Hi

Thanks for staying with this one, and let me first say sorry for the delay, I could not get near my machine yesterday. Bad day... Plus I managed to trash my Linux installation while playing so I've had to re-install and update it again...

Okay, here is the ORIGINAL grub.conf file which is generated directly after the initial installation:


# 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 (hd2,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sde4
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sde1
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd2,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.23.1-42.fc8)
root (hd2,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.1-42.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.1-42.fc8.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd3,4)
chainloader +1


Kernel version is now 2.6.24.3-50.fc8 and was directly downloaded in rescue mode using yum update from what I assume is a fedora resource?

I have edited the above grub file several times to try and point root (hd 2,0) to various drives and partitions but I only get a successful boot if I leave it at (hd 2,0). Everything else results in partition not found error.

Just a note at this point, I DO get a splashimage when the Grub boot menu appears. This surely means that it is loading from the correct drive and the correct partition??? Does this mean that it is just the Kernel that can't find /root???

I have tried editing:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24.3-50.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
to:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24.3-50.fc8 ro root=/dev/sdb4 rhgb
(note: I also tried sde4 as well...)

Watching the boot messages I notice the following lines:

scsi 1:0:1:0: Direct Access ata Maxtor STM380125 3.aa PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 1:0:1:0 [sdb] 156301488 512 byte hardware sectors (80026 mb)
...

The booting continued but crashed out with the following lines:

Invalid partition table on /dev/mapper/nvidia_cajbgcah --wrong signature 10db
Trying to resume from label=swap-sde3
Unable to access resume device (label=swap-sde3)
Creating root device
Mounting root file system
Mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
Setting up other file system
Setting up new root fs
Setuproot: moving /dev failed: no such file or directory
No fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
Setuproot: error mounting /proc: no such file or directory
Setuproot: error mounting /sys: no such file or directory
Switching to new root and running init
Unmounting old /dev
Unmounting old /proc
Unmounting old /sys
Switchroot: mount failed: no such file or directory
Booting has failed.

During boot my linux drive has swapped from being /dev/sde4 to /dev/sdb4, which means that the bootloader is now looking at one of my unmounted raid drives when it is trying to access /dev/sde4.
(note the line with the error Invalid partition table on /dev/mapper/nvidia_cajbgcah --wrong signature 10db)

I also notice the line "trying to resume from label=swap-sde3". This won't work because as we already know sde3 is now the raid drive. sdb3 is now the swap drive but I can't get the bootloader to look at it.

I am really confused at the moment and, as I mentioned, I am now trying to get some nForce 4 Ultra drivers or similar, or to get the anaconda drivers to force-load in the hope that my drives will get mapped properly, hopefully resulting in a proper successful boot.

Do you think that if I downloaded the "live" version, and installed from that, I may get some success?

Regards
Stevie (Shadstar)

Ok,try this;
Insert Fedora 8 cd or dvd and reboot.At the prompt enter the following:
When you get to do "rescue screen" choose "continue" then press enter. If you get second "Rescue Screen" press enter to continue.

At the prompt enter the following:
Press "enter", then enter the following:
After this,if necessary type exit and press enter.For SCSI/SATA drives device is dev/sda.
If you have Windows,remember that grub must be installed on Windows partition.If that doesn't work,things will be clearer.

Well... that was interesting.

I just tried exactly what you suggested, booted using the dvd in rescue mode, chroot /mnt/sysimage. However... when I tried the grub re-install command that you asked me to type in, I got the following message:

grub-install does not support reprobing of device.map when using a device-mapper based boot device.

If it is any help I installed using a custom setup, that is to say I set up my own partitions manually at install time.

When I first tried this then I let anaconda set up virtual volumes on the free drive but I had the same problems on re-boot, which is why I set up my own partitions manually, because I thought the virtual partitions might be causing a problem.

I hope this helps... confused me even more...

Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

Did you tried to install grub on (hd3,4),without /boot as separate partition?Don't update kernel,try this first with default kernel,then with the newer.If it ain't working add this two lines to grub.conf; amp=off acpi=off and disable ACPI in bios too and try again.
In rescue mode did you tried grub-install --recheck /dev/sda?Was your /boot partition within first 1024 disk cylinders?What is your /dev/mapper directory showing?I know,lots of questions,but we must fix this.I'm thinking that this might be driver issue,we'll see.Maybe adding some modules to the kernel will be necessary.Also try this;search for dmraid with package manager,try to uninstall it and reboot.

