Triple boot Grub problem

Matt_D · 2009-01-15 21:55:03

I know, what's the freakin' point of triple booting? Anyway, after searching the forums and reading some similar posts I'm still at a loss, so thought I'd try a new topic and see what happens.
I've got 2 hard drives in my system. The first hard drive (in BIOS boot order) has windows XP and Fedora 10 on it. Up until a short while ago I had OpenSuse 11.1 on the 2nd hard drive, and was able to boot into it. What I did to make that work was to add this to the Fedora menu.list

title OpenSuse Grub Menu
configfile (hd1,4)/boot/grub/menu.lst

After running Arch for some time on my older PC, and finally realizing I can do most everything I want or need with it I decided to give it a try on my 'newer' pc (relative term, still getting a bit old). So I installed onto the 2nd hard drive, using the same partitioning scheme as I had with opensuse, but of course formatting the partitions. I also changed the Fedora menu.lst to reflect Arch. Now when I choose 'Arch Grub Menu' I get an error 15, file not found.

During the Arch install I first tried installing Grub in /boot, then I tried the MBR on that drive, but got the same result each time.
Here's my fdisk -l output from Fedora:

Disk /dev/sda: 300.0 GB, 300090728448 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36483 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xee800574

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        6527    52428096    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            6528       36483   240621570    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            6528       26108   157284351    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6           26109       26135      216846   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           26136       33785    61448192   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           36335       36483     1196811   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9           33786       36334    20474811   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000348a8

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        9961    80011701    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5               1          32      256945+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb6              33        2642    20964793+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb7            2643        9961    58789836   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x54eeaef8

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1       60801   488384001    7  HPFS/NTFS

So for my Arch install I'm using /dev/sdb. When I boot into the Live CD and start the install, it lists what Fedora sees as /dev/sdb, and what is 2nd in the BIOS boot order, as /dev/sda. I'm not sure why it does this, or if it matters. My thinking is that if the Grub entry points to the /boot partition of the Arch install, it should find that menu.lst and work okay. To be honest, I'm just confused at this point. The one nice thing is it only takes a few minutes to do the base Arch install, but I could use some guidance.

In summary (sorry, long post, I know):
I want to keep XP (gaming) & Fedora (for now) and get Arch working on the 2nd drive. Any tips? While I was trying to get this working originally with OpenSuse I tried all sorts of chainloader options in Grub, but couldn't get it to work right no matter what I tried.

nowahn · 2009-01-15 22:53:17

well, archlinux and fedora see your hard drives in different order, maybe grub sees them in yet another order, seeing archlinux on (hd2) (quite strange but who knows ...)

here is how you can find the right partition from grub's point of vue :

when in the grub menu, hit c to get to the grub command line and type this

find /boot/grub/menu.lst

this should return 2 results since you should have 2 of these files (one for each linux, the one for fedora should be (hd0,X) )

note that if you have a separate /boot partition, you have to search for /grub/menu.lst

Last edited by nowahn (2009-01-15 22:55:12)

Matt_D · 2009-01-16 00:23:44

I think my problem is solved:P Here's the (way too) detailed solution.

My Fedora install has it's own /boot partition. I did another install of Arch, this time creating a new partition layout, with only sda1 & sda2 for / & /home, not /boot partition this time (I could have it as it turns out, but I was simplifying things). After the install finished I chose to install Grub to the MBR of /sda.

Now for the fun & confusing part. I rebooted, got to my Fedora Grub, which still has the Arch entry:
configfile (hd1,5)/boot/grub/menu.lst
This of course won't work, there is no hd1,5. So I hit 'e' for edit this line, then 'c' to get a grub prompt. Then I typed in the find command:
find /boot/grub/menu.lst
this returned hd1,0, which I knew was Arch because Fedora has it's own /boot partition, so I would have had to use:
find /grub/menu.lst
(Thanks for that info by the way nowahn, very good to know).
So I then went back to the Arch config line in grub, chose 'e' for edit again, and chanced (hd1,5) to (hd1,0), then hit 'b' for boot, and got the Arch Grub menu. Hooray! It's all fixed, right? NOT SO FAST!!!!
So I chose 'Arch Linux', and was promptly greeted with Error 17: Partition not mounted
After a short pause and some thinking, I looked at the entry for arch in the menu.lst, and it was trying to boot (hd0,0), which makes sense since when I was installing Arch thought the 2nd hard drive was sda (even though it's sdb to Fedora, 2nd in the BIOS, and really is the 2nd drive). So I edited that entry to read (hd1,0), and now it boots fine. I think the problem is that when Arch is installing it sees that 2nd drive as sda, but once it's installed, it reads it correctly, and of course this messes up Grub. Part of the problem could be the first hard drive is sata, the 2nd one is IDE. Not sure how this relates to the problem, but I suspect it does somehow.

