W98/RH7.2/RH9/SuSE/Error 13.

I'm posting here because, while I've been in confusers (computers :-) over 25 years, I'm only moderately experienced in dickering with OSes and only middling experienced in Linux specifically. (And, I really can't find a clearly appropriate forum--no SuSE).

Long post, but I've seen longer. Ultimately this is about the above Error message, but there's considerable background.

"In the beginning was Windows." Specifically, 98SE. I partitioned & added Red Hat 7.2, including Grub. Now after BIOS POST, a Red Hat splash screen with sophisticated graphics and choices for "W98" and "Red Hat 7.2" appeared (Grub). Both OSes were bootable and continued to work.

I later partitioned further and added RH9. A new splash screen would appear now, with the RH logo but crude graphics, with choices for W98, RH7.2, and RH9. Incidentally, taking the 7.2 choice at this point brought up the earlier RH splash screen with its original two choices--W98 and 7.2-- which had obviously been moved.

I was also able to alter /etc/fstab, make various dir's in /mnt, and by various mounts see across partition boundaries--even bring Windows files into RH without sneakernet.

Again, all OSes booted and worked.

After Novell scarfed up SuSE, I thought SuSE worth investigating. I bought, partitioned further, and installed SuSE 9. I agreed to "reiserfs", figuring all the "Linuces" could read any Linux type filesystem, even if the previous RH Linuces were ext3.

YaST understood everything, all hardware, etc.--but in the bootloader install step, which had for the analogous steps under the RH's gone fine, said "error installing [bootloader]", the only error. A retry got the same message. I figured (1) it might be having trouble moving something from MBR to, say, SuSE's BR, and (2) I'd go ahead, being quite afraid of dickering too heavily with bootloaders & BR's of any stripe, and just see what came up. Maybe I could get SuSE to boot, even if I had to find the various config files, e.g. for Grub, and put an entry for SuSE in by hand.

At this point my memory is hazy. I did one time get to the "Installation ... Rescue ... safe ... [etc.]" SuSE screen, I believe from the installation CD. Ultimately, though, I imitated the grub entry for one of the RH's, in essence, "rootnoverify ..." and "chainloader +1" meaning don't try to mount this when you boot, if you do need it, go to the first sector of the partition (defined in the various partition entries) and read exactly one sector ("+1"), boot from there. It worked for RH (and Windoze), it might work for SuSE.

In the resulting entries from Grub (the crude-graphics RH splash screen), four choices: RH9, RH7.2, SuSE, and W98, all OSes, except SuSE, would again boot and work fine. However, every time I chose SuSE, I got the Grub entries (rootnoverify, chainloader) on screen then "Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format".

On LinuxQuestions or in Google I haven't found much about Error 13. It's not clear what it is. I've peeked at the SuSE partitions from RH partition(s) but not extensively. My first thoughts are "mixture of reiserfs & ext3" and/or something to do with error in boot install step. But what? Where to look for what? What is it complaining about? Error messages are notoriously uninformative.

FYI, partitioning has been via Partition Magic, worth its weight in gold, recommended by Scott Mueller. Except for repartitioning from SuSE install, when I had gotten comfortable with it.

Note that the RH's work, despite some being in logical/extended partitions, and being above the 1024 cylinders "limit." I think. Windoze needs a primary; Linux is supposed to work most anywhere.

***** Disk setups (fields line up fine in original, spacing destroyed in post preview):
[root@localhost root]# fdisk -l > fdiskl9b
[root@localhost root]# more fdiskl9b

Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30020272128 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3649 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1275 10241406 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 1276 1281 48195 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 1282 2491 9719325 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 2492 3649 9301635 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2492 2530 313236 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda6 2531 2540 80293+ 83 Linux [SuSE boot]
/dev/hda7 2541 3649 8908011 83 Linux [SuSE root]

