? Could you post the output of fdisk -l? If you're booting off Grub from sda, you need an entry in the menu.lst file there. If you are trying to boot from sdb (usb flash drive?) you need to have that set as first boot device in BIOS.

Flash Installation?
 

Excuse me, are you ABSOLUTELY SURE that you want to install openSUSE on a USB flash drive? A full "normal" installation has a tendency to burn out your flash drive because a normal Linux distro constantly reads and writes to it's boot media. A normal hard drive, or external HD, can handle this quite well, but flash media only has a certain number of read/write cycles before data retention starts to fade. As for the problem you or having, you are apparently trying to do this on a very old computer. The following was copied from the GRUB menu:

18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general). Most computers can boot with hard drives a lot bigger then 8GB, but there may be a limit for external boot devices.

The best thing to to do is to create a "boot partition". You might be able to set up such a partition from the installer. If you see a an "Expert" tab, "Advanced" tab, or something similar. Click or select that and see if there are options for:
Puting user directories on a seperate partition
Puting programs on a seperate partion
Creating a "boot partition"

If you can't find an option to do it, then you might have to do it manually and edit the GRUB menu accordingly. Another thing to watch out for when booting from external USB is that GRUB may only see the USB device (your flash drive).

It is highly recommended that you do this on an external HARD DRIVE, not a flash drive. This procedure will wear it out rather quickly.

I don't have any experience with SUSE, but I think you can find a directory called "boot" at the highest level in the file system

Now put in your flash drive and fire up GpartED. If you are using Linux, this step is easy. If you don't have it on you system, use your package manager to install it. If you do not have an Internet connection, you are SOL. If you are running Windows, burn a coppy of a Linux distribution that includes GpartED, like the GpartED live CD:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
or you can try Puppy Linux:
http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/...linux-40-dingo

Once you have GpartED up and running, create a ext2 partition big enough to hold the /boot directory. About 50 MB or so should be fine. Set the boot flag for that partition and remove any other boot flags you may have set. (right-click partition, flags) Now you are ready to exit GpartED. Most Linux distributions have a kernel in a top-level directory. Using the existing menu.lst as a guide and the documentation found at the following link for refference:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...#Configuration
edit the menu (may require sudo or root account) so that everything points to the proper location.
Keep in mind that, as mentioned above, GRUB may only see your USB device at boot time. Have fun!

No, it's not that old . I have a 8rda+ pro motherboard, AMD athlon 220+ , 2GB RAM, I wouldn't have posted otherwise, I figured someone should have installed live open suse 10.3 on a similar system by now.
I'm not planning on keeping the opensuse on the usb flash , just need it for a couple of weeks, ..I know it reduces the life of the flash ..
My sda is my internal hard disk where I have windows and linux.

My fdsik -l shows :
linux:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1f4e1f4d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2551 30401 223713157+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 2551 28487 208338921 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 28488 28584 779121 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 28585 29463 7060536 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 29464 30401 7534453+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 8011 MB, 8011120640 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 973 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x96213af1

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 27 208845 e W95 FAT16 (LBA)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 27 86 473886+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 * 86 973 7132859+ 83 Linux

I obviously changed the bios option to boot from the flash.

So as I said I want to boot from sdb3 , so does the above line : "Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary." have anything to do with malfunction ? If so, what's the easiest way to fix it ? ?

This message "Grub .. root hd(1,2 ) /boot/message file not found" tells you that the splashimage file can't be found and that's why you just see text on boot. I'm curious as to why you have the boot partition on sdb3, generally it is best to have the bootable partition at the front of a drive.

You could log on to your other Linux system as root and issue these command from a grub prompt:

find /sbin/init
find /boot/vmlinuz
find /boot/grub/stage1
find /boot/grub/stage2

You should get results showing these files on drive (hd1). If not,there was a problem with Grub install. Don't really know much about installing on flash drives. Good Luck.

I guess this is one of few cases were curiosity should be productive ..yeah, that's what I thought .. that the bootable partition should be at the beginning of the drive so I did that, before this installation I had another installation on the same flash, the same open suse 10.3 live, but installed on sdb1. sdb2 was swap , and sdb3 was extended and a logical fat in it. It didn't even get to this phase ..of showing grub menu. What it said was : "Boot device not found, replace disk and press any key", so I guess it was worse ... then I found a how to guide on installing open suse live on flashes .. and it said I should have a fat partition at the beginning , then a swap and then my bootable partition ..so that's what I did. . with the results shown above..
I have another problem now.. after hitting fdisk -l my grub from my other linux (suse 10.1) installed on sda is gone !Windows still boots normally. I don't see how a simple fdsik -l could do that.. but seems like it did ..
fdsik -l has probably nothing to do with the damage , but still. . how do I restore my grub ?

fdisk -l command didn't do the damage, all it does is list partition information. You have opensuse 10.1 on sda7 or sda8? Were you using Grub from 10.1 to boot your system previously? You can re-install Grub from your opensuse install disk in rescue mode. Log on as root, type grub, should get a grub prompt, enter the following commands if your 10.1 root directory is on sda7:

root (hd0,6)
setup (hd0)
quit

You could also download SuperGrubDisk and use it. It's handy to have as it is good at repairing Linux and windows mbr.

