On 07/31/2007 08:31 PM, Steve Kleene wrote:
> [...]
> Still, I verified that /etc/lilo.conf was there, and there were no grub
> files anywhere under /target (including under /boot). I finished the
> installation anyway, and found it totally bizarre when a reboot produced
> the same output as before, including "GRUB Loading stage1.5". It's as if
> this string lives on the MBR and I'm unable to overwrite it.
>

Which MBR? Each fixed disk can have its own MBR. It sounds like you have
six ATA devices installed; the BIOS is trying to boot from one of those
devices, and you need to write to the MBR for that device.

BTW, did you change /etc/lilo.conf to work with your system?

> Practically all I can think of now is trying to install Windows and see if
> that's even possible. That's pretty desperate.
>
> In case it's relevant, here's how fdisk showed the filesys in rescue mode:
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hde1 * 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hde2 4819 5005 1502077+ 5 Extended
> /dev/hde3 12 4818 38604195 83 Linux
> /dev/hde5 4819 5005 1502046 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>
> I do appreciate all of your suggestions and am sorry this is going on so
> long.
>
>

Where are and what are the devices before /dev/hde?



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On 07/31/2007 08:31 PM, Steve Kleene wrote:
> [...]
> Still, I verified that /etc/lilo.conf was there, and there were no grub
> files anywhere under /target (including under /boot). I finished the
> installation anyway, and found it totally bizarre when a reboot produced
> the same output as before, including "GRUB Loading stage1.5". It's as if
> this string lives on the MBR and I'm unable to overwrite it.
>

Which MBR? Each fixed disk can have its own MBR. It sounds like you have
six ATA devices installed; the BIOS is trying to boot from one of those
devices, and you need to write to the MBR for that device.

BTW, did you change /etc/lilo.conf to work with your system?

> Practically all I can think of now is trying to install Windows and see if
> that's even possible. That's pretty desperate.
>
> In case it's relevant, here's how fdisk showed the filesys in rescue mode:
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hde1 * 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hde2 4819 5005 1502077+ 5 Extended
> /dev/hde3 12 4818 38604195 83 Linux
> /dev/hde5 4819 5005 1502046 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>
> I do appreciate all of your suggestions and am sorry this is going on so
> long.
>
>

Where are and what are the devices before /dev/hde?



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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:21:49 +0300, Andrei Popescu replied:
> IIRC your /boot partition was pretty big. Would it be very complicated
> to make it something like a few hundred megs (less then 512) ?

As shown during partitioning, it was <100 MB, i.e.

IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
#1 primary 98.7 MB B f ext3 /boot

Since each cylinder is 8225280 bytes, this is 12 cylinders.


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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:21:49 +0300, Andrei Popescu replied:
> IIRC your /boot partition was pretty big. Would it be very complicated
> to make it something like a few hundred megs (less then 512) ?

As shown during partitioning, it was <100 MB, i.e.

IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
#1 primary 98.7 MB B f ext3 /boot

Since each cylinder is 8225280 bytes, this is 12 cylinders.


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On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:31:09 -0400, I wrote:
>> Still, I verified that /etc/lilo.conf was there, and there were no grub
>> files anywhere under /target (including under /boot). I finished the
>> installation anyway, and found it totally bizarre when a reboot produced
>> the same output as before, including "GRUB Loading stage1.5". It's as if
>> this string lives on the MBR and I'm unable to overwrite it.

On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:18:13 -0500, Mumia W.. replied:

> Which MBR? Each fixed disk can have its own MBR. It sounds like you have
> six ATA devices installed; the BIOS is trying to boot from one of those
> devices, and you need to write to the MBR for that device.
>
> BTW, did you change /etc/lilo.conf to work with your system?
>
> Where are and what are the devices before /dev/hde?

The motherboard (Abit BX133 440BX) has four IDE connectors allowing 8 drives
in total. hda-hdd have a speed of 33 MB/s max. hde-hdh have a speed of 66
MB/s max. So I have always had the two hard drives connected to hde and hdf.
There are no other hard drives. I forget which device the CD drive is, but
most of the IDE connectors are not connected to anything. Since I brought
this up 6 years ago, the MBR has been on hde and supported both Win98 and Red
Hat. This all worked until I tried to build Etch on hde (with no Windows).

It is a good idea that maybe grub is trying to read the MBR on the wrong disk
(hdf). I may have to break down and disconnect hdf before I resume. I may
also try to read the MBR with "od" if it's available just to see where this
string "GRUB Loading stage1.5: is coming from.

I did not try to edit the lilo.conf that was installed. It was really a
bare-bones file.

Thanks.


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On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 10:19:09PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]
>

Here's a fresh start, just to verify that your machine will actually
boot properly.

1. Connect your drives to /dev/hda and /dev/hdc, set the jumpers on
both drives to master. Alternatively, just remove hdc for now.

