grub error 15

smcsw2000 · 2007-12-30 00:43:51

I finally gave up trying to fix the booting of arch and erased and repartitioned the hard drives. I have 2 hard drives eide and sata. bios shows that boot sequence is cdrom, sata, eide. When I repartitioned the hard drives, I made sata the boot drive. When I fdisk -l I get /dev/dsb1 is boot, sdb2 is swap, sdb3 and sdb4 are linux. While /dev/sda1, sda2, and sda3 are linux partitions. I have gone thru the whole install procedure and when I get to bootinstall using GRUB, I have gone thru every combination of root (hd1,0) thru (hd1,2) with the line
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro thru root =/dev/sbd3 and every time i get error, so when i go to tty5 i get
grub>root (hd1,0)
Filesystem is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
grub> setup (hd1)
checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists...no
checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... no
Error 15: File not found
but when I go to shell and go to cd mnt, cd boot, i see listed System.map26, kernel26-fallback.img, vmlinux26, kconfig26, kernel26.img
when i go to cd grub i find stage1,stage2, fat_stage1.5, ffs_stage1_5, reiserfs_stage_1_5 etc..
where am I messing up? I cannot finish loading and reboot till this bootloader is accepted.

gradgrind · 2007-12-30 06:40:19

You could try mounting sdb1 somewhere and check that grub/stage1 (etc.) is really on that partition and hasn't somehow landed in sdb3/boot/grub, or whatever. Such things can easily happen when you play with mounts within mounts. (I think there are also commands within the grub shell itself for finding things.)

For the kernel line you will want root=/dev/sdb3, if I understand your description correctly.

vacant · 2007-12-30 09:25:46

smcsw2000 wrote:

... /dev/dsb1 ...sdb2.../dev/sbd3...

I don't have any sata drives so maybe these are all valid, but if you've got typos, can you instead post the actual output of files?

Also what does

cat  /boot/grub/device.map

produce?

And when running grub

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

smcsw2000 · 2007-12-30 23:24:22

When I cat /boot/device/grub.map I get no such file or directory.
when I grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 I get "probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time. and it has been like that for 8 hours. So I went to to fstab and find this could be a problem this is the mnt/etc/fstab output
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cd iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
/dev/dvd /mnt/dvd udf ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/fl vfat user,noauto 0 0
could it be that even if I can find the directory and file while I am on the system it isn't in the fstab that is the problem?
When I try mount sdb1 or mount sdb I get
can't find sdb in /etc/fstab or etc/mtab

vacant · 2007-12-31 11:29:01

Grub "find" hanging? I've had this recently when I installed another distro (Mandriva) - turned out it was hunting for a floppy drive which I physically don't have, but I did have a floppy configured in the BIOS. Disabling floppy in the BIOS led to a successful install. I've not had that problem installing other distros I've been playing with (kubunu, pclinuxos). So It might be a problem with grub & sata. I don't have sata so can't help (I'd remove the sata disk, install to ide, but there's probably a better way)

If your boot sequence is CDROM -> SATA -> EIDE, then the sata drive may well be hd0 as far as grub is concerned, not hd1.

If you want to mount a device not in fstab, you have to specify a mount point, as root:

mkdir /test
mount /dev/sdb1 /test

Ignoring /home and other optional partitions, I can't tell whether you installed Arch to a single partition (/ on sd??) or whether you installed Arch with a separate boot partition (/ for Arch on sd?? and /boot on another sd??).

If you have a separate boot partition, then when in grub try:

find /grub/stage1

jacko · 2007-12-31 13:02:21

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb1 ro thru root =/dev/sbd3 and every time i get error, so when i go to tty5 i get

but when I go to shell and go to cd mnt, cd boot, i see listed System.map26, kernel26-fallback.img, vmlinux26, kconfig26, kernel26.img

that's your problem right there, its should be /boot/vmlinuz26 I had this exact problem, when u boot your pc and enter the grub menu u need to 'e' edit the boot entry and add /boot before any reference to a file that is in the /boot directory, whether that be a separate partition or not.

grub error 15 file not found means exactly that, u did not point to the correct directory of the location of the file. U cd /boot, and u see the files u need so make the entries in grub match.

post your menu.lst file here and I will correct it for you.

Last edited by jacko (2007-12-31 13:19:46)

jacko · 2007-12-31 13:10:28

...

