Mailing List Archive

On Tuesday 12 October 2004 05:23, Mike Diehl (Encrypted email preferred)
wrote:

> I booted the gentoo install cd.
>
> Once in Linux, I ran ran fdisk and made /hda1 active.
> then I ran grub:
> root (hd0,0)
> setup (hd0)
> quit
>
> But when I configure my bios to boot from hda, it just hangs with the
> message: Updating DMI information....
>
> So, the question is: How do I get this new hda to boot?
>
> Thanx in advance.

Did you set the /boot partition (hda1) to be bootable?

fdisk /dev/hda
a
1
w

Should do it.

--
Mike Williams

Mike Diehl (Encrypted email preferred) wrote:

> But when I configure my bios to boot from hda, it just hangs with the message:
> Updating DMI information....

what's your partition layout of all the drives in your computer?

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

I had a problem building a SATA machine last year that sounded
somewhat like this. The drive was (hd0,0) to grub, but was /dev/hde1
at boot time. With no other hard drives in the system grub skips the
IDE channels, but the way I built the kernel the boot process looks
for hda-hdd, cannot find them, and then tries the SATA controller
finding hde. With my meager skills that one took a day or two to
figure out.


On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:51:31 -0400, Billy <billy@gonoph.net> wrote:
> Mike Diehl (Encrypted email preferred) wrote:
>
> > But when I configure my bios to boot from hda, it just hangs with the message:
> > Updating DMI information....
>
> what's your partition layout of all the drives in your computer?
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I've gotten a few replies about this asking for more information, so here
goes.

I forgot to mention that I did attempt to make the new hda1 partition
bootable.
fdisk /dev/hda
a
w
q

Also, I got a question about the drive partition layout:

The original hda had a standard layout:
hda1 100Mb /boot
hda2 512Mb swap
hda3 rest of drive /

When I installed the hdb drive, I copied the layout. Then I copied the
contents of hda1 to hdb1, hda3 to hdb3 and did a mkswap on hdb2.

Then I modified grub.conf so that grub would still boot off of hda1 (using
kernel images on hdb1), but I'd run and swap on hdb3 and hdb2, respectively.
At this point, the only reason to have hda installed, is for the bootloader,
which I'm trying to install on hdb.

Hdb1 has all of the stage files that grub wants.

So, I moved the hdb drive into the hda position and booted the install CD.
Once the system was booted, I tried to install grub onto (hd0,0).

At this point, I think the system should boot on the new hda drive, but it
doesn't.

What am I missing?

TIA.

On Monday 11 October 2004 10:23 pm, Mike Diehl (Encrypted email preferred)
wrote:
> Well, I tried it again without success.
>
> I'm trying to install a new 250Gb drive as hdb, while promoting the current
> hdb to be the new hda.
>
> That is:
>
> I'm retiring the current hda; it's a 6Gb drive that is too old to rely on.
> I'm moving the current hdb into the hda position and intend to boot and
> root off of it.
> The new 250Gb drive will be the hdb.
> I don't usually have a cdrom on this system.
> Hdc and hdd don't change.
>
> So, I removed the old hda, moved the old hdb into the hda position and
> installed a cdrom as hdb.
>
> I booted the gentoo install cd.
>
> Once in Linux, I ran ran fdisk and made /hda1 active.
> then I ran grub:
> root (hd0,0)
> setup (hd0)
> quit
>
> But when I configure my bios to boot from hda, it just hangs with the
> message: Updating DMI information....
>
> So, the question is: How do I get this new hda to boot?
>
> Thanx in advance.

- --
Mike
gpg key: http://diehlnet.com/~mdiehl/mdiehl.asc
83AD D927 758D 4BFC A800 0277 4B26 75A4 F0D1 C7EB

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Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

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IxlgVFOReKkiTFRaUeywGbY=
=hpHN
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gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Mike Diehl (Encrypted email preferred) wrote:
> I forgot to mention that I did attempt to make the new hda1 partition
> bootable.

the question about the drive layout was to determine if your boot
partition was too big. I'm not sure if this is still a concern in modern
BIOS's, but some won't boot if the main partition is larger than 1024
cylinders.

Are you even getting a grub prompt? If you are, there are several things
you can do to debug why it won't boot using the grub prompt (which is
one of the reasons why I like grub better than lilo).

