Hi all. I have a post over at
SSD Review Forums trying to set my Crucial M4 SSD as bootable so as I can boot straight into Fedora 15 without having to chainload from a Fedora 14 Grub installation.
For some reason, and I am trying to find out why, I cannot boot directly into my SSD from the bios of my DFI-NF4-SLI mobo (yes its an old one but that shouldn't matter because SSD's are supposed to act independently of the mobo.)
Here is a fdisk -l print out. My SSD is sdc and grub is installed in sda1 which is listed by fdisk as bootable.
Quote:
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00010d0b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 234773909 117386923+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 234773910 1953520064 859373077+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5d4ad108
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 163846934 81923436 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 163848192 225288191 30720000 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 225288192 231432191 3072000 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb4 231432192 976773119 372670464 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdc: 64.0 GB, 64023257088 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7783 cylinders, total 125045424 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0001d2c3
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 2048 31746047 15872000 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 31746048 115714047 41984000 83 Linux
/dev/sdc3 115714048 125044735 4665344 82 Linux swap / Solaris
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I'm not sure if /dev/sdc1 which is marked as bootable according to fdisk is actually bootable. It is aligned properly according to
Stevea's thread about setting up SSD's but it is a bit confusing to me to be honest.
Here is my Grub.conf from my SSD with a working Fedora 15 installation (which I am using to write this right now). So my install works, I just can't boot directly into it directly from the Bios of my mobo. Title
previous links back to the Fedora 14 Grub menu.
Quote:
# 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 (hd2,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sdc1
# initrd /boot/initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sdc1
default=0
timeout=3
splashimage=(hd2,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.38.7-30.fc15.x86_64)
root (hd2,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38.7-30.fc15.x86_64 ro root=UUID=4916080d-e8bb-4dee-906f-32801b8d81f9 elevator=noop rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=us rhgb radeon.modeset=0
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.38.7-30.fc15.x86_64.img
title Fedora (2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64)
root (hd2,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64 ro root=UUID=4916080d-e8bb-4dee-906f-32801b8d81f9 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 previous
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
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Because Fedora only uses Grub Legacy and not Grub2, I am stuck using MBR as the 'partiton table' ??? and not GPT which most other Linux distro's have moved to. I read that over at
ArchLinux Forums. So, I checked that with gdisk, output ...
Quote:
[root@localhost ~]# gdisk /dev/sdc
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.7.1
Partition table scan:
MBR: MBR only
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: not present
|
From this I assume I have a valid partition table capable of booting my SSD. ??? Am I wrong?
When I select to boot from my Crucial M4 in bios, I get Nada... nothing. The bios load stops. But, if I select my Fedora 14 disk which is sdb, with a bootable MBR then I can chainload through to my SDD and the second grub install and can subsequently select to boot into Fedora 15.
Clear as mud?? Please someone help... I'm going batty.
SOLVED.
The new installer has some options to change the boot order of grub outside of the motherboard bios. And whilst you can specify where to install Grub and its associated MBR
stuff, you can also change the order of the drive in your computer.
I screwed up my bootloader trying to figure this out and instead of fixing it, I just decided to start again. Much much closer inspection of the bootloader install process shed some light in this.
I hope others read this so as to shed some light on the
new feature in Fedora 15.
Linear Mode
