Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Discussion:

Patrick Connolly

2011-07-23 08:38:42 UTC

The partitions I've been using for the last year or so looks like
this:

# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 20G 7.9G 11G 43% /
/dev/sda1 97M 51M 42M 55% /boot
tmpfs 1007M 860K 1006M 1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2 49G 30G 17G 65% /home

There's more space on that disk which altogether looks like this:

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c4800

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 6387 51200000 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 6387 8937 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 8938 19457 84501900 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8938 9447 4096000 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 9448 11997 20481024 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 11997 19457 59922432 83 Linux

I tried for ages to get my head around grub2 and eventually gave up
trying to get any other installations to boot, however, I don't recall
seeing that message about Partition 1 until now.

I have a second disk which I've been unable to use. It looks like
this:

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00067f3c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 267 2040255 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 268 2561 18426555 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 2562 9729 57576960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 2562 5111 20482843+ 83 Linux

If I disconnect /dev/sdb, I can't get anything at all to boot. Could
that message about Partition have anything to do with that? I also
can't use sdb to boot when I disconnect the 160Gb disk. That could be
because of my incompetent tinkering with the menu.lst file while I was
trying to get grub2 to work.

I wish to move from Fedora 11 to Fedora 15 so I'd like to wipe that
sdb disk and install F15 there, but I hesitate to wipe sdb while sda
won't boot without it. If I could understand the connexion between
the error message and the partitioning I might be less reluctant. I
can't afford to lose access to Fedora 11 at this stage.

Just in case it makes a difference to anything, the 80 Gb disk is IDE
and the other is SATA.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)

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Glenn Enright

2011-07-23 09:23:28 UTC

Permalink

Possibly what has occured is bootloader is installed on sdb mbr, and
not on sda. What bootloader and version are you using at present (not
clear from your post)?

Post by Patrick Connolly
The partitions I've been using for the last year or so looks like
# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 20G 7.9G 11G 43% /
/dev/sda1 97M 51M 42M 55% /boot
tmpfs 1007M 860K 1006M 1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2 49G 30G 17G 65% /home
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c4800
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 6387 51200000 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 6387 8937 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 8938 19457 84501900 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8938 9447 4096000 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 9448 11997 20481024 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 11997 19457 59922432 83 Linux
I tried for ages to get my head around grub2 and eventually gave up
trying to get any other installations to boot, however, I don't recall
seeing that message about Partition 1 until now.
I have a second disk which I've been unable to use. It looks like
Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00067f3c
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 267 2040255 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 268 2561 18426555 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 2562 9729 57576960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 2562 5111 20482843+ 83 Linux
If I disconnect /dev/sdb, I can't get anything at all to boot. Could
that message about Partition have anything to do with that? I also
can't use sdb to boot when I disconnect the 160Gb disk. That could be
because of my incompetent tinkering with the menu.lst file while I was
trying to get grub2 to work.
I wish to move from Fedora 11 to Fedora 15 so I'd like to wipe that
sdb disk and install F15 there, but I hesitate to wipe sdb while sda
won't boot without it. If I could understand the connexion between
the error message and the partitioning I might be less reluctant. I
can't afford to lose access to Fedora 11 at this stage.
Just in case it makes a difference to anything, the 80 Gb disk is IDE
and the other is SATA.
Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)
_______________________________________________
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Patrick Connolly

2011-07-23 09:55:50 UTC

Permalink

Somewhere about Sat, 23-Jul-2011 at 08:38PM +1200 (give or take), Patrick Connolly wrote:

[...]

|> If I disconnect /dev/sdb, I can't get anything at all to boot. Could
|> that message about Partition have anything to do with that? I also
|> can't use sdb to boot when I disconnect the 160Gb disk. That could be
|> because of my incompetent tinkering with the menu.lst file while I was
|> trying to get grub2 to work.

On a more recent look (it was two years ago when I last tried), I
understand better why sda won't boot without sdb being present.

