grub does not find anything

[phe]

Hello,

I do not exactly what is happend, but I can not start my machine any more.
I directly get the grub> prompt.

With a liveCD I have find out that my data+system resides on hda10.
my grub.config is in /boot/grub

And as far I can rememeber, I had installed grub in MBR (as I always do)

I saw that all entries in grub.config were : (hd0,10)
So I think this is flase !
Because Grub starts counting from 0 !
So I changed it to (hd0,9) => but this solved nothing.

(even when I do grub> find (hd0,9)/boot/grub/vmlinuz*, it does not find anything. My kernels are living there !)


Who can help me to : to understand what is exactly happening and to solve it.

[daverj]

why are your kernels in /boot/grub? Are you sure they are not in /boot? That is where they should be. Show me the content of your grub.conf file and a directory listing of /boot.

davidj

[phe]

I have no access for the moment to that machine (I have to do that via a livecd).

But I remember +/- what I have done :

Fedora 9 was installed, and during installation I asked to install it in several partitions.
I gave it the names /boot /home /boot /temp etc. . . .
But for one or another reason, installation was done in ONLY 1 partition (hda10 : my root partition). The other partitions were created, but nothing was written in it. The partitions were not used.

I had so a lot of unused "lost" partitions.
These partitions came "automounted" on my dekstop in my X-window.
Manually unmounting them had no negative impact on the performance.
I wanted to stop this (automounting thing), but I fount no "simple" solution.
So I decided to remove these partitions.
But only one at the time.
So I removed 1 (empty) partition.

And now I ran the grub issue.
I think that grub startpoint is "hardcoded" into the startcode of grub in the MBR (done during installation of grub).
So now there is a partition less, an so the original startpoint is not more the same as before.

I think that is the problem.

Who can help ?

[glennzo]

I think you need to boot that live cd and list your partitions with fdisk. Then you need to find the partition with /boot and /boot/grub/menu.lst. Post the contents of /sbin/fdisk -l and cat /boot/grub/menu.lst. If you only deleted one partition then the boot partition may be /dev/sda9 if it was indeed /dev/sda10 before.

[emdubya]

I'm also having grub trouble. I updated my fc9 (hd1,0) installation yesterday. I attempted to reboot to my fc8(hd0,5) but grub would not start. The last line on the display is:

grub

I couldn't do anything so I booted to rescue. I'm troubleshooting it now.

I got in grub and did the root, kernel, initrd routine to try to boot fc9(hd1,0)

I'm getting error 16 inconsistent filesystem structure, when I do the initrd

[phe]

Originally Posted by glennzo

I think you need to boot that live cd and list your partitions with fdisk. Then you need to find the partition with /boot and /boot/grub/menu.lst. Post the contents of /sbin/fdisk -l and cat /boot/grub/menu.lst. If you only deleted one partition then the boot partition may be /dev/sda9 if it was indeed /dev/sda10 before.

fdisk /dev/hda -l
=================


Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda2   *         201        1001     6434001   a6  OpenBSD
/dev/hda3               1           1          31   83  Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda4            1002        9729    70107660    5  Extended
/dev/hda5            1002        1766     6144831   83  Linux
/dev/hda6            1767        2276     4096543+  83  Linux
/dev/hda7            3169        3359     1534176   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda8            3360        3380      168651   83  Linux
/dev/hda9            3381        3500      963868+  83  Linux
/dev/hda10           3501        4775    10241406   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

ls -laR hd/boot
===============

hd/boot:
total 17240
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root    4096 2008-10-26 13:56 .
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root    4096 2008-11-04 14:00 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   86348 2008-05-01 10:34 config-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   88852 2008-09-20 07:54 config-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   88863 2008-10-17 19:03 config-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    4096 2008-10-04 21:09 efi
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    4096 2008-11-08 09:30 grub
-rw-------  1 root root 2695654 2008-10-04 21:13 initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
-rw-------  1 root root 2704771 2008-10-06 20:33 initrd-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686.img
-rw-------  1 root root 2714207 2008-10-26 13:56 initrd-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  112076 2008-04-03 21:16 memtest86+-2.01
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  892575 2008-05-01 10:34 System.map-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  916225 2008-09-20 07:54 System.map-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  917058 2008-10-17 19:03 System.map-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 2088288 2008-05-01 10:34 vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 2125408 2008-09-20 07:54 vmlinuz-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 2128928 2008-10-17 19:03 vmlinuz-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686

hd/boot/efi:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-10-04 21:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 2008-10-26 13:56 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-10-04 21:09 EFI

hd/boot/efi/EFI:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-10-04 21:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-10-04 21:09 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-10-04 21:09 redhat

hd/boot/efi/EFI/redhat:
total 220
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 2008-10-04 21:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root   4096 2008-10-04 21:09 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 211919 2008-04-07 17:31 grub.efi

