Arch Linux

thisperishedmin

Member

Registered: 2008-11-04

Posts: 164

My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

Hello fellow Arch users...

I used Arch extensively a while back and loved it - hands down my favorite linux distro to date.  I got away from my *nix os's for a while but a recent job has me working heavily in the *nix world, and I startd missing it at home.  I decided to go with Arch again and get back to the real fun hehe.

Anyway, the first time around installation and setup went smoothly and without a hitch, but I'm running into a baffling problem now.  I ran through the install just as expected, but I'm having some issues with Grub.  When I let the system run through its normal "boot" procedure, I get a screen filled with the word "Grub"..and the bottom line just keeps cranking out "Grub Grub Grub Grub Grub" over and over.  It never actually lets me select an OS or anything.  Once it clears the typical post im barraged with this.  I can still use the cd to manually specify my windows partition and get back upa nd running (hd0,0) - no big deal.  Forcing it to load arch (hd1,0) dumps me to a recovery command line. I cannot ls (states to use echo *) and displays something about hd0,3 being created and specify another option in the kernel and all kinds of odd stuff.  I did not bother copying this but if it would be useful I will gladly get it.  I have made no progress from the screen and cannot seem to figure out anyway to actually edit the grub configuration.  vi and nano are both unavailable from here. 

I reinstalled 2x now but end up with the exact same situation.  I installed grub to sdaa (my secondary drive, dedicated for linux) and got this result. Trying to isntall to sdab (windows partition) returns an error.  So far I have tried using XFS as the fiel system for my arch install.

The only other useful bit of information I have to offer at the time is that I formerly had vista on the windows partition before returning to XP.  From XP i error out of partition magic and other tools i was formerly able to use.

If anyone has experienced this or has some advice I would love to hear back.

I'm fairly heartbroken ta the moment as I was really looking forward to trying Arch with XFCE lol.  life goes on though, hope to resolve this soon.

Thank you in advance fellow Archers.

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,224

Website

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

Interesting!

Can you boot the installation CD and post the output of fdisk -l and your menu.lst (mount you installation and cd to /mnt/boot/grub/)

---

Are you familiar with our Forum Rules, and How To Ask Questions The Smart Way?

BlueHackers // fscanary // resticctl

ferral-cat

Member

Registered: 2008-11-03

Posts: 22

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

My searches on this symptoms point to a setting that must be changed in the BIOS.

This error seems to be related to BIOS settings and how the BIOS looks to detect your hard drives.   

Maybe set Auto detect in the BIOS for the hard-drive. Maybe another setting for a field called "Access Mode". If set to "CHS" then change the setting to auto.

thisperishedmin

Member

Registered: 2008-11-04

Posts: 164

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

Hey guys...thanks for the replies.

I poked around in the BIOS and actually found a boot order for the 2 hdd's, I switched it around and grub worked as expected.  However, now it wont let me manually bypass into windows. it should be (hd1,0) but I'm having no luck.  grub throws

"filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

error 15: file not found"

I'll look into it more on my own time but I'm not too worried about it in the immediate future. I have arch / xfce up and running now and everything is going pretty swell. 

Thanks for your replies guys - they both proved valuable in toying about.

Leigh

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2004-06-25

Posts: 533

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

I installed grub to sdaa (my secondary drive, dedicated for linux) and got this result. Trying to isntall to sdab (windows partition) returns an error.  So far I have tried using XFS as the fiel system for my arch install.

Shouldn't it be sda primary and sdb secondary? Maybe the above sdaa and sdab is a typo?

---

-- archlinux 是一个极好的 linux。

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,224

Website

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

I poked around in the BIOS and actually found a boot order for the 2 hdd's, I switched it around and grub worked as expected.  However, now it wont let me manually bypass into windows. it should be (hd1,0) but I'm having no luck.  grub throws

"filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

error 15: file not found"

I sometimes get crap like that when I'm playing with partitions and stuff... I find the easiest way to fix is to just play with the numbers until something works!
Start at 0,0, then 0,1  0,2   1,0   1,1   1,2  etc

You can just use the 'e' key at the grub screen to edit the line temporarily, then once you find which one works, you can boot to arch and edit the menu.lst file permanently.

---

Are you familiar with our Forum Rules, and How To Ask Questions The Smart Way?

BlueHackers // fscanary // resticctl

thisperishedmin

Member

Registered: 2008-11-04

Posts: 164

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

I installed grub to sdaa (my secondary drive, dedicated for linux) and got this result. Trying to isntall to sdab (windows partition) returns an error.  So far I have tried using XFS as the fiel system for my arch install.

Shouldn't it be sda primary and sdb secondary? Maybe the above sdaa and sdab is a typo?

you are correct, sda and sdb are what i intended...but I was typing faster than my brain was processing and came up with that glorious literature haha.  I do remember thinking sdaa seemed funny but just kept trucking along with the typing anyway lol.  I'm not sure why the bios were seeing second drive as the second drive, but linux the second drive as sda...either way, switching them around got grub working, but the windows drive now seems to be non responsive...

I poked around in the BIOS and actually found a boot order for the 2 hdd's, I switched it around and grub worked as expected.  However, now it wont let me manually bypass into windows. it should be (hd1,0) but I'm having no luck.  grub throws

"filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

error 15: file not found"

I sometimes get crap like that when I'm playing with partitions and stuff... I find the easiest way to fix is to just play with the numbers until something works!
Start at 0,0, then 0,1  0,2   1,0   1,1   1,2  etc

You can just use the 'e' key at the grub screen to edit the line temporarily, then once you find which one works, you can boot to arch and edit the menu.lst file permanently.

and this is exactly what I did hehe... the hd0,0 is the linux drive...so starting at 1,0 i went through the motions.  1,0 was the only one that produced this specific error.  1,1/2/3/4/5 threw something different and i can't recall at the moment.  needless to say, logically 1,0 SHOULD be correct and a bit of googling turned this up...

http://paul.boin.org/archives/26-Grub-a … e-0x7.html

i'll give it a shot tomorrow when i'm (hopefully) not so beat tired. lol...then again its late class night so who knows.   needless to say, this is the exact same situation i'm up against, so i'm almost positive it will correct it. 

thank you for the replies so far, and i will post back with results

thisperishedmin

Member

Registered: 2008-11-04

Posts: 164

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

eh...so insomnia took over after all, and sorry to double post in advance

listed below is my /boot/grub/menu.lst - this is working fully now.

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e7225123-ac99-4701-842f-bc6ef61c9390 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
#title  Arch Linux Fallback
#root   (hd0,0)
#kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e7225123-ac99-4701-842f-bc6ef61c9390 ro
#initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

# (1) Windows
title Windows
root (hd1,0)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

as that article explains, windows was still expecting to be listed as the first drive and got upset it was demoted - to put it in laymans terms.  I'm still surprised by the weird behavior of grub when the drives were switched int he bios - but all is well.

Thank you once more! 

PS - regarding this forum - is there any way I can mark the topic resolved, or is it something that admin must do? thanks!

ferral-cat

Member

Registered: 2008-11-03

Posts: 22

Re: My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

I think you are supposeed to change the title of the thread from:

My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)

Change it to:

[SOLVED] My return to Arch...and a problem! (grub?)