I wouldn't have thought you need to alter the /boot/grub/menu.lst. The vmlinuz is fairly standard but mine is a i386 version stored in "/" and not "/boot".

OK I suggest you replicate the Grub boot loader again as follow.

Boot up Knoppix, click terminal
If the same error happens again then please let us have the content of the screen when you do
so that every partition in every disk as known to the Linux is available.

Ok, Sajkee, I tried the code you gave me from the command terminal. It said every thing was succesful, but after reboot I still got Error 17. Here's my terminal output for fdisk -l

Hope that helps! Thanks again.

And as requested earlier here is the contents of /etc/fstab
Sorry about the delay on getting this posted, I'm quickly learning how to follow directions

Can you also post the Kubuntu's /boot/grub/device.map here?

Has the partition hda1 been formatted yet?

I've re-read all the postings on this thread and couldn't figure out where exactly you'd installed GRUB ! To the MBR of hda or hdb ?
I don't understand why is that you have installed entire linux system on hdb1 and want to use hda1 just for storage purposes ! Assuming you installed GRUB on hda, why can't you swap these drives either through BIOS settings or by means of jumper settings on your disk drives and make that 30GB as master and 80GB as slave ? This would solve the problems of installing GRUB on the first drive and linux system on the second and trying to boot it off from there ! Having linux on the second drive and GRUB on the first drive doesn't always work. I myself am having this problem and trying to find a work around.
Now could you swap these drives and make 30GB as the master and 80GB as the slave ? Then, install grub on the master i.e. 30 GB drive where you have installed linux system ?
Let me mention this : When you swap the two drives 30GB will become the master and thus would be named hda and 80 GB would become the slave i.e. hdb !! You will have to modify your menu.lst and /etc/fstab (and, possibly device.map) to reflect these changes and then install grub on the MBR of hda.
Tell me if this works.

kevkim55

There is no technical difficulty of putting Grub in the first bootable disk to boot any other disk.

It is also entirely logical too to install a Linux in a single partition.

I run 103 systems. 95 of them are Linux and every one is in a partition of its own. They spread over 4 disks and booted by one Grub. You are welcome to check it out in this thread

Penguin wonder may be confused with the booting order and that is why I asked to see /boot/grub/device.map as that is the definitive disk order as seen by Grub during installation. As far as the thread information goes the 80Gb disk is the master unless we have been misinformed.

saikee,
I know it is possible to install linux on any hard disk you like and boot it off from grub installed from any other hard disk as long as you can get grub loaded properly and grub inturn can mount the root partition. What I'm trying to say is that it is not always successful. I mentioned about my problem which I'm facing this very moment. I've linux installed on an external Maxtor drive connected thru' Firewire and installed grub to a small partition on internal hard disk. I can't get grub up and running after having tried several methods. I've been using linux since 1997 and have installed and used various distros with various configs. Yet, I can't figure out why I can't boot into grub. I have reached to a conclusion that itz to do with some changes in the recenet version grub itself or otherwise..

I've suggested simple config to Penguin_Of_Wonder. Ofcourse, he could try the current config if he likes to. My suggestion would prove to work even when Penguin_Of_Wonder removes the 80GB hard disk.

Otherwise, Penguin_Of_Wonder is free to try any config he likes...

kevkim55

I haven't dug deep into external drives but I believe the external disks, either via a firewire or USB, are too slow to react with modern kernels and need a special treatment in booting.

Bearing in mind Grub is just a boot loader and as such it should not be able to recognise an external hard drive. Thus a kernel must be loaded first, detect the existence of an external drive, provide the driver and then a communication can be made.

Therefore I am not convinced that we should hold Grub responsible because Grub's duty is just to load the kernel and hand over the control. It has no part to play regarding the external drives which every system needs a driver of some sort up front in order to recognise or use it.

I have not yet come across a Linux that booted by Grub independently from an external hard drive.

Not try to argue with you, just to learn something from it if you have your own view.

saikee,
I'm not trying to argue either. I think we drifting away, rather than to solve Penguin_Of_Wonder's problem we are trying to introduce another problem (mine !!) thus starting a child thread ! ;-)

I would go ahead anyway and discuss my problem. Maybe, you might shed some light on it. I can boot grub and thus my linux installed on external drive. After all, thatz what I've been doing for the past 3 years. If I connect it thru' USB interface, my BIOS can detect it and lists as one of available disks and GRUB inturn can access it and boot off it ! If connected via ieee1394, goes un-detected as my BIOS is not capable of ieee1394 boot support. Thatz why I've got a small partition on my internal hdd which holds kernel, initrd and grub folder, I mean whatever is needed to boot a kernel. I want to have grub installed on the boot sector of this partition and thus not on the MBR. Now using ntldr I can't get grub up. I installed lilo on this partition and saved the contents of it to file and then installed grub on it so, I can use the saved lilo image to chainload grub. Didn't work. I would like to make one thing clear though, it is very necessary that, I use grub to load linux and my MBR contains that windoz code. Reason - I've this cd player which is capable of playing music from hdd, usb, cd, sd card without actually booting into windoz. For it to work MBR must contain the code installed by windoz. Why I need grub ? I want to use the xen virtualization and pass custom parameters which I think is not possible by lilo.
What you suggest >

I think penguin wonder booting problem is nearly over.

