Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (946 mails)

[Stan Goodman <stan.goodman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would like to summarize the background and the current situation of the 
inability of my desktop system to boot normally (I am able to boot it 
through grub commands), I would like to hope that someone will be able to 
offer a sollution for the problem.

The system has two HDs; at present, the active system is oS v22.3 on hd0, 
while hd1 contains v11.1. Each of these has a /boot directory with its own 
GRUB; the MBR is generic, with no boot loader. Se;ectopm betweem tje, os 
made by an IBM Boot Manager. Only the GRUB of hd1 is functional; trying to 
boot through the hd0 GRUB produces a black screen immediately after the 
POST routine.

People I have consulted attribute the problem to the fact that at some 
point the data connectors of the two HDs were interchanged at the time 
that one of them was replaced by a new disk, thus confusing the BIOS, and 
this is entirely possible. On the other hand, the problem did not appear 
at the time I had the newe HD installed, but only quite a few weeks later. 
I don't understand why a confused BIOS would continue to function 
rationally for weeks before exhibiting schizoid symptoms. Also unexplained 
is why one of the GRUBs works and the other doesn't.

If BIOS confusion is the reason for the problem, that would mean that the 
BIOS chip has stored somewhere the assumed order and location of the HDs. 
I have to wonder if there is not a way to delete that memory, perhaps by 
removing a jumper on the MB. I don't find any reference to such a jumper 
in the MB documentation (this is an Intel board, 915GAV -- an older board 
with a Pentium IV CPU).

Below I list some of the small files in the GRUB directories of each HD, 
in the hope that these may be of assistance. If someone wants additional 
information that I haven't thought of, please ask.

For hd0/sda:
device.map:
(fd0)   /dev/fd0
(hd0)   /dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250318AS_6VY56XND
(hd1)   /dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725025GLA380_GEK264RS01U4JA

menu.lst:
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon Sep 13 22:57:13 IST 2010
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# Configure custom boot parameters for updated kernels in 
/etc/sysconfig/bootloader

default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 11.3 - 2.6.34-12
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-
ST3250318AS_6VY56XND-part6 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-
ST3250318AS_6VY56XND-part5 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x31a
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.34-12-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: 
failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.3 - 2.6.34-12
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-
ST3250318AS_6VY56XND-part6 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off 
powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset 
x11failsafe vga=0x31a
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.34-12-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name:  openSUSE 
11.1 - 2.6.27.48-0.2 (default) (/dev/sdb6)###
title openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.48-0.2 (default) (/dev/sdb6)
    rootnoverify (hd1,5)
    chainloader +1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: OS/2 Boot 
Manager 1###
title OS/2 Boot Manager 1
    rootnoverify (hd0,0)
    chainloa

-- 
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel
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