Centos grub not loading other distros

[saivin]

Hi all,
I have problem with Centos not loading other distros. Below is my fdisk -l :

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        1958    15727603+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2   *        1959        3916    15727635   83  Linux
/dev/sda3            3917       17623   110101477+   5  Extended
/dev/sda4           17624       19457    14731605   83  Linux
/dev/sda5            3917        3941      200781   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            3942        4202     2096451   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7            4203       15951    94373811   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           15952       17623    13430308+  83  Linux

where,
sda1 is Arch
sda2 is Ubuntu
sda5 is /boot
sda6 is swap and
sda8 is Centos
Other partitions are for storage.

The following is my grub.conf (on /dev/sda5, sep /boot for centos):

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,4)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda8
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda5
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-128.7.1.el5)
	root (hd0,4)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-128.7.1.el5 ro root=LABEL=CentOS
	initrd /initrd-2.6.18-128.7.1.el5.img


title Arch	
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda1 ro
	initrd /boot/kernel26.img


title Ubuntu	
	root (hd0,1)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-15-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-15-generic

Do you find anything wrong in the above entries? For some reason, the bootloader is not booting Arch and Ubuntu at all.

The entries for Arch and Ubuntu are written by me. The original grub on mbr was of Ubuntu install. Every distro was booting just fine. I then did 'grub-install hd0' when I was in Centos. Edited grub.conf to include other distros. But I am not able to boot into any of them. Only centos boots.

I even tried

rootnoverify (hd0,x)
chainloader +1

to boot other distros but I got error: Invalid or unexecutable format.

I don't know if the command is correct but I tried

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

and

grub> find /boot/grub/menu.lst

For both I get Error 15: File not found.

This is on my laptop. But I get the same error on my desktop too. On my desktop I don't have a seperate /boot though.

What could be the problem?

[Jonathan183]

I have had problems with different distros grub not playing nice together example thread here.

For me I ended up installing grub to root partition of each distro and then use chainloader to start them.

I use configfile or chainloader to access each grub menu ... that way menu entries are automatically updated by the distro rather than having to copy new entries from one grub menu file to another.

[saivin]

Yes, even I tried using configfile (chainloading did not work). No help.

I was going through centos.org forums and found this thread. The guy says it has something to do with the inode sizes of distros' partitions (128 of centos vs >256 of latest distros).

I tried

tune2fs -l /dev/sdax | grep Inode

and indeed found sizes to be 128 for centos 5.3 and 256 for Arch. While Ubuntu partition was not read as it was formatted with ext4 and centos does not recognize it.

As per the above linked thread there is apparently no solution to the problem. Just in case anybody has a work around.... otherwise I will install Ubuntu grub using the livecd. What to do?

[Jonathan183]

I would install grub to the root partition of each distro, this will give you the best chance of chainloading ...

From CentOS run grub as root

root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0,4)
quit

and add to CentOS /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Arch grub
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title Ubuntu grub
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

Boot into Arch using the Arch live CD, chroot in and do

grub
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
quit

Boot from Ubuntu live CD, and use

grub
root (hd0,1)
setup (hd0,1)
quit

Try booting from the hard drive ... you should be able to run Arch but I'm not sure CentOS will recognise the ext4 partition - so you may need to put either Ubuntu or Arch grub on the MBR.

... I have Arch and CentOS 5.2 and have just gone through a similar process to check it works.

[saivin]

Sorry Jonathan for not replying this long.

Lot of things changed in these days. I got slacked.

Am using lilo instead of grub to load other distros Ubuntu and CentOS. Although Ubuntu boots fine, I'm having trouble CentOS. Am working on it.