trying to create a grub boot CD on RHEL 5

[gginnj]

I installed RHEL5 on an older server. The install went smooth, however, grub hangs at loading stage 2. The latest version of RH I could get to boot was 9.0, after that, all the grubs hang on boot. I've pretty much given up trying to get this system to boot. I've tried FC3 to FC13, and all of them hang on boot as well. I've come to the conclusion that the problem is with the server's age. so, now I'm looking for alternative boot methods.

I can boot the rescue CD, and see my system.

So, my thought was to create a boot CD that I would use to boot the system.

When I did the chroot to /mnt/sysimage, I was unable to open the CD drawer,
but I was able to get that to work with 'eject /dev/hdc'

I copied /boot/grub files to a directory, then tried to use the mksofs but it gave me some errors, and the drive light never came on.

I used 'mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5 -no-emul-boot \ -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso iso'

I also tried adding a -dev /dev/hdc, but that didn't seem to trigger writing to the CD drive.

I've never created cd's from Command Line.

Any pointers on creating this boot cd from the command line using the rescue linux boot dvd?

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Have you tried SuperGRUB CD/USB? Check if its grub boot up RHEL.

[yancek]

To make a Grub bootable CD/DVD, you need the stage2_eltorito file. The command below works for me:

mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso iso

[gginnj]

To make a Grub bootable CD/DVD, you need the stage2_eltorito file. The command below works for me:

I only saw a "stage2" (no underscores) in the /boot/grub directory

My main question here however, was how do I get mkisofs to actually write to my CD drive from the rescue dvd, after I chroot's to my /mnt/sysimage?

I tried adding -dev /dev/hdc to the command line, but that did not seem to help.
(eject /dev/hdc did work to get the tray open, the button did not trigger it)

I checked df, as well I tried to umount /dev/hdc, and didn't see anything attached,
so I'm not sure if mkisofs knows where my cdwriter is....

[gginnj]

Hi and Welcome !

Have you tried SuperGRUB CD/USB? Check if its grub boot up RHEL.

I downloaded and burned the supergrub cd, booted it.

I had it check for any os's, when I attempted to boot the first entry,
it came back with invalid signature, when did an 'e', it showed

'set root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1'

I tried to go into command line,

I manually set root (hd0,1)
then I attempted kernel .... but it didn't know the kernel command

If I tried to set the initrd and/or 'boot', it said there was no kernel loaded.

[yancek]

I don't use Red Hat so I don't know where you will find the stage2_eltorito file if it is not in /boot/grub directory. Using PCLinuxOS, the file is there. The GNU Grub site states the Grub files are usually in /usr/share/grub. You will have to search for it on your system or google.

The command you posted and which I suggested a modification would create an iso image called grub.iso in a directory called iso. The iso directory is where you would put the stage2_eltorito file as well as anything else you want on the CD. After creating this iso image, you would just burn the image to a CD to boot in the same way you burn any iso image you download. So no, mkisofs does not know where your cdwriter is and does not need to know.

You can get more information on Grub bootable CDrom from the Gnu Grub site:

GNU GRUB Manual 1.98-r2508

Reading over your initial post, I'm not sure this is what you need. You are unable to boot RHEL 5 and Fedora?? Posting some information on your actual hardware and your partition information would be helpful. If the error you get is not being able to load stage2, that is usually because it is not where the stage1 expects it to be. If there are other errors, post them.

[gginnj]

I don't get any actual errors on boot, just "Grub Stage 2..."

The server itself, is older, we purchased it originally in 2002, and had
redhat 9.0 installed on it (and it worked fine). We have recently replaced
this server, and now want to repurpose the old one, since it's still a
good server (dual Xeon cpus, and nice RAID drive array - not the system drive,
and not on the primary controller either).

If we reinstall 9.0, the system does boot fine....but, I wanted something a little
newer than Redhat 9.0 (which did use Grub). All of the Fedora's and RHEL5 all
install fine, just all hang at the stage2 of grub.

I've tried a few steps to correct it,but nothing has remotely worked.

Since I can boot to a rescue disk and see my filesystems (just can't boot the system), I'm wondering if I can setup a boot cd. I really don't know at this
point what will work, what will not.

The BIOS does handle LBA drives. As far as I know, the boot order is the same
in the bios as it is in linux. If I'm in grub, and I issue a root (hd0,1) it comes
back with the correct filetype (my /boot partition is the only one that is ext2).

The question of whether my kernel is corrupted? I find it hard to believe that it
would be, on FC3, FC5, FC7, FC10, FC11 and FC13 and RHEL5 (Yes, I've been
installing lot's of different versions to find one that works).

I've also tried putting grub on the boot partition and on the MBR, both give
the same results

I've tried using both the default LVM setup, as well as going with each having
their own physical partition (and not using LVM at all).

I'm going to try Ubuntu next

Really starting to annoy me now.

[yancek]

What do you have installed now?
Can you post hardware specs, cpu? RAM?,etc..
If you have some operating system installed log in as root and run fdisk -l command to get partition information to post. What does your /boot/grub/menu.lst show? If you have Ubuntu installed it wil not have the menu.lst as it uses Grub2.
If you are trying to install Red Hat and different versions of Fedora sequentially, you will need to put Grub stage1 in the mbr for it to boot.
Do you have any other OS installed?