GRUB: Booting RH9 and Debian

Hey folks.

This should be an easy one... I googled the hell out of this issue and looked around here without any luck, but I'm sure this has been touched on before. Sorry for the redundant post, ahead of time.

I have a desktop running two hard drives. I installed Debian on the first one (a mix of Sarge and Sid with a custom kernel 2.4.21.030708) where hda1 is /boot, hda2 is swap, hda3 is /, and hda4 is /home. I installed RH9 on the second one (kernel 2.4.20-8) where hdb1 is /boot, hdb2 is /, hdb3 is swap, and hdb4 is /home.

I installed Debian first with no bootloader except on a bootdisk, and then I installed RH9 hoping that GRUB detect everything. I added "Debian GNU/Linux" where hda3 was selected partition to boot. However, when I choose Debian to boot at startup, I get the error:

Booting "Debian GNU/Linux" rootnoverify (hd1,2) chainloader +1 Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executible format.

If need be, I'll post the grub.conf file. I'm sure there is a simple solution, but I didn't want to monkey with it any more after I've gotten my desktop almost completely like I like it.

Thanks!

--GT

[Edit: Incorrect "hda" replaced with "hdb."]

post your grub.conf file....
and how can both drives be named hda?

in the grub.conf file you just need to specify two separate kernels that can be booted on the two separate drives (and the root fs on each)...

also, where is grub located, mbr or some other partition...

grub.conf should look like:

...
kernel (hd0,0)/bzImage root=/dev/hda3 ... other kernel args
kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb3 ... other kernel args
...

where hda = drive with debian, and hdb = drive with rh, and bzImage is the kernel you compiled and vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 is the kernel anaconda gave you in rh.

post your grub.conf file for more help

asc3ndant,

You were right. RH9 was on hdb--sorry for the confusion. Also, GRUB was installed on the MBR. Here is 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 (hd1,0) # kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb2 # initrd /initrd-version.img #boot=/dev/hda default=0 timeout=10 splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz password --md5 [omitted] title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8) root (hd1,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img title Debian GNU/Linux rootnoverify (hd1,2) chainloader +1

Thanks!

--GT

Hey folks:

I made the following changes to my bootloader after screwing around with it for a while and I managed to get Debian to boot. However, when I try apt-get update or apt-get install, all the sources "do something wicked," or something to that affect. I think I messed up my permissions somehow when Debian boots by omitting something in GRUB--but your guess is as good as mine. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm stumped.

--GT

# 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 (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
password --md5 [omitted]
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Debian GNU/Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21.030708

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