hd/boot/grub:
total 336
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 2008-11-08 09:30 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root   4096 2008-10-26 13:56 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     63 2008-10-04 21:40 device.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11768 2008-10-04 21:40 e2fs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11528 2008-10-04 21:40 fat_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10776 2008-10-04 21:40 ffs_stage1_5
-rw------- 1 root root   1104 2008-11-08 09:30 grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10768 2008-10-04 21:40 iso9660_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  12440 2008-10-04 21:40 jfs_stage1_5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     11 2008-10-04 21:40 menu.lst -> ./grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10984 2008-10-04 21:40 minix_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  13376 2008-10-04 21:40 reiserfs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  66003 2008-04-11 20:02 splash.xpm.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    512 2008-10-04 21:40 stage1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110532 2008-10-04 21:40 stage2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11040 2008-10-04 21:40 ufs2_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10376 2008-10-04 21:40 vstafs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  13016 2008-10-04 21:40 xfs_stage1_5


cat  /mnt/hd/boot/grub/grub.conf
================================

# 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 (hd0,10)
#          kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda11
#          initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,9)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686)
	root (hd0,9)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=e73e09bb-d6f8-4124-b076-90f50dc5448c rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686)
	root (hd0,10)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=e73e09bb-d6f8-4124-b076-90f50dc5448c rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.25-14.fc9.i686)
	root (hd0,10)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=e73e09bb-d6f8-4124-b076-90f50dc5448c rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
title OpenBSD41
	rootnoverify (hd0,1)
	chainloader +1

[glennzo]

Please post the output of the command blkid. Also, a question. In what order were the operating systems installed, i.e., Fedora first and then OpenBSD or OpenBSD first?

[phe]

Originally Posted by glennzo

Please post the output of the command blkid. Also, a question. In what order were the operating systems installed, i.e., Fedora first and then OpenBSD or OpenBSD first?

OBSD was first installed.
Afterwarts I installed Fedora9.

Everything went fine. Until I started to remove a partition.

All entries for Fedora9 in grub had : (hd0,10) And these were working.

When I had a problem, I mdofied one to (hd0,9) but this solved nothing.

I will report the output of blkid in an houre.
I will do it when I run a liveCD (must hda10 be mounted ?)
I do not know this command. What do this ?
Why is it good for?

[glennzo]

The blkid program is the command-line interface to working with libblkid(3) library. It can determine the type of content (e.g. filesystem, swap) a block device holds, and also attributes (tokens, NAME=value pairs) from the content metadata (e.g. LABEL or UUID fields).

Sometimes when Fedora refuses to boot the blkid is wrong. Correcting the blkid can be the difference you're looking for. For example, in your boot menu you have this line

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=e73e09bb-d6f8-4124-b076-90f50dc5448c rhgb quiet

The red text is the blkid. If it's wrong, no boot.

[phe]

Originally Posted by glennzo

The blkid program is the command-line interface to working with libblkid(3) library. It can determine the type of content (e.g. filesystem, swap) a block device holds, and also attributes (tokens, NAME=value pairs) from the content metadata (e.g. LABEL or UUID fields).

Sometimes when Fedora refuses to boot the blkid is wrong. Correcting the blkid can be the difference you're looking for. For example, in your boot menu you have this line

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=e73e09bb-d6f8-4124-b076-90f50dc5448c rhgb quiet

The red text is the blkid. If it's wrong, no boot.

Hi Glennzo,

Hre is my blkid :

blkid
=====

/dev/hda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="B344-488C" TYPE="vfat" 
/dev/hda2: TYPE="ufs" 
/dev/hda5: LABEL="/home" UUID="b562f057-8017-473f-93a8-ca26f3cd0fe2" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/hda6: LABEL="/usr" UUID="05f8eae4-87bf-4ec2-a2a8-ddba93ad7ac6" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/hda7: LABEL="SWAP-sda10" UUID="c1b409be-5220-462a-a13a-7b2bf6f85ff6" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/hda8: LABEL="/boot" UUID="3fc6e388-de2b-4a1d-bedf-694e8828089a" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/hda9: LABEL="/var" UUID="20f88e8e-1c6f-4128-b9a4-98202501cb4d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/hda10: LABEL="/" UUID="e73e09bb-d6f8-4124-b076-90f50dc5448c" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/hda11: TYPE="ufs" 
/dev/hda13: TYPE="ufs" 
/dev/hda14: TYPE="ufs" 
/dev/hda15: TYPE="ufs" 
/dev/hda16: TYPE="ufs" 
/dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="USB_DISK" UUID="0CDB-2B6D" TYPE="vfat"

As far as I can see these are OK.

Any other idea ?

[phe]

Hi,

I think the problem is not that Fedora will not boot.
I think it is even worser.

Grub will not boot.
Grub do not find the splash image neither.
When I start my pc, I get so fort the grub prompt.

[glennzo]

Try this

title Fedora (2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686)
	root (hd0,9)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=20f88e8e-1c6f-4128-b9a4-98202501cb4d rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.26.6-79.fc9.i686.img

[phe]

Still the same.

I do not get my grub splash-screen.

So I think grub do not start as normal.

I think grub has a problem.

[glennzo]

How about using the install DVD to re-install grub ??

[phe]

Originally Posted by glennzo

How about using the install DVD to re-install grub ??

I start to think in that direction.

But :

When I get "grub>"

Does this not mean : grub runs but can not find root-partition?

I want not mess up my actual setup. That for I want to be sure what I do.