Fedora 15 Grub installation issue on USB hard drive.

[techman2006]

Hi All,

Today I tried installing Fedora 15 on a 1TB USB hard drive. The layout of my USB drive is given below
/dev/sda1 NTFS 40G
/dev/sda5 NTFS 40G
/dev/sda6 NTFS 40G
/dev/sda7 NTFS 40G
/dev/sdc1 NTFS 808G
/dev/sdc2 ext4 / 96 G
/dev/sdc3 swap 4096M

So while doing installation by mistake a I selected to install GRUB in first boot sector of /dev/sdc2 instead of MBR.
The installation was successful but while trying to boot using USB drive it fails and fall back to primary hard drive.
After that I boot using rescue mode and try to install the GRUB in the MBR of /dev/sdc but then also I was not able to boot as while trying to boot I got the menu but when select to boot in linux it fails and fall back to primary hard drive.
Below is the grub conf file output

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd2,1)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sdc2
# initrd /boot/initrd-[generic-]version.img
boot=/dev/sdc2
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd2,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64)
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64 ro root=UUID=4ebbe6d8-ee70-440b-af70-d440152bb8ae rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

Please help me out as I dont want to re-install the things from beginning.
Thanks in advance.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by techman2006

...I got the menu but when select to boot in linux it fails...

A possibility to consider is the USB drive being enumerated differently now than when Fedora was installed on it. The UUID is great for avoiding that issue in the kernel menu command, but the root menu command still is vulnerable to it. For example, you listed devices named /dev/sda and /dev/sdc, and your grub.conf refers to (hd1) and (hd2). But there is no /dev/sdb or (hd0) mentioned in anything you posted. I wonder why. Is there some other removable device that was plugged in before but not now?

Try this idea. Reboot until you're looking at that GRUB menu again. But stop it at the GRUB shell prompt (grub>) by pressing the "c" key. At the grub> prompt, enter this to find that single Fedora root partition...

grub> find /boot/grub/grub.conf

If that returns something other than (hd2,1), then the USB drive has been enumerated differently rendering the grub.conf misconfigured.

[techman2006]

Originally Posted by stoat

. . . . But there is no /dev/sdb or (hd0) mentioned in anything you posted. I wonder why. Is there some other removable device that was plugged in before but not now?

I think this could happen as I used a usb pendrive to boot using liveusb creator and then used it to install the system. So while installation this usb pendrive is listed as /dev/sdb.

Originally Posted by stoat

If that returns something other than (hd2,1), then the USB drive has been enumerated differently rendering the grub.conf misconfigured.

If this is the case then how to make it correct as I dont want to re-install until that is last resort.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by techman2006

If this is the case then how to make it correct as I dont want to re-install until that is last resort.

If you discover that the Fedora partition is being called something other than (hd2,1) with the GRUB shell's find command, then try manually booting Fedora. Then you can edit the grub.conf. It should then boot okay from the menu until something happens to make the USB drive get discovered in a different order at some future boot.

To try manually booting Fedora, reboot and stop GRUB at the menu again but this time by pressing the "e" key. That allows you to do one-shot (not permanent) changes to the grub.conf file. Move the highlighted line to the root menu command line (probably already is highlighted as the first line) and press "e" again. Now move the cursor over to the drive and partition numbers and change those to what you learned from the find command. Press Enter. Then press the "b" key to boot. If Fedora boots, then edit the grub.conf file with a text editor to make that same change permanent.

[techman2006]

@stoat
I tried to stop in grub menu and press 'c' but I didnt get the prompt and system got reboot. I tried to repeat the step man time but it get reboot and nothing much I can do to find the out of find command at grub prompt.
So it seems I need to find another way to fix it.
I am thinking to change the grub conf manulay to see if I can do it. As grub shows me hard drive layout as
hd0 /dev/sda
hd1 /dev/sdc

So thinking to change the grub conf with above layout.
Any thoughts . . . .