# this device map was generated by anaconda
(hd1) /dev/sda
(hd0) /dev/sdb

And the part of menu.lst that I think is operational is:

title Fedora (2.6.30.10-105.2.23.fc11.i686.PAE)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.30.10-105.2.23.fc11.i686.PAE ro root=UUID=6363cb42-ba7a-410e-9e9e-6768ebf3166a rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.30.10-105.2.23.fc11.i686.PAE.img

I had installed Fedora 13 but never got it bootable because I never
figured out how to configure grub2 and ended up making it convoluted
like that because it was the only way I could get Fedora 11 to
continue working. But it's getting too ancient and I have to get it
to work properly.

What I haven't been able to figure out is how to get hd0 to relate to
/dev/sda -- AND have a sensible grub2 file to read and then boot that
disk. If I could get that sussed, I could wipe the 80Gb disk and get
started.

I feel I'm on a hiding to nothing trying to get grub to play with
grub2.

TIA
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)

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Glenn Enright

2011-07-23 11:18:32 UTC

Permalink

So assuming you are running on your fc11 install on sdb? And that is
running grub1 (grub-legacy)

try something like the folloing as root...

Post by Patrick Connolly
root (hd1,0)

expect to see something about the /boot partition format here

Post by Patrick Connolly
setup (hd1)

expect to see a bunch of stuff about found grub components

Post by Patrick Connolly
quit

root@~: grub

That should install grub into the mbr of sdb1.

use fdisk to verify that sdb1 has the 'bootable' flag set

in the bios boot order make sure both disks are set as bootable

Before doing any of these actions make sure you have a finnix or
similar livecd available just in case.

If in any doubt and especially if downtime would be a problem,
consider attending a workshop from your local lug, eg
http://wlug.org.nz/MeetingTopics.2011-07-02

Post by Patrick Connolly
[...]
|> If I disconnect /dev/sdb, I can't get anything at all to boot. Could
|> that message about Partition have anything to do with that? I also
|> can't use sdb to boot when I disconnect the 160Gb disk. That could be
|> because of my incompetent tinkering with the menu.lst file while I was
|> trying to get grub2 to work.
On a more recent look (it was two years ago when I last tried), I
understand better why sda won't boot without sdb being present.
# this device map was generated by anaconda
(hd1) /dev/sda
(hd0) /dev/sdb
title Fedora (2.6.30.10-105.2.23.fc11.i686.PAE)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.30.10-105.2.23.fc11.i686.PAE ro root=UUID=6363cb42-ba7a-410e-9e9e-6768ebf3166a rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.30.10-105.2.23.fc11.i686.PAE.img
I had installed Fedora 13 but never got it bootable because I never
figured out how to configure grub2 and ended up making it convoluted
like that because it was the only way I could get Fedora 11 to
continue working. But it's getting too ancient and I have to get it
to work properly.
What I haven't been able to figure out is how to get hd0 to relate to
/dev/sda -- AND have a sensible grub2 file to read and then boot that
disk. If I could get that sussed, I could wipe the 80Gb disk and get
started.
I feel I'm on a hiding to nothing trying to get grub to play with
grub2.
TIA
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)
_______________________________________________
http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

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Patrick Connolly

2011-07-24 07:13:14 UTC

Permalink

Somewhere about Sat, 23-Jul-2011 at 11:18PM +1200 (give or take),
Glenn Enright wrote:

|> So assuming you are running on your fc11 install on sdb? And that is
|> running grub1 (grub-legacy)

fc11 install is on sda which is mapped to hd1.

|>
|> try something like the folloing as root...
|>
|> root@~: grub
|> > root (hd1,0)
|> expect to see something about the /boot partition format here
|> > setup (hd1)
|> expect to see a bunch of stuff about found grub components
|> > quit
|> root@~: grub
|>
|> That should install grub into the mbr of sdb1.

Given that fc11 root is on sda1 and the mapping, if I was to do
exactly as you suggest above, it would install grub into mbr of sda,
would it not? Those grub commands refer to grub-legacy as well as
grub2, do they?