Disk /dev/hdb: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1353 7476 49191030 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb2 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux [RH9 boot]
/dev/hdb3 14 1352 10755517+ 83 Linux [RH9 root]
/dev/hdb5 1353 1362 80293+ 83 Linux [future
Mandrk.]
/dev/hdb6 1363 2510 9221278+ 83 Linux [future
Mandrk.]
/dev/hdb7 2511 3785 10241406 83 Linux ["common"]
/dev/hdb8 6136 6201 530113+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hdb9 6202 7476 10241406 b Win95 FAT32

Partition table entries are not in disk order

***** Boot/grub entries:
[root@localhost root]# ls -l /boot/grub/grub.conf
-rw------- 1 root root 770 Dec 16 18:55 /boot/grub/grub.conf
[root@localhost root]# more /boot/grub/grub.conf
# 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 (hd1,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb3
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=15
splashimage=(hd1,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#psswd --xxx [pwd]/
title Red Hat Linux 9 (2.4.20-6)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-6 ro root=LABEL=/1 hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-6.img
title Red Hat Lx 7.2
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
title SuSE Lx 9
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
chainloader +1
title W98 DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
[root@localhost root]#

I am not concerned (yet) with the partition number under "SuSE Lx 9":
(1) It is readily changed;
(2) In fact, I tried everything from 3 to 6, maybe even 7;
(3) #2 supposedly covers the fact that the first extended/logical partition is counted as (hdx,_4_), although then it's not clear whether the first logical therein is 4 or 5. It looks like: 5.

In order for chainloading to work you must have GRUB installed in the bootsector of your Suse /boot partition, which apparently failed to install for some reason. It looks like you chose to install grub into the partition bootsector in RH7.2, but for RH9 you installed it in the MBR, which is why you're able to chainload GRUB installed with RH7.2.

You actually have few options of how you wanna do this, the first option, the one I recommend, is just use the RH9 GRUB, which is already in the MBR, to load the kernel of other linux installation directly. You can either keep all your kernels in one central /boot or you can have them in their own /boot.
Therefore, for example instead of chainloading RH7.2 GRUB you can have something like this to load it directly:
The same applies for Suse or any distros you plan to install in the future. You only ever need one copy of GRUB.

The second option would be what you were planning to do before, installing grub into the bootsector of the Suse partition then chainload it. To install it first mount your Suse /boot partition from redhat and see if the boot files are installed correctly, you should have your kernel(vmlinuz-whatever), initrd, and a grub directory containing various stage files and a menu.lst, if not you can copy the ones off your redhat /boot and modify grub.conf file. AFAIK grub in Suse uses menu.lst, but in Redhat its grub.conf, because we're going to install grub in RH9, be sure that grub.conf exists, make a symlink to menu.lst if it doesn't. Now in order to install grub first invoke the 'grub' command, which will take you into grub shell. Then
you should see it identified as ReiserFS/Ext2/3/Whatever, and lastly
which will install it to (hd0,5), if everything goes fine you now should be able to load Suse(which is a very nice distro IMO).

I'm going to label this one SOLVED; thanks so much, Demonbane. I started to use your first option, thought I'd be losing parts of the SuSE menu (erroneously I think), and went with the second option. In any case, I've done email and other things over the net in SuSE. SuSE has many good things about it (and some considerable annoyances I haven't found an answer to--yet?), but things are working now. It tickles "my little black heart" to see SuSE come up on the screen.

Next for the PC: Mandrake 9.x and, for Linus' old Sinclair QL (see the recent WIRED article), QPC, QL emulator!