2. Boot the installer and go to a shell.

3. Clear the beginning of the drives, which includes the MBR:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=2 ;sync
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc bs=512 count=2 ;sync

4. exit the shell and return to the installer.

5. Run the install, just the base system (don't select any tasks).

6. Partition the drives thus:

hda1 /boot 32 MB
hda2 swap 128 MB
hda3 / remainder

You don't need hdc for this.

7. Install the grub onto hda (not hda1 or other partition).

8. Try to reboot. If it doesn't work, reboot the installer in
rescue mode and tell it to install grub again in hda.

As for the grub-disk, if you mount it you should see a default menu.lst
file. Therefore, when you boot it, you should get a menu on the
screen. You may need to ensure that it got copied correctly. Use dd to
make an image file of the floppy you created and then compare the md5sum
of both images. They should be the same.

Good luck,

Doug.


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On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 10:19:09PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]
>

Here's a fresh start, just to verify that your machine will actually
boot properly.

1. Connect your drives to /dev/hda and /dev/hdc, set the jumpers on
both drives to master. Alternatively, just remove hdc for now.

2. Boot the installer and go to a shell.

3. Clear the beginning of the drives, which includes the MBR:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=2 ;sync
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc bs=512 count=2 ;sync

4. exit the shell and return to the installer.

5. Run the install, just the base system (don't select any tasks).

6. Partition the drives thus:

hda1 /boot 32 MB
hda2 swap 128 MB
hda3 / remainder

You don't need hdc for this.

7. Install the grub onto hda (not hda1 or other partition).

8. Try to reboot. If it doesn't work, reboot the installer in
rescue mode and tell it to install grub again in hda.

As for the grub-disk, if you mount it you should see a default menu.lst
file. Therefore, when you boot it, you should get a menu on the
screen. You may need to ensure that it got copied correctly. Use dd to
make an image file of the floppy you created and then compare the md5sum
of both images. They should be the same.

Good luck,

Doug.


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On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 08:45:23 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> Here's a fresh start, just to verify that your machine will actually
> boot properly.

Thanks. I'll definitely try this, but probably won't have time until
tomorrow.

> As for the grub-disk, if you mount it you should see a default menu.lst
> file. Therefore, when you boot it, you should get a menu on the
> screen.

In fact, that's exactly what happened on my good Etch machine. It looked
just like the usual grub menu I get from the hard drive, so I probably failed
to realize it was coming from the floppy. And I guess I thought I was
supposed to get a shell prompt to execute the grub commands you had suggested
earlier.

Thanks.


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On 08/01/2007 07:23 AM, Steve Kleene wrote:
>
> The motherboard (Abit BX133 440BX) has four IDE connectors allowing 8 drives
> in total. hda-hdd have a speed of 33 MB/s max. hde-hdh have a speed of 66
> MB/s max. So I have always had the two hard drives connected to hde and hdf.
> There are no other hard drives. [...]

I think I smell a bug in the installer. Your HD configuration may be
"throwing it for a loop."

You probably will have to install Lilo manually--with minimal from
the Debian installation and configuration system.

I used to have fun with this when I used Lilo in conjunction with
another Linux distro :-)


> I forget which device the CD drive is, but
> most of the IDE connectors are not connected to anything. Since I brought
> this up 6 years ago, the MBR has been on hde and supported both Win98 and Red
> Hat. This all worked until I tried to build Etch on hde (with no Windows).
>
> It is a good idea that maybe grub is trying to read the MBR on the wrong disk
> (hdf). I may have to break down and disconnect hdf before I resume. I may
> also try to read the MBR with "od" if it's available just to see where this
> string "GRUB Loading stage1.5: is coming from.
>

I'd suspect that the BIOS is trying to load the MBR from /dev/hde, so
Lilo or Grub needs to write its MBR there. Here are some WRONG places to
which the "boot-loader" might be writing:

/dev/hde1
/dev/hde2
/dev/hde3
/dev/hde5
/dev/hdf
/dev/hdf1
/dev/hdf2
....(anything on hdf)...


> I did not try to edit the lilo.conf that was installed. It was really a
> bare-bones file.
>
> Thanks.
>
>

After you change it, always remember to do /sbin/lilo. And after you
change any file referenced by /etc/lilo.conf, always remember to do
/sbin/lilo.




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On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 08:05:06AM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
> > [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]
>
> On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:21:49 +0300, Andrei Popescu replied:
> > IIRC your /boot partition was pretty big. Would it be very complicated
> > to make it something like a few hundred megs (less then 512) ?
>
> As shown during partitioning, it was <100 MB, i.e.
>
> IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
> #1 primary 98.7 MB B f ext3 /boot
>
> Since each cylinder is 8225280 bytes, this is 12 cylinders.

Sorry, must have been very tired (or sleepy) when I read that!

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
Albert Einstein)

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