Last edited by jacko (2007-12-31 13:33:21)

jacko · 2007-12-31 13:27:24

If your boot sequence is CDROM -> SATA -> EIDE, then the sata drive may well be hd0 as far as grub is concerned, not hd1

I was thinking this too, but what is sda on his computer? The easy fix to this is to remove every drive in the pc except for the one u need at the moment. Then u install grub to hd 0,0 MBR and then alter menu.lst to match. Once u get it to boot then u can connect back other drives and alter the way grub see's them.

As u say though, grub uses the bios, so if the bios is selected to boot to your arch HD first then that drive is sda and needs to match in menu.lst. That's why its pertinent to use persistent device block naming schemes now, because it can get confusing otherwise.

Last edited by jacko (2007-12-31 13:30:39)

jacko · 2007-12-31 13:37:57

ok, let me ask u some questions and then let me get some answers and we will go from there. This can be very confusing, so lets not make a mountain out of a mole hill.

U have two drives, if you type in

fdisk -l
nano /etc/fstab

the output is? Post it here, please!

what is on both drives? do u have windows installed or another OS? what drive is being the first boot device? after the cdrom and floppy drive if those are first, I wanna know what is the first HD that is booted?

post your menu.lst here. it should be in located in /boot/grub

we will start there and work our way through this, I am not a godsend when it comes to grub, but I will try to get u going.

Last edited by jacko (2007-12-31 14:18:39)

jacko · 2007-12-31 14:06:10

I made sata the boot drive. When I fdisk -l I get /dev/dsb1 is boot, sdb2 is swap, sdb3 and sdb4 are linux. While /dev/sda1, sda2, and sda3 are linux partitions.

I have re-read this thread now 5 times. I am confused about this part. U make absolutely no sense. sdb3 and sdb4 are what linux partitions? why do u have two extra partitions for no reason on a drive? whats on device sda? what are u running fdisk -l from, a LIVECD? we need more info, until then I am about as clueless as the last guy.

Last edited by jacko (2007-12-31 14:35:02)

smcsw2000 · 2008-01-01 02:57:25

I added /boot to kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sbd1 and saved then when I tried to finish bootloader I got the error again.
fdisk -l produces the following
disk/dev/sda: 163.9 gb, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/tracks, 19929 cylinders
units=cylinders of 16065 *512 = 8225280 bytes

Device boot start end blocks id system
/dev/sda1 1 2550 20482874+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 2551 2804 2040255 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2805 19887 137219197+ 83 Linux

disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 gb, 16004`885695 bytes

/dev/sdb1 * 1 128 1028159+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 129 256 1028160 82 Linux swap/solaris
/dev/sdb3 257 1531 10241437 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 1532 19457 143990595 83 Linux

when I type nano /etc/fstab i get the following
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
drive sda is the ide disk that I wiped and there should be nothing on it, it was a drive i took out of my last computer to add. drive sdb is a sata drive that came with the computer when I bought it. this is where I supposedly put the boot and all the directorys and files from the duke (arch) installation disk. The reason I have these extra partitions is that reading in one of the how to's someone recommended a partition for home, one for /var which can be wiped and reloaded because that is where viruses would go and one for data/storage. I booted with the duke cd and am going thru the sequence of installing, harddrive, selecting files, installing files, configuring, kernel loading, boot loading. when I get information from anyone, I go to another window alt f2, alt f3and get the information I type fdisk -l in alt f2 where is has [Arch Linux: /]# .I have not got out of the installation part yet.

schivmeister · 2008-01-01 12:22:57

You have nothing in /etc/fstab and you need to add /boot only if you don't have a separate /boot partition. So for a start, populate fstab with sane mounts.

vacant · 2008-01-01 13:52:20

schivmeister wrote:

You have nothing in /etc/fstab and you need to add /boot only if you don't have a separate /boot partition. So for a start, populate fstab with sane mounts.

I think this is fstab whilst running the Arch install CD or some other live CD. I'd be more interested to see the results of "grub> find /boot/grub/stage1" or "grub> find /grub/stage1" when rebooting (tap "c" on the grub boot menu to get a command line). However, we've established that the "find" command just hangs the PC, so that's why I suggested removing sata and installing on eide.

schivmeister · 2008-01-01 14:47:02

Hmm..have you by any chance enabled "native" sata mode in bios?

