[Wolves] [Adam's failure to boot]

[Adam Sweet]

Ok I'm going to top post :)

The deal is my motherboard died and I bought another
(unresearched but it was a quick job). I have 3 PATA
disks, one has Windows (60GB), one has my Ubuntu
system except /home (30GB) and the other has /home
(160GB, 120GB used).

The Windows disk needs to be primary master, the /home
disk doesn't work on the SATA converter so has to go
on primary slave and as a result the Linux root disk
has to go on the SATA controller.

The BIOS can't boot from the SATA controller, stupid I
know. Linux can't boot while on the SATA controller, I
think because the via_sata module and it's
dependencies aren't in the kernel image or the initrd
image (don't know why not).

So:

--- David Goodwin <dg at clocksoft.com> wrote:

> You sure :
> 
> a) BIOS is set to boot from SCSI (put second option
> as hd0 just incase)

Can't do this as described above.

> b) GRUB/LILO is installed on the MBR (i.e. /dev/sda)
> of the disk.

Grub is on pretty much every MBR after my attempts :)

> c) The disk is plugged in etc (!)

Yeah, I can access them all from a live CD. Always a
good point though.

> If you're having problems ensuring grub is
> installed, boot off a live
> CD, mount your SATA disk (e.g. mount /dev/sda1
> /mnt/sda1), chroot to
> /mnt/sda1 (chroot /mnt/sda1), check the grub config
> (/boot/grub/menu.lst), and then try reinstalling
> grub (grub-install).

Done many times. I've had Windows on hda containing
containing grub. Windows boots fine, Linux stalls when
on SATA with a pivot_root error, can't find initrd no
such file etc. Linux boots fine when the disk is on
hda and the grub configuration is adjusted
accordingly.

I've had Windows on SATA with grub and fstab
configured accordingly but it stalls immediately after
selecting the Windows grub option, I get the 'booting
Windows blah blah chainloader' business and nothing
else.

> d) If it's Debian based, you may need to make sure
> the initrd image
> contains the relevant modules. If not edit
> /etc/modules, and re-run mkinitrd.

I think this is the issue. I'm running Ubuntu and
*really* don't want to break out of the packaged
kernels and initrds. I'll have to build my own kernel
and initrds for ever more.

> Notes:
> - 1) if using Grub, you can edit it's config at the
> boot splash selection screen (press 'e').
> - 2) Grub has tab completion.
> - 3) sometimes some distros (esp. Debian) put /boot
> on it's own little
> partition for no useful reason (all computers
> since the stone age can boot from large hard disks).
> 
> Slightly helpful, I hope. But probably not.

Thanks, any help (even unprompted for which you earn a
round of applause).

I've resolved to just swap the disks over every time I
need to swap operating systems. A pain in the ass, but
it's easier than trying to work out how to create an
initrd and then be tied to building a new one every
time a new kernel patch is issued ;) That is unless
you know otherwise.

Why oh why doesn't my system boot from the sata
controller and why isn't via_sata in the initrd? Maybe
one day I will know, but by then I will have a new
machine probably.

Thanks again Dave. Any suggestions welcome.

Ad

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http://blog.drinky.org.uk


		
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