# grub --version
grub (GNU GRUB 0.97)

What I've not been able to work out without a thorough studying of the
tutorial here http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub.html is what
happens to what files at what time? If disk sda is to run by itself,
it will have to be hd0,0 should it not? I guess so because that's
what it would be called when there's no other disk. But as the
machine is now, hd0,0 would refer to the other (sdb) disk because of
the mapping.

I'm curious about that mapping file. Judging by its timestamp, it
must have been when grub was installed. I can't see any way what I
need could happen automatically given that I intend changing the disk
layout afterwards. The only thing that makes sense to me is to change
hd1,0 to hd0,0 in menu.lst and remove/rename the /boot/grub/device.map
file. Would that work, or do we still have to do something about the
'... does not end on cylinder boundary' message? Does it constitute a
problem and if so, would those grub commands deal with it?

I'm still some way from understanding how it works. That tutorial is
slow going because the names used in Ubuntu are rather different from
what Fedora uses (if Fedora mentions the option at all). It was a bit
disconcerting to read that grub2 is still beta and it might just not
work. Maybe it's not just me being thick.

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c4800

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 6387 51200000 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 6387 8937 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 8938 19457 84501900 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8938 9447 4096000 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 9448 11997 20481024 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 11997 19457 59922432 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00067f3c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 267 2040255 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 268 2561 18426555 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 2562 9729 57576960 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 2562 5111 20482843+ 83 Linux

Thanks for the help so far and any other suggestions.

best
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)

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Ross

2011-07-24 08:14:05 UTC

Permalink

Post by Patrick Connolly
Somewhere about Sat, 23-Jul-2011 at 11:18PM +1200 (give or take),
|> So assuming you are running on your fc11 install on sdb? And that is
|> running grub1 (grub-legacy)
fc11 install is on sda which is mapped to hd1.
|>
|> try something like the folloing as root...
|>
|> > root (hd1,0)
|> expect to see something about the /boot partition format here
|> > setup (hd1)
|> expect to see a bunch of stuff about found grub components
|> > quit
|>
|> That should install grub into the mbr of sdb1.
Given that fc11 root is on sda1 and the mapping, if I was to do
exactly as you suggest above, it would install grub into mbr of sda,
would it not? Those grub commands refer to grub-legacy as well as
grub2, do they?
# grub --version
grub (GNU GRUB 0.97)
What I've not been able to work out without a thorough studying of the
tutorial here http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub.html is what
happens to what files at what time? If disk sda is to run by itself,
it will have to be hd0,0 should it not? I guess so because that's
what it would be called when there's no other disk. But as the
machine is now, hd0,0 would refer to the other (sdb) disk because of
the mapping.
I'm curious about that mapping file. Judging by its timestamp, it
must have been when grub was installed. I can't see any way what I
need could happen automatically given that I intend changing the disk
layout afterwards. The only thing that makes sense to me is to change
hd1,0 to hd0,0 in menu.lst and remove/rename the /boot/grub/device.map
file. Would that work, or do we still have to do something about the
'... does not end on cylinder boundary' message? Does it constitute a
problem and if so, would those grub commands deal with it?

Sorry if I missed something but did you try running "grub-install
--recheck /dev/device" to see if it corrects the device.map, or editing
the device.map to how you want then run "grub-install /dev/device"
again? Probably be good idea to backup your mbr before trying that though.

Post by Patrick Connolly
I'm still some way from understanding how it works. That tutorial is
slow going because the names used in Ubuntu are rather different from
what Fedora uses (if Fedora mentions the option at all). It was a bit
disconcerting to read that grub2 is still beta and it might just not
work. Maybe it's not just me being thick.

Grub 1 also still beta so I think no worse off in that respect.

HTH,
Ross.

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Patrick Connolly

2011-07-24 10:12:37 UTC

Permalink

Post by Ross

Post by Patrick Connolly
Somewhere about Sat, 23-Jul-2011 at 11:18PM +1200 (give or take),

[...]

