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#1 2006-03-09 16:19:19

SkankinSasquatch
Member
Registered: 2005-05-03
Posts: 44

Grub Issues [fixed]

I recently built a new computer. It has an Athlon 64 3700+ an ASRock 939Dual-SATA 2 motherboard, and two hard drives; two Seagate barracuda's to be exact. The issue I'm having is when trying to install grub. Whenever I try to do this I recieve an Error 21: Selected disk does not exist. The way my computer is set up is I have a CD-RW and a DVD-RW which are hda and hdb respectively, and then the hard drive I would like to install arch on is hdc and my windows drive is hdd. I've tried using a liveCD to install grub but I get the same issues; whenever typing in "root (hd2,1)" on the grub command line I recieve the Error 21. I also know that the jumpers are set properly on both hard drives, and have also tried removing the windows hard drive, still recieving the same error. Are there any ideas on what could be causing this? I was thinking possibly a BIOS issue but I would have no idea how to fix this.

I should also add I was able to instal lilo, however lilo for one reason or another will not boot into windows and seems significantly slower than grub. If at all possible I would love to use grub, but if lilo is the only bootloader I'll be able to use, it won't be a hard loss.

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#2 2006-03-09 16:25:07

_Gandalf_
Member
Registered: 2006-01-12
Posts: 735

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

Hmmm, try making the linux hard disk hda ( Primary IDE / Master) Windows Hard disk hdb ( Primary IDE/slave) and the CD/DVD on the secondary IDE, that's the standard setup

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#3 2006-03-09 17:05:37

SkankinSasquatch
Member
Registered: 2005-05-03
Posts: 44

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

This time it installed, but upon loading GRUB it outputs:
GRUB Loading stage1.5Read Error

I should also note that when I switched the linux drive out for the windows drive I also recieve the windows equivalent to this:
"A disk read error occured
Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart"

It almost seems as though the channel is faulty...but I dont see how that can be, it seems to read CDs and DVDs just fine.

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#4 2006-03-10 04:16:35

SkankinSasquatch
Member
Registered: 2005-05-03
Posts: 44

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

Anyone know of any BIOS settings that might cause this?

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#5 2006-03-10 04:31:03

rayjgu3
Member
From: Chicago IL usa
Registered: 2004-07-04
Posts: 695

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

i was recently having grub trouble
i took out   fd0  stuff out of /botot/grub/device.map  no troubles

as far as a bios setting i have had boards that would drop paralel port  usb  & ide
a bios flash would bring the stuff right back

i got a pc here right now that the only thing this machine will read is floppy
even if i plug a pci controller into it , it wont see it . bios flash has done nothing to fix it
so my friend has got some parts for new pc

good luck

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#6 2006-03-10 07:02:55

IceRAM
Member
From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2004-03-04
Posts: 772
Website

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

SkankinSasquatch wrote:

"A disk read error occured
Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart"

I got this error too installing Kubuntu on a friend's computer. Googled for it and found out that GRUB couldn't detect HDD geometry or something like that. Don't know the reason for this.

I gave up and installed LILO, because I didn't have much time to fiddle with that installation.

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#7 2006-03-18 17:06:33

SkankinSasquatch
Member
Registered: 2005-05-03
Posts: 44

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

Okay, I thought I should mention I got this fixed, the fix was totally bizarre.

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26archck root=/dev/hdc2 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1280x1024-32@60 splash=silent,theme:darch quiet console=tty1 resume2=swap:/dev/hdc1 ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.15-archck.img

(ignore the archck kernel details).

For whatever reason, grub REFUSES to see the hard drive its on as anything other than hd0, irregardless of the fact that this hard drive is actually hd2 (as shown by the root field next to the kernel field). My fix was to install grub while the drive it would be put on was the master of the first channel, then switch it to the master of the second after the install and change a few things such as my fstab and that root field. For whatever reason, this worked and now arch works!

I hope this helps anyone who has a similar issue.

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#8 2006-03-18 18:38:40

Sander
Member
Registered: 2006-02-26
Posts: 138

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

SkankinSasquatch wrote:

For whatever reason, grub REFUSES to see the hard drive its on as anything other than hd0, irregardless of the fact that this hard drive is actually hd2 (as shown by the root field next to the kernel field).

Wrong... GRUB names the drives it finds as (hd0), (hd1), (hd2) etc in their BIOS boot order. The names are not related to what IDE channel they are on, wether they're master or slave, or the type of the disk (SCSI/SATA/IDE). They are especially not related to the way linux names them; The emulated GRUB shell you can enter from linux however, names the drives based on their order in linux. This can sometimes lead to discrepancies, which is where a device.map file comes into play. But never mind all that smile

This is a common misconception I believe. Recently someone was complaining (I think it was on this board) that GRUB wouldn't recognise his (sd0) drive...


You like cheese? You like peas? You'll love cheezy peas!

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#9 2006-03-18 19:49:15

SkankinSasquatch
Member
Registered: 2005-05-03
Posts: 44

Re: Grub Issues [fixed]

Oh okay, thank you very much, that clarifies a lot. Pretty stupid of me not to think of that.

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