Okay, here's the latest...

Yep, one of the first things I tried when it didn't work. I remember doing this for Suse a long time ago. Unfortunately it didn't work this time, I just got a black grub screen and no boot.

I just tried this but it made no difference. Which part of grub.conf do I put this into? Do I put it before the title sections or inside the Fedora title section?

Yes, sorry I should have said in my last post. I tried all of my drives from sde1 to sde4 and I tried putting in different partition numbers for each drive as well. The only one that would let me boot to Stage 2 was the original entry that was made during install.

Yep, I made sure that I formatted the drive partition as primary, made it active and made the /boot partition the first one on the disk.

Okay, this shows the following devices:
Control
nvidia_cajbgcah
nvidia_cajbgcahp1
nvidia_cajbgcahp5

Apologies, not sure how to do this from rescue mode...

Hope this helps. Thanks for staying with this.

Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

Hi all

Still working on this, but for any other newbies out there wondering how the boot process works try this link:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...nxw07LinuxBoot

Seems that my problem lies beyond stage 2 and at the initial Kernel Hardware Enumeration stage where it is, for some reason, not detecting my hardware in the same way as the installer. So I cannot boot to a full linux o/s and can only boot to the shell in rescue mode using the dvd.

Oh, nearly forgot, nVidia apparently DO support the nForce chipset (generically) and have built driver support into all of the latest popular distros, although they only list support for Fedora up to Core 5, I am on Core 8. Should be okay tho...

At this stage, unless anybody can come up with something, I am SO tempted to just go back to Suse and see what happens. The test install I did a few weeks back seemed to boot okay and somehow detected the hardware okay at boot-time.

Shame as I REALLY want to try out Fedora to see how it compares.

Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

I will try to find a solution to this problem.It's a little complicated since I don't have computer with specifications as you do,but as I am,I will not give up.
Regards,Steve!

Thanks alan, appreciate it.

I have got a couple of days off over the weekend and I have a small project to finish, but I am going to try putting a spare drive on the remaining sata connector, make it the second boot device and try installing to that.

I won't touch the bios configuration of the other drives, I just want to see how the Kernel detects the new drive (it should detect it before the ide drives if my theory is correct, and if it works the problem MAY lie with the ide/pata detection. But we shall see...

However, I won't get to that for a day or so, I will post the results.

Thanks for the support.
Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

Sorry guys, been away for a loooooonnggg time. Other commitments away from home. Just wrapping up for anybody else who stumbles across this thread.

I have just about given up on trying to get ANY flavour of Linux on this motherboard setup. I have tried both with and without Windows dual-boot and the results are exactly the same, the hardware is just too strange for the Linux boot-loader.

Whichever version I try, the Linux installer ALWAYS detects the sata channels before the ide channels and maps the drives with sata priority. Re-booting presents the drives back in bios order and knackers everything else up by presenting the ide drives first.

I could remove all of the sata drives and disable the sata channels, that would work, or I could disable ide and leave sata enabled, that would also work. But I would like to use ALL of the channels and with both controllers enabled things go rapidly down hill so I am not going to pursue it any further.

I cannot get Linux mobo drivers for my nForce 4 chipset for use at install time, it is too old so I am not going to bother, I am going to build up a seperate linux box and start again with new hardware, preferably something with just pure sata channels on it.

Thanks for all the previous help guys, very much appreciated.

Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

Hi Steve,it's nice to have you back here.I was hoping that you will post back.
Well one thing comes to my mind;why don't you try some other boot loader.One which I have used and it have been great for me is GAG.Install it from Linux and then whatever distro/OS you install install their boot loader on the root partition.
I will look into your problems that you've posted here one more time to see if I can come up with some solution.

Hi Alan, thanks for the reply

Minor update, the 80gb drive I was using died so I replaced it with a 120gb. Apart from that no other hardware changes.

I will have a look at gag before I finally give up on this, thanks for the link.