Post by Ross

Post by Patrick Connolly
I'm curious about that mapping file. Judging by its timestamp, it
must have been when grub was installed. I can't see any way what I
need could happen automatically given that I intend changing the
disk layout afterwards. The only thing that makes sense to me is
to change hd1,0 to hd0,0 in menu.lst and remove/rename the
/boot/grub/device.map file. Would that work, or do we still have
to do something about the '... does not end on cylinder boundary'
message? Does it constitute a problem and if so, would those grub
commands deal with it?

Sorry if I missed something but did you try running "grub-install
--recheck /dev/device" to see if it corrects the device.map, or
editing

My apologies for not making my situation clearer. For how I'm using
it now, the device.map does what's required, so I'm not sure what it
would be like if it was "corrected". I'm a bit put off the idea by
this part of the man page for grub-install:

--recheck
probe a device map even if it already exists
This option is unreliable and its use is strongly discouraged.

Post by Ross
the device.map to how you want then run "grub-install /dev/device"
again? Probably be good idea to backup your mbr before trying that though.

I've never known how one does that. It's not a file in the normal
sense, or if it is, I don't know how it is referred to. Maybe if I
knew how to do that I'd be less reticent to try a few ideas. So
information on that would be greatly appreciated.

Assuming I know how to do that, as well as grub-install /dev/sda, I'd
still need to make the appropriate changes to menu.lst wouldn't I?

Any word on the message about the "Partition 1 does not end on
cylinder boundary"? From what I can discern, it could just mean part
of a cylinder isn't being used efficiently or it could even lead to
data corruption from overlapping partitions. Is it likely to have
anything to do with it?

Post by Ross

Grub 1 also still beta so I think no worse off in that respect.
HTH,
Ross.

It all helps. Thanks.
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)

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Ross

2011-07-24 20:47:48 UTC

Permalink

[...]

Post by Patrick Connolly

Post by Ross

Sorry if I missed something but did you try running "grub-install
--recheck /dev/device" to see if it corrects the device.map, or
editing

My apologies for not making my situation clearer. For how I'm using
it now, the device.map does what's required, so I'm not sure what it
would be like if it was "corrected". I'm a bit put off the idea by
--recheck
probe a device map even if it already exists
This option is unreliable and its use is strongly discouraged.

I often used to use --recheck as a easy way to get a device.map. I can't
see the problem with using --recheck as grub-install lists the
device.map used after writing the boot record so if it is incorrect is
simple enough to manually edit device.map to correct it then run
grub-install again with the correct map.

Post by Patrick Connolly

Post by Ross
the device.map to how you want then run "grub-install /dev/device"
again? Probably be good idea to backup your mbr before trying that though.

The MBR and partition is stored in the first sector of the first drive
(other drives also have boot record and partition tables but there is
only one master boot record and that must be on first drive (which is
where BIOS passes control to when POST is completed) and is not
accessible as a standard file. Use below to backup and restore:
dd if=/dev/sda of=filetosaveto bs=512 count=1
will write your MBR and partition table to a file. It can be restored
with dd if=filetosaveto of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

Post by Patrick Connolly
Assuming I know how to do that, as well as grub-install /dev/sda, I'd
still need to make the appropriate changes to menu.lst wouldn't I?

Yes, if the drive order as grub sees it changes you will need to update
menu.lst accordingly.

Post by Patrick Connolly
Any word on the message about the "Partition 1 does not end on
cylinder boundary"? From what I can discern, it could just mean part
of a cylinder isn't being used efficiently or it could even lead to
data corruption from overlapping partitions. Is it likely to have
anything to do with it?

This is a common message, apparently you can get rid of it by setting
fdisk to partition by cylinder instead of by size although I have not
tried this. I have around 40 partitions on my system and have found no
problems (yet ;) ) with those that show this message.

Although grub2 may not resolve your immediate problems I suggest that
putting a lot of effort into understanding the grub of the past may be
wasted effort in some respects. I think it may be more profitable for
you to instead put the effort into learning and understanding the grub
of the future. After all at some stage grub-legacy will disappear and
then you will have to learn grub2. That said I am happy to help you
where I can with either version of grub.