DGL/tuxisnottux/GNUisnotUNIX

Demonbane or whomever,
This time Mandrake (9) won't boot. Again, all other systems at last check booted & worked (RH9, RH7.2, SuSE9, Win98). I have as best I can tried both your options above: Put exact kernel specs in RH9 boot, or chainload using grup - root - setup (Option Two). No matter how I alter the RH9 grub.conf Mandrake entry, or make & alter a Mandrake /boot/grub/menu.lst (in RH9, /mnt/mk9bt/grub/ ... ) I always get "Error 15: File not found." grub at least claims it is looking for, and failing to find, /boot/grub/stage1 (relative to (hd1,5)), even though repeated "ls -l" show it to be there. Selecting "Mandrake" from the main/RH9 grub menu gets the "Error 15 ...". I've been banging away on Mandrake since this afternoon. Not embodying its "friendly" reputation :-) :-( .

fdisk: <<<<<<<<<<
Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30020272128 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3649 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1275 10241406 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 1276 1281 48195 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 1282 2491 9719325 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 2492 3649 9301635 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2492 2530 313236 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda6 2531 2540 80293+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 2541 3649 8908011 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1353 7476 49191030 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb2 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 14 1352 10755517+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb5 1353 1362 80293+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb6 1363 2510 9221278+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb7 2511 3785 10241406 83 Linux
/dev/hdb8 6136 6201 530113+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hdb9 6202 7476 10241406 b Win95 FAT32

/etc/fstab: <<<<<<<<<<
LABEL=/1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot1 /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/hdd4 /mnt/zip auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win vfat noauto 0 0
/dev/hda3 /mnt/rt7.2 ext3 noauto 0 0
/dev/hda6 /mnt/su9bt auto noauto 0 0
/dev/hda7 /mnt/su9rt auto noauto 0 0
/dev/hdb5 /mnt/mk9bt auto noauto 0 0
/dev/hdb6 /mnt/mk9rt auto noauto 0 0
/dev/hdb7 /mnt/lxcomm auto noauto 0 0
/dev/hdb9 /mnt/winusrdat vfat noauto 0 0

grub.conf: <<<<<<<<<<
# 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 (hd1,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb3
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=15
splashimage=(hd1,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#psswd --md5 $1$2mmuLNi3$0cjav7Nn9sctUwNfx032Q/
title Red Hat Linux 9 (2.4.20-6)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-6 ro root=LABEL=/1 hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-6.img
title Red Hat Lx 7.2
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
title SuSE Lx 9
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader +1
title Mandrake Lx 9
rootnoverify (hd1,5)
chainloader +1
# kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk ro root=/dev/hdb6 hdc=ide-scsi
# initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img
title W98 DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

grub output from Option Two: <<<<<<<<<<
grub> root (hd1,5)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd1,5)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no

Error 15: File not found

grub>

Besides the "Error 15"/"file not found" in the immediately preceding post, it is interesting to note that Mandrake installation made dim mention of Lilo, and made an /etc/lilo.conf in the Mandrake root partition. I know of nothing in the boot process that directs anything to lilo or lilo.conf. For that matter, I don't know how it would be done or if that would solve the "Error 15 file not found" problem and get Mandrake booting.

There's a configuration parameter(s) incorrect somewhere. We are left with the "file not found" mystery, how or if to bring in lilo (booting starts from RH9/grub, I understand) and in general how to get Mandrake booting.

try root (hd1,4)
or (hd1,4)/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk ro root=/dev/hdb6 hdc=ide-scsi

Demonbane,
Worked--thanks so much. I had discounted this possibility thinking "SuSE is first logical within first extended on physical disk 0, and Mandrake is first logical within first extended on physical disk 1, so both must be (hdx,5), since SuSE = (hd0,5) works." Maybe I just counted something wrong.

Mandrake boots anyway. There are annoyances again, at first blush. There is no entry in the various menus for "internet" as in other distros. Su - root gets a root directory with two entries, drakx and tmp--even though going through menus shows root having dozens of directories and files. It will not reboot: repeated clicks & it just goes to another screen, "OK" just sits. I finally had to halt the whole system.

Perhaps I can find all this. At least it boots now. If you care to take any time for a experienced- confuser-user-but-semi-Linux-newbie on the above, please do, but I won't expect it; this may be the point at which I'm to find things on my own.

Again: next up for systems on the PC: QDOS (Sinclair QL/Linus, not Micro$oft QDOS!).

Thanks again,
tuxisnottux/DGL RH9 / RH7.2 / SuSE 9 / Mandrake 9 / Windoze