What I might also try is to install Fedora on the 120Gb drive and put the grub boot loader on the boot partition of the same drive. Then I boot linux into command line mode and transfer the boot loader to a floppy disk. This should allow me to configure the boot loader on the floppy without having to re-install Fedora every time.

I tried this last year when I was running Suse (similar problems but different motherboard) and it worked quite well. I was using the floppy to boot Suse, and I just removed it when I wanted to boot my Windows drive as normal.

Failing all of that I think I will give up and build a dedicated Linux box. Shame really as I really wanted to try out Fedora on this hardware. I was hoping to try out some video-editing stuff on the Linux platform.

I will let you know how I get on.

Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

Hi
Just a quick note, to keep in touch.

I have just tried gag and I think this may just get around my problem. Thanks for that suggestion. What a wonderful piece of software :-)

I haven't got things working yet, I need to re-install grub on the boot partition of the Linux drive. But this does look more promising, I'll start playing with this tomorrow.

Watch this space...

Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

And I still haven't!

Hi again

Okay, the latest installment hot off the press. GAG works beautifully. Again thank you for the link. I also installed the grub bootloader to the boot sector of the Linux drive so that I could point gag to it.

But... when I tell it to boot from my freshly installed Linux drive it complains that it can't find a valid boot sector on the Linux drive.(?)

I tested this out:
1 - Reboot Computer
2 - Enter the bios boot manager and choose to boot directly from the Linux drive
3 - Make a note to the Linux forums that I know this is not the answer, I am just using this as a test scenario to test the boot sector on the Linux drive ;-)

Successful boot to Grub stage 1.5. Then it complains with error 17 (cannot find disk).

Okay, I expected that BUT it proves the boot sector is reasonably valid and is installed onto the Linux drive.

Next, I booted into Linux Shell and made a Grub boot floppy (ext2 filesystem), copying /grub/boot Stage1, Stage2, menu.lst and device.map from my Linux drive to the /boot/grub directory on the floppy.
Next I used grub to make the floppy bootable.

Reboot computer using floppy disk (after putting my hard drive boot order back to normal again... I didn't forget :-)

Grub loads and boots beautifully from floppy and presents me with the menu I SHOULD have got from the Linux drive. Partial progress here...

Now, whichever o/s I choose to boot from at this point results in the old error 17. My hard drives are back in the correct order so I am thinking at this point that the old problem of incorrect drive allocation in the device.map file could be to blame... maybe...

I am assuming this because I have copied the original device.map and menu.lst files from the Linux install over to the boot floppy.

Any suggestions at this point? I am giving this one last serious effort before I give this up completely.

[edit] Sorry, almost forgot to mention, I was using a boot floppy on my last mobo when I was dual-booting Windows and Suse. Seemed to work just fine that time. [/edit]

Regards
Steve (ShadStar)

Hi

Good news...

I am posting this using Firefox which I am running from a completely successful hard-drive boot of Linux... well almost...

I was almost there with the boot floppy. All I had to do was find out which drive to point grub at... which in this case happened to be (HD3,0).

Strange really because when it was installing, the Linux drive was actually mapped as (HD4) not (HD3) which means that all of the grub mapping is to (HD4).

Edited the grub loader on the floppy, pointed it to hd3, presto! BOOTED! And it has booted from my hard drive install not from the Live cd.

This does not solve my original problem yet, because I am actually using a bootable floppy disk to point to the Linux drive and then boot from it. I have to now get this to work from my primary hard drive boot sector. I still have a bios/linux drive order mapping problem on re-boot.

As far as booting from hard drive, I am sure that it is just a matter of transferring Grub to the primary drive boot partition, adjusting the grub.conf file to point to the correct drive(s) and I should have solved it...

I haven't worked out which order the drives are mapped on re-boot yet, I will do this at the weekend when I have a bit more time.

For now I am just happy booting from a floppy, at least I can now get to use a decent operating system.

I'll wrap this up at the weekend, any further suggestions and encouragement at this stage most welcome.

Thanks to alan for staying with me on this, your encouragement has allowed me to see this one through. Much appreciated.

Regards
Steve (ShadStar) [happy]

Well,it looks like you are close to the solution.I will wait for your next post.
Please post the output of the fdisk -l when you boot with the floppy disk(I just want to check out something).