Cheers,
Ross.

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Patrick Connolly

2011-07-24 22:46:30 UTC

Permalink

Somewhere about Mon, 25-Jul-2011 at 08:47AM +1200 (give or take), Ross wrote:

[...]

Post by Ross
The MBR and partition is stored in the first sector of the first drive
(other drives also have boot record and partition tables but there is
only one master boot record and that must be on first drive (which is
where BIOS passes control to when POST is completed) and is not
dd if=/dev/sda of=filetosaveto bs=512 count=1
will write your MBR and partition table to a file. It can be restored
with dd if=filetosaveto of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

Thanks for that. I'd not come across it before.

[...]

Post by Ross
Although grub2 may not resolve your immediate problems I suggest
that putting a lot of effort into understanding the grub of the past
may be wasted effort in some respects. I think it may be more
profitable for you to instead put the effort into learning and
understanding the grub of the future. After all at some stage

I started reading this tutorial

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub-2.html

It refers readers to the earlier one for grub-legacy so that
principles are understood. It's only to that extent that I'm
interested in grub-legacy.

Post by Ross
grub-legacy will disappear and then you will have to learn
grub2. That said I am happy to help you where I can with either
version of grub.

That makes perfect sense.

What I'd really like to do is install F15 on the other half of the sda
disk. I'm reluctant to do so because I won't know how to make grub2
recognise the F11 installation. My previous experience over the last
ten years makes me suspect that the Fedora installation process will
be oblivious to anything other than a Windows installation, so I'll
have to get that sussed. I know Mepis does a good job of recognising
other Linux installations but Red Hat doesn't -- unless that's changed
recently.

Why I baulk with grub2 is because it is not possible to simply add
stanzas to the menu.lst file to describe other installations. I
understand that the idea in grub2 is to use separate scripts that are
in /etc/grub.d/. So, can I assume that what's in menu.lst can be
placed in files in that directory (suitably modifyied to count from 1
instead of 0)?

In any case, now that I know how to backup the MBR, I can try it.

Thanks for the help. I feel rather less ignorant.
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)

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Ross

2011-07-25 02:52:02 UTC

Permalink

On 25/07/11 10:46, Patrick Connolly wrote:
....

Post by Patrick Connolly
What I'd really like to do is install F15 on the other half of the sda
disk. I'm reluctant to do so because I won't know how to make grub2
recognise the F11 installation. My previous experience over the last
ten years makes me suspect that the Fedora installation process will
be oblivious to anything other than a Windows installation, so I'll
have to get that sussed. I know Mepis does a good job of recognising
other Linux installations but Red Hat doesn't -- unless that's changed
recently.

Just so I got it clear in my head, is FC11 installed on /dev/sda3? If so
what is installed on /dev/sdb1?
Fedora is configured to only detect newly installed fedora, windows, and
macos bootable partitions so you will need to add the fc11 install to
the grub menu, there is an option to add stanzas in the fedora installer
grub section. FC15 uses grub-legacy so you already know what to add to
add your fc11 to the menu.

Post by Patrick Connolly
Why I baulk with grub2 is because it is not possible to simply add
stanzas to the menu.lst file to describe other installations. I
understand that the idea in grub2 is to use separate scripts that are
in /etc/grub.d/. So, can I assume that what's in menu.lst can be
placed in files in that directory (suitably modifyied to count from 1
instead of 0)?

As FC15 still uses grub-legacy if you are going to install fc15 you will
not need to worry about grub2 at this stage. I believe FC15 installer
will set things up correctly, unlike the previous FC11 install, so you
are unlikely to experience the drive switching problem as long as you
are careful to set up the drive order consistently with how the rest of
your system (BIOS and other distros/OS installed) sees your drives.

Regards,
Ross.

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Patrick Connolly

2011-07-25 07:35:30 UTC

Permalink

Post by Ross
....

Just so I got it clear in my head, is FC11 installed on /dev/sda3? If so
what is installed on /dev/sdb1?

