Arch Linux

tuxfusion

Member

Registered: 2007-12-31

Posts: 98

shutdown -h -t destroys GRUB

Hello all,
it seems that this command

shutdown -h -t "X"

is destroying my GRUB entry.
I normally don't post at all but i felt i wouldn't find any solution and
i was right about it , i think.

I know it sounds weird but this is the only match i can make to losing my GRUB,
when i do a timed shut down my system in the evening once in a while.
Everything else rebooting , shutting down loging off works flawlessy !
I tried gshutdown tool , all good.

The error is "Loading grub...Read error" or very near in context to that line , i had some ERROR 15 msges
after trying to repair but this is what comes initially after the loss

Live CD grub-install didn't work, "grub" from live cd "root (hd0,0)", setup (hd0)" prints ...done multiple times
but doesn't change anything ( this worked in early days flawlessly with ubuntu i remember ! )

Only thing making my system boot was "chroot"to old HD "pacman -R grub" "pacman -S grub" -> reboot -> all fine (i used the backed up /boot/grub/menu.lst )

I dont know if this is really possible and if you have any idea or can completely exclude this theory plz let me know, thx.

System:

2.6.23-ARCH 32 bit

GNOME

JFS filesystem , IDE Drive ( y is parted saying SCSI  ^_^  )

(parted) print all

Modell: Unbekannt (unknown)
Festplatte  /dev/sda1:  60,0GB
Sektorgröße (logisch/physisch): 512B/512B
Partitionstabelle: msdos

Nummer  Anfang  Ende  Größe  Typ  Dateisystem  Flags

Modell: ATA ST360021A (scsi)
Festplatte  /dev/sda:  60,0GB
Sektorgröße (logisch/physisch): 512B/512B
Partitionstabelle: msdos

Nummer  Anfang  Ende    Größe   Typ      Dateisystem  Flags
1      32,3kB  60,0GB  60,0GB  primary  jfs

(hope german doesn't matter)
All new hardware intel e4400, 2gig  ram, asus mainboard, 8800gts nvidia  i think the details shouldnt really matter here ... ( the HD is a spare one, the first big one crashed  totaly a week ago , yes i'm doomed  ^_^  )

The only "weird" thing in a way is that this only partiton on this drive was earlier the last partition /dev/sda5 on this hd insde a logical one,
i deleted all other partitions , created a new one right at the beginning and "dd"ed sda5 into it with "bs=512" else it didnt work ,
the goal was to get more space + delete old partitions ( filesystems) + move sda5 to the front in a way +make it primary again for no specific reason.

This worked flawlessy and  system booted like never being touched except fstab had to be altered of course + i deleted swap ( to lazy , was nearly ever tooched by system )

Thx for your ideas,
Regards StR

Last edited by tuxfusion (2008-01-15 19:37:15)

T-Dawg

Forum Fellow

From: Charlotte, NC

Registered: 2005-01-29

Posts: 2,736

Re: shutdown -h -t destroys GRUB

so don't use -t "X"??

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: shutdown -h -t destroys GRUB

Another culprit could be the JFS filesystem.  I don't use it and have no experience with it but I remember reading in the wiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/JFS) that JFS can cause problems with grub if you don't use a separate ext2 boot partition.

elgatofelix

Member

From: Chile

Registered: 2007-07-03

Posts: 137

Re: shutdown -h -t destroys GRUB

scary

---

Are u listening?

tuxfusion

Member

Registered: 2007-12-31

Posts: 98

Re: shutdown -h -t destroys GRUB

Wow thx for the wiki link this is the part u mentioned i think :

JFS on boot partitions

Using JFS on a boot partition with the Grub boot loader can work, but can lead to problems. In particular, using JFS on a boot partition has a habit of corrupting the master boot recorder on a Grub update. This happens quite frequently and requires a full repartitioning+formating of the drive with the boot partition in order to remedy the situation.

A personal recommendation is to create a boot partition of 50-100MB with an ext2 file system (which works perfectly with grub and is extremely fast) and format the root partition with JFS. As the boot partition is rarely written to, it makes little sense to put a journaled file system on this.

It is unclear whether or not the same issue is present with using LILO and a JFS boot partition.

Ill have to hack into what "shutdown" script is used and what it does , very strange  BUT this is the solution why it worked flawlessly with all partiitons,
because grub was on another , not jfs partition that was bootable on the old system layout ....

tuxfusion

Member

Registered: 2007-12-31

Posts: 98

Re: shutdown -h -t destroys GRUB

I dont know , but grub remains where it belongs , readable , tried some more shutdowns, all okay didnt change anything , cant believe this was a random data loss , maybe it was  ...