Grub freezes

**jsantarossa** · 06-29-2008

When booting my computer, I get this:

Grub Loading stage1.5
Grub Loading, please wait...

and that's it; Grub freezes. Grub worked fine, when I was running openSuse 10.3 but I upgraded to 11.0 and Grub just doesn't want to work anymore. I tried resinsalling Grub from Yast, the openSuse install disc and from Super Grub Disk with no success - the install worked, except with Super Grub Disk, but I ended up with the same problem. If I boot from the Suse install disk and choose the boot from hard disk option everything works fine but it's a little annoying, to say the least, to have to put the install disk in every time I reboot.

Here's my setup:

hd 0,0 -windows
hd 0,1 -NTFS
hd 1,0 -swap
hd 1,1 -root
hd 1,2 -home

menu.lst

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat Jun 28 23:50:12 EDT 2008
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd1,1)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3200AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ0558919-part2 resume=/dev/sdb1 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae

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

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.0
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/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
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Kernel-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae###
title Kernel-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3200AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ0558919-part2 resume=/dev/sdb1 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae

grub.conf

setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 (hd0) (hd1,1)
quit

If anyone has some insight as to why I can't get Grub to load properly, your help would be appreciated.

**Jonathan183** · 06-29-2008

Could you post output of

Code:

su
fdisk -l

Have you changed BIOS settings to boot from hard drive with Linux on or did you install grub to the MBR of the first hard disk?
Did you change the partition size/order between using 10.3 and 11.0?

When you tried a manual install of grub from the install media what did you type?

**jsantarossa** · 06-29-2008

Thanks for the quick reply.

Here's the output from fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 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/sda1 * 1 5573 44765091 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 5574 30401 199430910 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 5574 30401 199430878+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 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/sdb1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb2 263 4179 31463302+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 4180 38913 279000855 83 Linux

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.

When I installed Grub from Yast and the suse install disk, I let the program do everything automatically. This is what happens when I try to do it manually, from Konsole:

grub> root (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
grub> setup (hd0)
setup (hd0)

Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
grub>

Thanks for the help.

**Jonathan183** · 06-29-2008

To manually install grub try

Code:

su -
grub
root (hd1,1)
setup (hd0)
quit

That should put grub on the MBR of the Windows drive, you could repeat the above but use setup (hd1) to put it on the MBR of the Linux drive as well.

Let us know if this works.

Ed: incase the above does not fix your problem then try working through the grub manual install here ... use find and check stage 1 etc are present.

**jsantarossa** · 06-30-2008

I tried the manual install, above, with (hd0) and (hd1) and I tried changing the boot sequence of my hard drives so (hd1) would boot first with no luck. I read through a bit of the manual and tried

Code:

grub-install sda

again, no luck.

I thought that my hard disk might have a few corrupt sectors so I decided to try LILO and it worked so, at least, I know it's not a disk problem.

Since I have tomorrow off (Canada Day!!), I'm going to read a bit more of the Grub manual, to see if I can find a solution and if not I might try an older version of Grub. I'll let everyone know when (if) I fix the problem.

**devils casper** · 06-30-2008

Its a GRUB/BIOS compatibility problem. SUSE has been installed in Second HD but GRUB is in the MBR of First HD. This setup doesn't work in a few machines.
I would suggest you to modify /etc/fstab and menu.lst files, plug-in SUSE HD as Primary and re-install GRUB in MBR of SUSE disk using SuperGRUB Disk.

Create backup copy of both files first.

Modified menu.lst

Code:

default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message

title openSUSE 11.0
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda1 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd2)
chainloader +1

Post the contents of /etc/fstab file here.

**jsantarossa** · 06-30-2008

Here's my fstab

Code:

/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3200AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ0558919-part1 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3200AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ0558919-part2 /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3200AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ0558919-part3 /home                ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3250823AS_4ND0EV6C-part1 /windows/C           ntfs-3g    users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3250823AS_4ND0EV6C-part5 /windows/D           ntfs-3g    users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0

I'm at work so I won't be able to do any hard disk swapping until tonight/tomorrow.

Thanks for the help.

**Jonathan183** · 06-30-2008

fstab uses device by-id so should not require modification

**devils casper** · 06-30-2008

Originally Posted by Jonathan183

fstab uses device by-id so should not require modification

Hi Jonathan183 !

I haven't used SUSE for a long time. If swapping disks do not change device-id then there is no need to edit /etc/fstab file.

jsantarossa : There is no need to edit /etc/fstab file as suggested by Jonathan183. Edit menu.lst file, SWAP disks and re-install GRUB using SuperGRUB Disk. GRUB should work fine after that.

**Jonathan183** · 06-30-2008

Hi devils casper ... I think device by_id uses unique info for the drive so no mod to fstab should be needed. openSUSE 10.3 uses by_id as the default setup but I'm not sure about older versions.

I thought this issue might be BIOS 1024 cylinder limit and my next suggestion was either reduce size of root or create a separate boot partition.

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

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