smcsw2000 · 2008-01-01 19:15:04

after trying most of the solutions you all gave I finally gave up and did auto partition in the start-up disk and went through the rest of the procedures. then I rebooted and it worked. But i am stuck on the login screen. It seems that the login password that I used in the setup or something else did not take and I can't log in. It asks for a login (which I don't remember putting in) and a password which I did use. If i use the disk to try getting in that way everything in /mnt is empty so I can't edit anything. How do I fix this or do I have to rebuild everything again? I checked the fstab after I auto partitioned the disk ( I removed the ide drive) and the only difference was it added
sdb1 /boot ext3 default 0 0
so that could be the answer. If I can get on after putting in the password I will put fstab back on this page so you can get the full idea of what auto did versus trying to fix manually. Thanks for the help so far

Corey · 2008-01-01 23:18:01

At the installation you had to setup root's password. It's the system super-user with all the privilages. So your login should be "root" (without "") and the password will be the one you had set at installation.
After login at root's you add your normal user as stated in the wikipedia http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Off … Management

As for the grub 15 error, I had it too when I had EIDE and SATA drives in my system. You must go to BIOS and change your drives settings from "native" or "enhanced" to "compatible" (where some of the mainboard's SATA controllers could be inactive - so switch the drive cable to other SATA port if the mainboard stops recognizing your SATA drive). After you made the change, save, reboot and go to BIOS again - most mainboards rearrange drives order, so you have to enter the bios, check if the boot disk is the one you want (or set it) and save the settings again (even if you didn't make any changes).

I know that this solution doesn't work for all - propably depends on your hardware and/or bios version. It worked for me with Intel 945 and P31 chipsets. But I have seen a i945 chiset that failed with this solution. It also helps to have the newest BIOS for your motherboard - for example new BIOS for my board had the rearranging of the drives fixed, but from experience I know that the most of the mainboards rearrange the drives, so it's important to save bios settings once again after changing drives settings.

Hope this will help.

Last edited by Corey (2008-01-01 23:26:28)

jacko · 2008-01-02 12:45:34

smcsw2000 wrote:

after trying most of the solutions you all gave I finally gave up and did auto partition in the start-up disk and went through the rest of the procedures. then I rebooted and it worked. But i am stuck on the login screen. It seems that the login password that I used in the setup or something else did not take and I can't log in. It asks for a login (which I don't remember putting in) and a password which I did use. If i use the disk to try getting in that way everything in /mnt is empty so I can't edit anything. How do I fix this or do I have to rebuild everything again? I checked the fstab after I auto partitioned the disk ( I removed the ide drive) and the only difference was it added
sdb1 /boot ext3 default 0 0
so that could be the answer. If I can get on after putting in the password I will put fstab back on this page so you can get the full idea of what auto did versus trying to fix manually. Thanks for the help so far

If u don't remember using a password, then just press enter when it ask for a password. Just cause it ask for a password doesn't mean it needs one. The username is 'root' as the above guy said without the ''.

edit: if u did not give root a password, then u should do that soon. login as root user and type in the command line.

passwd

it will ask u to type in password for root and then verify the password again. Then u can start setting up your desktop environment and other things.

Glad u got the grub 15 error sorted out. It wasn't a setting in the bios if u didn't change anything and this time it worked. Grub 15 error means exactly what it says. File not found, you wasn't pointing grub to the right partition where the file was located. I have sata and ide drives in my computer as well and never had to change a bios setting. But, for future reference, next time u wanna setup grub on a HD, make sure that's the only HD in the computer when u start. That way grub knows right where to look, at the ONE and ONLY drive in the PC which will be to grub HD(0,0).

Last edited by jacko (2008-01-02 12:52:40)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-12-30 00:43:51

grub error 15

#2 2007-12-30 06:40:19

Re: grub error 15

#3 2007-12-30 09:25:46

Re: grub error 15

#4 2007-12-30 23:24:22

Re: grub error 15

#5 2007-12-31 11:29:01

Re: grub error 15

#6 2007-12-31 13:02:21

Re: grub error 15

#7 2007-12-31 13:10:28

Re: grub error 15

#8 2007-12-31 13:27:24

Re: grub error 15

#9 2007-12-31 13:37:57

Re: grub error 15

#10 2007-12-31 14:06:10

Re: grub error 15

#11 2008-01-01 02:57:25

Re: grub error 15

#12 2008-01-01 12:22:57

Re: grub error 15

#13 2008-01-01 13:52:20

Re: grub error 15

#14 2008-01-01 14:47:02

Re: grub error 15

#15 2008-01-01 19:15:04

Re: grub error 15

#16 2008-01-01 23:18:01

Re: grub error 15

#17 2008-01-02 12:45:34

Re: grub error 15

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