[devils casper]

Hi Jonathan !

I dont think its 1024 Cylinder limit problem because jsantarossa was running 10.3 successfully. Upgrade from 10.3 to 11 doesn't enforce Cylinder limit.

As you know, SUSE developers modify GRUB scripts now and then ( they haven't considered GRUB 2 yet ) and I think new GRUB scripts created BIOS/GRUB compatibility problem.

Ed: good to see the change of job has not changed the post pattern ... still see a screen full of devils casper replies when I login

I am not regular as earlier. Dont have much free time these days.
I am really happy to see your valuable posts and helping members a lot here.

[Jonathan183]

Originally Posted by jsantarossa

I haven't touched my bios, so it should be the same. I did a fresh install with 11.0 and that drive (hd1) did get formatted, the partitioning is definitely different from what it used to be ( (hd1,0) used to be an NTFS partition then I had swap, root and home partitions ). Grub should be on the MBR of the first disk, as far as I know, anyway.

Originally Posted by devils casper

I dont think its 1024 Cylinder limit problem because jsantarossa was running 10.3 successfully. Upgrade from 10.3 to 11 doesn't enforce Cylinder limit.

I think the partition layout was changed ... a fresh install rather than update was used. I thought grub stages were the same, just config files changed with distro - so expected the manual install to work.

[jsantarossa]

I changed my menu.lst, swapped my hard disks and installed Grub manually with no success. I also made a boot partition and put Grub on there and, instead of freezing after loading stage1.5, it now freezes at loading stage2. Is that a step forward? My stubbornness to get Grub to work is slowly turning into frustration; I must have reset my computer, at least, 50 times today. Jonathon, do you think shrinking my root partition is going to help? If so, I don't really want to make it smaller than 20GB - is that going to be enough?

Any other suggestions would be welcome, and again, I appreciate the help.

[Jonathan183]

Can you post the output of

su
fdisk -l
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

The partition limit is for the partition you boot from, provided the boot partition starts and ends before cylinder 1024 there should be no issue.
Reducing the root partition is only necessary if you don't have a separate boot partition.

Ed: also can you post output of

ls /boot -R

[jsantarossa]

I put my boot partition at the end of the disk ( (sda4) or (hd0,3) ), so it definitely doesn't end before cylinder 1024. I had Yast generate my menu.lst again and as long as I boot from the suse install cd and choose boot from disk I can get into the OS fine - I believe the cd doesn't look on the hard disk for stage1, stage2, etc.

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x92703344

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1         262     2104483+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2             263        4179    31463302+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3            4180       38911   278984790   83  Linux
/dev/sda4   *       38912       38913       16065   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1549f232

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        5573    44765091    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2            5574       30401   199430910    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5            5574       30401   199430878+   7  HPFS/NTFS

menu.lst

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Jul  1 16:15:03 EDT 2008
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,3)/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0
    root (hd0,3)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3200AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ0558919-part2 resume=/dev/sda1 splash=silent showopts vga=0x31B
    initrd /initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
    rootnoverify (hd0,3)
    chainloader (hd1,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.0
    root (hd0,3)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3200AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ0558919-part2 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off  x11failsafe vga=0x31B
    initrd /initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae

ls

/boot:
backup_mbr  config-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae  initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae  map      System.map-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae
boot        grub                     lost+found               message  vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae

/boot/grub:
device.map      fat_stage1_5      jfs_stage1_5  minix_stage1_5     stage2           xfs_stage1_5
device.map.old  ffs_stage1_5      menu.lst      reiserfs_stage1_5  ufs2_stage1_5
e2fs_stage1_5   iso9660_stage1_5  menu.lst.old  stage1             vstafs_stage1_5

/boot/lost+found:

[Jonathan183]

For the boot partition to help it needs to be at the beginning of the hard drive. The partition only needs to be about 100MB normally. I suggest you use the parted magic CD to erase the boot partition at the end of the drive and create 100MB space at the beginning of the hard drive and create the boot partition there.

[jsantarossa]

I moved my boot partition from the end of the disk to the start (cylinder 1-13) with no luck in getting Grub to load. The rest of my configuration stayed the same as above.

[Jonathan183]

Can you repost fdisk -l output and also indicate what message you get when starting the system.

[jsantarossa]

Here's the message I get when I boot the computer.

Grub Loading stage1.5

Grub Loading, please wait...

<Blinking cursor>

I have to do a hard reboot to get out of it.

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x92703344

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              14         262     2000092+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2             263        4179    31463302+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3            4180       38913   279000855   83  Linux
/dev/sda4   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1549f232

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        5573    44765091    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2            5574       30401   199430910    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5            5574       30401   199430878+   7  HPFS/NTFS

[Jonathan183]

Did you reinstall grub using

grub
root (hd0,3)
setup (hd0)