Earlier I got a grub 18 error, which seems to be some sort of BIOS error. According to some, it can often be resolved by creating a 32mb partition on ext2 (*NOT* Ext3)

What I have been unable to discover is what exactly is the grub 18 error and why does the 32mb partition help reslove the problem? Any input appreciated.

http://www.uruk.org/orig-grub/errors.html

Might just be that you don't have the right path to the kernel image...

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=122656

Thanks for the input. I probably should have mentioned that the 32mb partition did work, just uncertain why and how. Maybe I am wanting to know too much as a newbie.

You might read this thread which seems to suggest it is a bios problem of some sort and sort of infers why the 32MB partition works...

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=7051

Being new in Linux only in the last 20 months I am not privileged to run into Grub Error 18.

I believe it has to do with a very old mobo or a very old distro or Grub older than 0.91.

First of all I never use /boot in any of the 100+ system installed but in each case use a single partition for "/" so that /boot is always a subdirectory to it.

Secondly the version of Grub 0.91, 0.93, 0.94, 0.95, 0.96 and 0.97 all work happily just about anywhere in my 2 IDE 300Gb disk and the 2 Sata 200Gb disk.

I have Grub 0.96 booting Scientific Linux 4.0 at partition 60 at the end of a 300Gb hda and last past partition hdc57 is booted by Grub 0.97 provided by FC5.

As far as I am aware even Grub 0.91 can boot beyond 137Gb and so to deliberately create a /boot partition of 32Mb large to make Grub work is a total mystery to me.

As I can't offer any explanation I suggest you to make a bootable Grub floppy, descrided in Task A of the last link in my signature, and try it on your Linux. You can follow the Task A to check the geometry of your disk. To me that should show up any true disk problem. Using a bootable Grub floppy there is no Linux involved and you are dealing directly with Grub and get the truth from the horse's mouth.

Am suspecting the reason for the grub error is that I am using an older gateway2000 machine (P5-233). THis configuration has some builtin defect (still investigating) in BIOS.

If anyone could explain this to me, I would appreciate it.

There is nothing magical about 32Meg as the boot partition size - I suggested it as that is more than adequate in most cases.
Glad to see it worked.
The reason for ext2 is that the journal records in ext3 use too much space - simple maths.

The grub loader code checks if the BIOS can handle extended INT13 calls - if so it uses them, and so setups such as saikees works.
If not, such a setup will fall in a heap for anyone with an old BIOS.

Using a /boot partition at the start of the disk is just sensible insurance that always works regardless of the BIOS level.
I always do it because I have been around long enough to see the problem.

Any ideas if and how to put the 32mb partition in ext2 on fedora1? It loads, but wondering if what you and others suggested before might improve things a tad?