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On Wednesday 13 October 2004 12:06 am, a tiny voice compelled Mike Diehl
(Encrypted email preferred) to write:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> I've gotten a few replies about this asking for more information, so here
> goes.
>
> I forgot to mention that I did attempt to make the new hda1 partition
> bootable.
> fdisk /dev/hda
> a
> w
> q
>
> Also, I got a question about the drive partition layout:
>
> The original hda had a standard layout:
> hda1 100Mb /boot
> hda2 512Mb swap
> hda3 rest of drive /
>
> When I installed the hdb drive, I copied the layout. Then I copied the
> contents of hda1 to hdb1, hda3 to hdb3 and did a mkswap on hdb2.
>
> Then I modified grub.conf so that grub would still boot off of hda1 (using
> kernel images on hdb1), but I'd run and swap on hdb3 and hdb2,
> respectively. At this point, the only reason to have hda installed, is for
> the bootloader, which I'm trying to install on hdb.
>
> Hdb1 has all of the stage files that grub wants.
>
> So, I moved the hdb drive into the hda position and booted the install CD.
> Once the system was booted, I tried to install grub onto (hd0,0).
>
> At this point, I think the system should boot on the new hda drive, but it
> doesn't.
>
> What am I missing?
>
> TIA.
>
> On Monday 11 October 2004 10:23 pm, Mike Diehl (Encrypted email preferred)
>
> wrote:
> > Well, I tried it again without success.
> >
> > I'm trying to install a new 250Gb drive as hdb, while promoting the
> > current hdb to be the new hda.
> >
> > That is:
> >
> > I'm retiring the current hda; it's a 6Gb drive that is too old to rely
> > on. I'm moving the current hdb into the hda position and intend to boot
> > and root off of it.
> > The new 250Gb drive will be the hdb.
> > I don't usually have a cdrom on this system.
> > Hdc and hdd don't change.
> >
> > So, I removed the old hda, moved the old hdb into the hda position and
> > installed a cdrom as hdb.
> >
> > I booted the gentoo install cd.
> >
> > Once in Linux, I ran ran fdisk and made /hda1 active.
> > then I ran grub:
> > root (hd0,0)
> > setup (hd0)
> > quit
> >
> > But when I configure my bios to boot from hda, it just hangs with the
> > message: Updating DMI information....
> >
> > So, the question is: How do I get this new hda to boot?
> >
> > Thanx in advance.
>
> - --
> Mike
> gpg key: http://diehlnet.com/~mdiehl/mdiehl.asc
> 83AD D927 758D 4BFC A800 0277 4B26 75A4 F0D1 C7EB
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFBbKnCSyZ1pPDRx+sRApW8AKDN9XMSuktgvQUG3AwT/ZgG57bEuACfRllC
> IxlgVFOReKkiTFRaUeywGbY=
> =hpHN
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


Sorry to jump in late on this... You say you "moved the old hdb into the hda
position", but did you reset the jumper on the drive to the "master"
position?
--
Regards, Ernie
100% Microsoft and Intel free

07:42:24 up 8:30, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.39, 0.47
Linux 2.6.5-gentoo-r1 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+


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On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:06:21 -0600, Mike Diehl (Encrypted email
preferred) <mdiehl@diehlnet.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> The original hda had a standard layout:
> hda1 100Mb /boot
> hda2 512Mb swap
> hda3 rest of drive /
>
> When I installed the hdb drive, I copied the layout. Then I copied the
> contents of hda1 to hdb1, hda3 to hdb3 and did a mkswap on hdb2.
>
> Then I modified grub.conf so that grub would still boot off of hda1 (using
> kernel images on hdb1), but I'd run and swap on hdb3 and hdb2, respectively.
> At this point, the only reason to have hda installed, is for the bootloader,
> which I'm trying to install on hdb.
>
> Hdb1 has all of the stage files that grub wants.
>
> So, I moved the hdb drive into the hda position and booted the install CD.
> Once the system was booted, I tried to install grub onto (hd0,0).
>
> At this point, I think the system should boot on the new hda drive, but it
> doesn't.

OK, I hope I haven't forgotten something important, but no, I think it
won't work. If I'm understanding what you did (and I admit I'm a bit
confused at this point) then you need to do a reinstall of grub onto
the drive that you are going to be booting from. (SATA, right?)
Copying it isn't enough. Boot from a CD and then reinstall grub.

grub is weird - for good reason, I suppose, but just plain weird.

grub gets started because the partition is bootable and BIOS transfers
control to it. That's stage 1 and generally only accounts for grub
saying 'GRUB' at boot time. However grub boots in stages and grub
needs to actually know deep, dark, secret things about the root
partition. For instance, if grub & /boot is on hda1 and root is on
hda3, but you move hda3 physically to a different position on the
drive, then grub won't work any more even though the hda3 partition is
the same size and has the same contents. The reason is that the deep,
dark, secret part of the drive's layout changed, but the copy of grub
in hda1 doesn't know that.

>
> What am I missing?

Not much. That's the way it is with deep, dark, secret stuff. ;-)

>
> TIA.
>

I really hope I'm not leading you astray.

With best intentions,
Mark

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