FC5 fresh install hangs at "GRUB Loading Stage2..."

[gregorm]

Hi all,

I have been running FC3 and FC4 on a DFI K8M800-MLVF motherboard using various old PATA drives just fine for over a year now.

I've been trying to get it to boot off of a larger SATA drive with FC4, but no matter what I do, the best I can get after the initial install is for the system to hang at:
GRUB Loading Stage2...

I tried it again last night with FC5, and got the exact same result.

The motherboard has the VIA SATA controller, and I have updated it to the latest BIOS.

It turns out that other people have run into the same problem on various motherboards since FC3, which were thought to be have been solved, but at least for this motherboard, they have not been solved.

I have tried a number of BIOS settings, and reinstalled FC5 with both MBR and SDA1 GRUB install methods with the same results.

Here are other accounts of the problem with this motherboard and the closed bug from FC3 which has lots of reports of the problem with both SATA and PATA drives on various motherboards:

http://www.mojocode.com/0010.html
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla....cgi?id=139140
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archiv...p/t-51153.html
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...ad.php?t=49276

I've heard of people using lilo instead of grub as a workaround, but I haven't had any luck finding RPMs of LILO for FC5 (or FC4) yet...

For my next stem, I may download a FC2 DVD to see if it solves this particular issue, and if it does, I'll downgrade to the FC2 GRUB RPM in rescue mode after installing FC5.

Does anyone know what change in GRUB caused the problems?

Thanks!

[LordMatanza]

Hello Everybody,

I seem to have the same motherboard and also the same problem.
This post is quite old, but still valid (for FC7).
I tried to install FC7 on a new SATA disk, I've always used PATA on this mobo.
I even tried to use SATA for the / file partition and a PATA disk for the /boot partition, but still Grub hangs at Loading Stage2...
Does anybody have an answer to this problem?

Thanx in advance...

[LordMatanza]

I have solved the problem by installing Lilo, but ofcourse this is not the most optimal and desired situation, since Yum won't update the lilo.conf when a new kernel is installed.
So my problem still exists, but the situation is workable now.
If anybody has an idea, please do inform me!