This thread documents that Grub can be put into a floppy, in MBR, in small partitions (15 of them but not all used) on its own.

Therefore I think if you have a need of Grub you can put it in a tiny logical partition to boot whatever you want. You can then amend NTldr to boot to this ting partition to pass the control to Grub. Thereafter the Grub can the tasks you have in mind. In the above link the Grub's menu.lst was stored in hdc49, which can be activated by a Grub floppy without bothering with the MBR.

I building up my systems I seldom used the MBR and left a floppy permanently in the drive. You can do the same and can have the Grub floppy burn into a CD too for laptop application.
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ALso there is a free software call Grub4Dos which allows you to boot up a Grub within a Dos partition. You can use it to travel around all the Dos partitions without a reboot. You can of course put Grub inside any Dos-based partition like Win98.
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I have not tried out much Grub in an external hard disk much but the initial tests showed the response is too slow for Grub to react to the system boot up.

I would imagine Grub as a 5-star generaly about to attack an enemy bridge head with planes, tanks and army on booting up a system. In the case of an internal hard disk, Grub found its convoy of ammunition supply trucks delayed and 50 miles behind and so the attack has to be called off.

Thus I don't have an idea how to use Grub in the standard form on a hard disk and only know the kernel, initrd and a few items have to be stored with an internal disk just to boot a Linux in an externel drive.

The only distro I know that can be installed into an external hard disk is Puppy 1.0.6. It uses sysliunux, a Dod-based program, as the boot loader. The operation looks like a guy selling hot dogs at a store at a street corner because on completion all the files are neatly collected, compressed and put inside a couple of folders leaving no sign of a system there. When Puppy is installed into a hard disk Grub is its boot loader. Therefore I think there is some technical difficulties to be overcome before we can send the poor Grub to attack the bridge head again.

Since you have been booting a firewire device for a few years you may be familar with this article. I have yet to give it a try.

Ok here is Kubuntu's /boot/gurb/device.map

Its not exciting I know, but there it is .

Yes i'm aware my that my 80gig drive is set as master. When I built the computer I put it that way on purpose. I didn't expect to be using the smaller one as my main drive. Thats why its set the way it is. If someone really thinks it will make a difference I guess I could switch them? If thats what it comes down to though, it would be really disapointing that Linux and/or GRUB can't work with multiple HDDs like this.

EDIT: Finally, Yes all the drives and partitions were formatted upon install. After the install, that technically hasn't finsihed, they haven't been touched.

OK This is a tough one as the (hdb) is your 2nd bootable disk so everything is in order. Just to show you what I have been checking. Here is the menu.lst of my Kubuntu Dapper. It is a i386 version You may wonder if you got the last two lines missing but I can confirm that those are optional and the omissions are not the cause of the problem. My current assessment is that your partition (hd1,0) or hdb1 is good and there should be no problem with Grub, as Knoppix can mount it and you can do a setup with Grub too. I am going to ask you to bottom this out and you need a tool - a bootable Grub floppy. Please refer to the Section C3.1 and Q5 to Q8 in the link I mention in post #21. It is only 2 lines of "dd" commands and the required stage1 and stage2 should be available from Knoppix. I know V4 has it so please check. This floppy can boot any system in a PC. I have not met one that cannot be booted by it. After you have made one boot it up and you get a Grub prompt. You then enter these 4 lines exactly as stated in your menu.lst You will get a response from Grub after enter each line. Therefore if the Grub error 17 shows up it would be the last line you type. I don't have a solution for you but the manual boot can at least show up the exact spot where Grub fails. Grub 17 =Grub can't mount the required partition but there are only 2 references in the menu.lst. One is (hd1,0) in line 1 and the other is hdb1 in line 2, both have withstood our tests. It is quite common that Grub may fail at a high memory position and boots ok at low memory position but Kubuntu should work satisfactorily under 137Gb barrier. The other possibility is you may hit a bug in the AMD64 version. In any case I suggest you to try it as it is quite exciting to boot a system manually. You have pin Grub down at a corner now.

If you have problem with wording the menu.lst type this at Grub prompt to bring up a copy. Only the lines with # are relevant.

When I created the partitions could it possiable that I've selected one as "Primary" instead of "Locigal" or vice versa and that's the problem? If that could possiable be it, then which sections should be listed as logical as opposed to primary?

Absolutely no problem in Linux as it can be booted from any of the two.

The first 4 are reserved for Primaries. You must give up one primary to turn it into an extended partition inside which you can have partition as high as 63.

My hda gas 60 partitions so no need to worry.