THIS ISSUE IS SOLVED. SEE SOLUTION IN POST THAT FOLLOWS.
I've copied a Fedora 9 installation onto a RAID 1 on my Dell Vostro 220 desktop. There are three hard drives on my system: the two internal drives that make up the RAID 1, and one USB drive. I'm able to boot into the RAID by loading the kernel and initial ram disk image from a partition on the external drive but can't boot into the RAID by loading them from a partition on one of the RAID disks (Grub tells me "Error 15: File not found"). I'm using legacy grub (GNU GRUB 0.97). As far as I can tell, the problem is that grub is unable to see the files on the partitions that hold /boot on the RAID 1.
Here's some information on the two internal drives and how their partitions are set up.
/etc/fstab:
Code:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
#with uuids it doesn't mount at boot. So use device names instead.
/dev/md1 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 1 1 #/dev/md1
/dev/md0 /boot ext3 defaults 1 1 #/dev/md0
/dev/md7 /home ext3 defaults 1 1 #/dev/md7
/dev/md5 /opt ext3 defaults 1 1 #/dev/md5
/dev/md3 /tmp ext3 defaults 1 1 #/dev/md3
/dev/md2 /usr ext3 defaults 1 1 #/dev/md2
/dev/md4 /var ext3 defaults 1 1 #/dev/md4
/dev/md6 swap swap defaults 0 0
When successfully booted into the internal array,
cat /proc/mdstat says:
Code:
Personalities : [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md7 : active raid1 sda11[0] sdb11[1]
223640768 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md5 : active raid1 sda9[0] sdb9[1]
3100416 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md4 : active raid1 sda8[0] sdb8[1]
3100416 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md3 : active raid1 sda7[0] sdb7[1]
2096384 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md2 : active raid1 sda6[0] sdb6[1]
8707072 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md0 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
104320 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md6 : active raid1 sda10[0] sdb10[1]
2819264 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md1 : active raid1 sda5[0] sdb5[1]
513984 blocks [2/2] [UU]
unused devices: <none>
When successfully booted into the internal array,
ls /boot/ says:
Code:
$ ls /boot/
config-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 initrd-2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686.img System.map-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686
config-2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img System.map-2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686
efi initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img_old vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686
grub initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img_old2 vmlinuz-2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686
initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img lost+found
and
ls /boot/grub says:
Code:
$ ls /boot/grub
device.map grub.conf~ reiserfs_stage1_5 vstafs_stage1_5
e2fs_stage1_5 iso9660_stage1_5 splash.xpm.gz xfs_stage1_5
fat_stage1_5 jfs_stage1_5 stage1
ffs_stage1_5 menu.lst stage2
grub.conf minix_stage1_5 ufs2_stage1_5
Now the problem occurs when I try to boot into the array using initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img and vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686
I have identical copies of these two files on /boot/ in the USB drive. I expect to be able to load them either from the internal drives or from the USB drive.
The entire Linux installation on the USB drive is on the 5th partition (starting from 1), i.e. if you are booted into that drive then / (and everything else) is on /dev/sda5.
My /boot/grub/menu.lst on the internal array looks like the following:
Code:
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd2,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Boot into local drive while loading from external drive
root (hd2,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=/dev/md1 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
title Boot into external drive while loading from external drive
root (hd2,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=c9f1edad-0ed4-4e02-9dec-8cc300f46415 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
title Boot into local drive while loading from local drive
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=/dev/md1 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
title Boot into local drive while loading from local drive
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=/dev/md1 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
Note that when I load the splash image, kernel and initial ram disk image from the USB drive, I'm doing so after telling the BIOS to boot into one of the internal drives, and the commands to load those files are being read from the /boot/grub/menu.lst that's located on that internal drive.
The splash image exists in /boot/grub/ on both the array and the USB drive. So I'd expect the splash image to show up if I use either
splashimage=(hd2,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz or
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz or
splashimage=(hd1,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
However, if I use
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz or
splashimage=(hd1,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
then it doesn't display the splash image.
If I use
splashimage=(hd2,4)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
then it does display the splash image.
I've tried using lots of different (hdx,y) with x being 0 or 1 and y varying from 0 to 10.
So from this it seems to me that for some reason grub isn't able to read what's on the /boot partitions of the RAID pair of disks, even though there's no problem reading /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Now something else possibly related.
If I run grub while booted into the array and do setup (hd0) then it tells me that /boot/grub/stage1 does not exist but /grub/stage1 does:
Code:
root-prompt# grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename.]
grub> root (hd0,1)
root (hd0,1)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd
grub> setup (hd0)
setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 23 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+23 p (hd0,1)/grub/stage2 /grub/grub.conf"... succeeded
Done.
grub> quit
quit
This is not what I would have expected from what
ls is telling me about the existence of those files, and from reading what's here:
http://www.texsoft.it/index.php?c=ha...grubraid1&l=it (under the title "Enabling boot from both disks").
Now something else possibly related. If I use the "find" command from within grub (again while booted into the array), then it finds the kernel located at (hd2,4) but does not find the ones located on the array.
First with the USB drive plugged in:
Code:
# grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename.]
grub> find /boot/initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
find /boot/initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
(hd2,4)
grub>
Now unplug the USB drive:
Code:
# grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename.]
grub> find /boot/initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
find /boot/initrd-new-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
Error 15: File not found
grub>
By the way, I have some proprietary hardware that only has binary drivers for very specific kernels, so that's why I'm using an old kernel that came with Fedora 9. I mention that in case anyone's wondering why I'd be setting up a system with Fedora 9 and an old kernel.