I assume you were unable to run the "find" commands from Grub I suggested earlier?

I reinstalled the 10.1 grub as you said..
The find commands answered : (hd0,6) every one of them .., so I guess grub on hd1,2 (sdb3) is not installedd correctly.
I keep tjhimking about the "Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary" .. There's a note in the open suse 10.3 live installation guide which says that ,when partitioning , you should add one to the already existing cylinders difference, that's how I understood it anyways. Did I get that right ? Does anyone know anything about this ?

I don't think the 'partition 2 not ending on cylinder boundary' is the cause of your problem. I'm not sure what you mean by the last question but the start/end numbers (seen in fdisk -l output) need to be contiguous, ex:

/dev/hdb1 1 5222
/dev/hdb2 5223 5288
/dev/hdb3 * 5289 5941
/dev/hdb4 5942 11776

Above hdb1 ends at 5222, hdb2 starts at 5223, etc.

Are you able to boot 10.1 now?

Yes, I can boot 10.1 now.
The only differences between my sda and my sdb , as seen above in fdisk -l, are those cylinder boundaries .., for sdb it's the same ,.. the ending cylinder and the starting cylinder , see above : sdb ends with 27, sdb2 starts with 27, sdb2 ends with 86 sdb3 starts with 86. That's not how things stand for sda as you can see. Are you sure that's not the reason for not booting ?

The cylinder boundary thing may be a problem. I misunderstood what you were saying in your earlier post. Do you have any data on sdb1? Creating new partitions might be the solution but I am not really sure how could be repaired.

I deleted my second (sdb2) and third (sdb3) partitions from the flash. I recreated sdb2 -swap , and sdb3 ext3 for / . This time I left a difference of two cylinders between the first and second partition and also between the second and third partition. As you see below (fdisk -l)the first partition still doesn't end on cylinder boundary.If I try to boot from the flash it gives me directly a grub interpreter. So I guess if I would have deleted the first partition (sdb1) too and recreated it having the first cylinder 1, and not 0, I guessed it would have worked .. . As I remember at the previous installation I let the first cylinder 0 , even though it's actually 1 ..see below.
At the grub interpreter I hit : root (hd1,2) , which is sdb3 as I understand it) and it said : no such partition. Then I hit: root (hd1,1) , sdb2 as I understand it , and it said : filesystem is unknown, partition type oxf . Does all this have any logic to anyone ?
I wouldn't want to delete my partitions again. ... why doesn't it see the sdb3 partition when I hit: root (hd1,2) ?

linux:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1f4e1f4d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2551 30401 223713157+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 2551 28487 208338921 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 28488 28584 779121 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 28585 29463 7060536 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 29464 30401 7534453+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 8011 MB, 8011120640 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 973 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x96213af1

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 27 208845 e W95 FAT16 (LBA)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 29 87 473917+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 * 89 973 7108762+ 83 Linux

You're booting from opensuse 10.1 on sda7, right? Post your menu.lst from 10.1.

Did a bit of googling and found: filesystem is unknown, partition type oxf
,this is a FAT16 partition, which you get when you try to boot (hd1,1) or sdb2, right. So your partitions are messed up. What data do you have on what is the Fat16 partition? Don't have any suggestions except to delete, repartition? If your partitions are off by one, you might try booting opensuse on sdb with (hd1,3)??

No, I was booting from the opensuse live cd. If I boot from 10.1 it sees my disks as hda1, and sda1.. so I figured I post the relevant configuration ..because that's where I installed opensuse from.. from the live cd. I'm pretty sure that if my opensuse flash installation would work fdsik -l would give me the same notations for the disks as the live cd (sda and sdb ), and not hda and sda as 10.1 does .. . Yeah, I guess I should repartition :))

I reinstalled with the corrections to the cylinders. It gives me the grub interpreter again when I try to boot from the flash. Maybe the cylinders issue..wasn't the problem.., I just realised that every time after installing from the live cd it asked me to reboot without the livecd in the cdrom , at which point I was allways changing the harddisks boot order (bios sees my flash as hard disk not as removable ) to first: flash disk , 2nd internal hard disk, so I guessed that was the point when sda was switching to sdb and the other way around, isn't it ?
Also when installing there 's an option at grub settings which says "order of hard disks: sda, sdb " and I cannot change that during installation. Is that the boot order set in bios ?
So I guess hdb from the installation is now hda ..I don't know anymore..
from the grub interpreter if I hit:
root (hd0,2)
filesystem type is unknown, partition type 0x83
if I hit:
setup (hd0) it says:
error 17: cannot mount selected partition

if I hit:
find /sbin/init it says:
(hd1,6)
find /boot/grub/stage1 :
(hd1,6)
find /boot/grub/stage2 :
(hd1,6)
find /boot/vmlinuz :
(hd1,6)
So it only sees my 10.1.
Can anyone tell me how to restore the grub from the grub interpreter ?