Glad it's booting now, and quite a good learning experience about the boot process and grub.

Last edited by Matt_D (2009-01-16 00:34:34)

Zakuro · 2009-01-22 06:39:08

@Matt_D

I'm getting Error 17 from GRUB as well, and while reading your post I just realized my Win7 sits as first HD in my BIOS (IDE drive), while the Arch install's sitting on my second SATA (of four).
I never did think of the possibility of GRUB being messed up by how it and (installed) Arch views HD channels. I'm gonna change my menu.lst accordingly from a Gentoo live later on today. Will check back if I resolve the problem, thanks for the idea!

Matt_D · 2009-01-22 12:54:02

Zakuro wrote:

@Matt_D
I'm getting Error 17 from GRUB as well, and while reading your post I just realized my Win7 sits as first HD in my BIOS (IDE drive), while the Arch install's sitting on my second SATA (of four).
I never did think of the possibility of GRUB being messed up by how it and (installed) Arch views HD channels. I'm gonna change my menu.lst accordingly from a Gentoo live later on today. Will check back if I resolve the problem, thanks for the idea!

You can try different menu.lst entries without having to boot a live cd and actually edit the file. If you can get the 'Arch Linux' entry to show up in the list, just hit 'e' to edit it, then I think you may have to hit 'e' again on the next screen, it'll tell you at the bottom. Change the line, they type 'b' to boot, and if it works you can then edit your menu.lst, if not, try again.

Zakuro · 2009-01-22 17:05:15

EDIT:
(post deleted; i am an idiot. getting a whole new set of interesting challenges now!)

EDIT2:
note that on installing, i let arch partition the drive. all i did was some resizing to fit my system.

find /grub/menu.lst yields (hd0,0).
find /sbin/init gives (hd0,2).

i've now changed my menu.lst to reflect (i hope):

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

this semi-boots, resulting after a little while in

kinit: Unable to mount root fs on device sda2(8,2)
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic  -  not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

was adviced to try rootfstype= as well, with no change to results.
anyone got any pointer? (and sorry for hijacking your thread Matt_D!)

Last edited by Zakuro (2009-01-22 17:28:34)

nowahn · 2009-01-22 17:43:17

Zakuro wrote:

find /sbin/init gives (hd0,2)

Zakuro wrote:

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro

(hd0,2) is sda3, so change sda2 to sda3 (also check your fstab)
(or is it a typo ?)

Zakuro · 2009-01-22 18:21:34

nowahn wrote:

Zakuro wrote:
find /sbin/init gives (hd0,2)
Zakuro wrote:
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 ro
(hd0,2) is sda3, so change sda2 to sda3 (also check your fstab)
(or is it a typo ?)

Sadly, it wasn't a typo. Didn't think of that.
sda3 instead generates

/bin/mknod "dev/root" b 8 3
/init: 1: Cannot open /dev/root : No such device or address

followed by

Kinit: Unable to mount root fs on device dev(8,3)

and lastly the natural kpanic.
and with regards to fstab, wouldn't the installer have generated this correctly, as i'm using a SATA drive? or could it have gotten the partitions mixed the way grub did?

Zakuro · 2009-01-22 23:29:41

In lieu of a separate /boot partition, I have, for lack of skill (read: patience to learn) decided to simply go with swap and /.
I gather this should make both GRUB menu.lst and /etc/fstab loads easier to get right. Might even be able to solve any problems on my own(!). I would still like to thank you for your help, though, and I suppose this thread should now be marked solved.

Zakuro

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-15 21:55:03

Triple boot Grub problem

#2 2009-01-15 22:53:17

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

#3 2009-01-16 00:23:44

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

#4 2009-01-22 06:39:08

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

#5 2009-01-22 12:54:02

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

#6 2009-01-22 17:05:15

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

#7 2009-01-22 17:43:17

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

#8 2009-01-22 18:21:34

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

#9 2009-01-22 23:29:41

Re: Triple boot Grub problem

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