LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Grub 0.97 Boot issues from a different disk dual boot Debian / RHEL.

Hi there,
I have Vm with Debian 6.07 Installed on the first hard disk : /dev/sda which is a 40gb disk.

On the second disk which is a 16gb disk /dev/sdb, I have installed Redhat Enterprise Linux 6.1.

Code:

[root@maz01 ~]# fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 42.9 GB, 42949672960 bytes 

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5221 cylinders 

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes 

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes 

Disk identifier: 0x000a5254 



Device    Boot Start  End    Blocks        Id  System 



/dev/sda1 *    1      5004    40190976      83  Linux 

/dev/sda2      5004    5222    1748993      5    Extended 

/dev/sda5      5004    5222    1748992      82  Linux swap / Solaris Disk 





/dev/sdb: 17.2 GB, 17179869184 bytes 

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2088 cylinders 

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes 

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes 

Disk identifier: 0x0009cc30 



Device    Boot Start  End    Blocks        Id  System 



/dev/sdb1 *    1      26      204800        83    Linux 

Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. 

/dev/sdb2      26    1811    14336000      83    Linux

However now I can only boot my computer to Redhat 6.1 Linux and I cannot see Debian anywhere. This is becuase I installed the RHEL boot loader on /dev/sda which has overwritten the Debian boot loader GRUB. As RHEL is located on /dev/sdb.

Why did I do this? I am trying to learn and troubleshoot Grub 0.97. Why? Because it's still in use!

So I modified the GRUB from the Redhat Installation:

So I booted into the Redhat Installation:

Mounted the Debian disk:

Code:

[root@maz01 ~]# mkdir -p /mnt/debian 

[root@maz01 ~]# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/debian/ 



[root@maz01 ~]# cd /mnt/debian/boot/ 



[root@maz01 boot]# ll



total 13248 

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 106193 Feb 16 06:18  config-2.6.32-5-amd64 

drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Apr 26 12:27 grub 

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9325922 Apr 26 12:25 initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64 

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1667857 Feb 16 06:18 System.map-2.6.32-5-amd64 

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2426464 Feb 16 06:09 vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 



blkid /dev/sda1 : UUID="569b9100-e26f-4247-88c8-c8bf0dc318a0" TYPE="ext3"

got the details:

Now to edit the RHEL Grub Menu:

Code:

vim /boot/grub/menu.lst 



#boot=/dev/sda 

default=0 timeout=5 splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz 

        hiddenmenu title Red Hat Enterprise Linux (2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64) 

        root (hd1,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64 ro root=UUID=50b14f5b-18f7-4f5d-9309-71376cb95b2e rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet 

        initrd /initramfs-2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64.img 

        title Debian Linux                

        root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 ro root=569b9100-e26f-4247-88c8-c8bf0dc318a0 

        initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64

rebooted the machine.

Instead I get error 15: File not found Press any key to continue.

It's like GRUB is have an issue identifying the other disk.

Code:

cat /boot/grub/device.map

= I will paste the output when I get near the system again but this was fine.

I tried the "map" option in GRUB:

Code:

vim /boot/grub/menu.lst 



#boot=/dev/sda 

default=0 timeout=5 splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz 

        hiddenmenu title Red Hat Enterprise Linux (2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64) 

        root (hd1,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64 ro root=UUID=50b14f5b-18f7-4f5d-9309-71376cb95b2e rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet 

        initrd /initramfs-2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.x86_64.img 

        title Debian Linux 

        map (hd0)(hd1)

        map (hd1)(hd0)              

        root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 ro root=569b9100-e26f-4247-88c8-c8bf0dc318a0 

        initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64

Now I am aware, I could:

Update grub 0.97 to to Grub 1.99 and run the update-grub command which would launch the OS Prober script and discover the Debian Install and add it automatically into the GRUB Menu.

However I am trying to troubleshoot this issue from a Grub 0.97 perspective since RHEL and Centos still use it.

I did open a case with Redhat and there answer was:

"If there is any workaround to this issue, it will be out of our scope of coverage as this is an unsupported issue"

Has anyone came into this kind of scenario, where an older GRUB verison has installed over a newer GRUB and the installation of the OS's are on seperate disks and got it working?

Or is there anything obvious above I have missed?

Thanks