Fedora 8. I used it for a while after I installed F11. When I tried
to install F13, I ballsed up somewhere and couldn't get F11 to boot.
I made a kludge using the boot partition of /dev/sdb. Not pretty, I
know, but at least it worked.

Post by Ross
Fedora is configured to only detect newly installed fedora, windows,
and macos bootable partitions so you will need to add the fc11
install to the grub menu, there is an option to add stanzas in the
fedora installer grub section. FC15 uses grub-legacy so you already
know what to add to add your fc11 to the menu.

I've been barking up the wrong tree. Something gave me the impression
that F13 used grub2 which got me in a tizz. Now I look at the
directory names, it's clear I was mistaken. Even so, I thought grub2
would have got into F15 and it's something of a relief to know that
isn't the case.

[...]

Post by Ross
As FC15 still uses grub-legacy if you are going to install fc15 you
will not need to worry about grub2 at this stage. I believe FC15
installer will set things up correctly, unlike the previous FC11
install, so you are unlikely to experience the drive switching
problem as long as you are careful to set up the drive order
consistently with how the rest of your system (BIOS and other
distros/OS installed) sees your drives.

Thanks for that. It's sounding easier all the time.

best
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)

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Ross

2011-07-25 08:24:05 UTC

Permalink

Post by Patrick Connolly
Fedora 8. I used it for a while after I installed F11. When I tried
to install F13, I ballsed up somewhere and couldn't get F11 to boot.
I made a kludge using the boot partition of /dev/sdb. Not pretty, I
know, but at least it worked.

That will explain why you are unable to boot when sdb removed. There is
insufficient space in boot record for all of grub so some stages are
loaded from hard drive - if grub was installed from sdb then no sdb
means later stages of boot were missing.

Post by Patrick Connolly
Thanks for that. It's sounding easier all the time.

Let us know how it goes.

Cheers,
Ross.

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Patrick Connolly

2011-07-31 08:52:01 UTC

Permalink

Somewhere about Mon, 25-Jul-2011 at 08:24PM +1200 (give or take), Ross wrote:

|> On 25/07/11 19:35, Patrick Connolly wrote:
|>
|> >
|> >Fedora 8. I used it for a while after I installed F11. When I tried
|> >to install F13, I ballsed up somewhere and couldn't get F11 to boot.
|> >I made a kludge using the boot partition of /dev/sdb. Not pretty, I
|> >know, but at least it worked.
|> That will explain why you are unable to boot when sdb removed.

Yes. That was clear to me, but maybe I didn't make it clear that it
was something that I did understand. It was one of the messy bits I
wanted to tidy up.

|> There is insufficient space in boot record for all of grub so some
|> stages are loaded from hard drive - if grub was installed from sdb
|> then no sdb means later stages of boot were missing.
|>
|> >Thanks for that. It's sounding easier all the time.
|> Let us know how it goes.

Well, I got grub working fine, but Fedora 11 locked up half-way. It
got as far as recognising the DVD drive, then a few more messages....

protecting read-only kernal data;
mounting proc filesystem;
mounting sysfs filesystem

then was a message about creating /dev after which it locked up with
the last displayed message:

Creating initial device modes

That set me wondering all over again about the incomplete block
business. If the way around that was to use fdisk with blocks, it's
no use at this stage. So I'm still pretty ignorant.

At this stage, I've given up trying to get anything else to boot and
decided to get on with configureing Fedora 15 to use this computer
again. It's reminiscent of using Windows it's so flakey (at least KDE
4.6.3 is and I dislike Gnome) but I've got as far as getting sendmail
working.

I probably wouldn't have got that far without the help, so it's not
all bad.

best
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)

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Robin Sheat

2011-07-23 14:57:20 UTC

Permalink

Post by Patrick Connolly
On a more recent look (it was two years ago when I last tried), I
understand better why sda won't boot without sdb being present.

I wonder if your bios is starting from sdb, and that has the boot sector
installed on it. That would certainly explain why it won't boot without it.

Robin.