FW: FW: [SLE] Urgent! Need help!
-----Original Message----- From: Greg Wallace [mailto:jgregw@acsalaska.net] Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 6:56 AM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: FW: FW: [SLE] Urgent! Need help! On Friday, August 20, 2004 6:56 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Friday, August 20, 2004 4:51 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Friday, August 20, 2004 4:51 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Thursday 19 August 2004 @ 6:15 PM, C. Richard Matson wrote:
On Thursday 19 August 2004 6:39 pm, Greg Wallace wrote:
What an idiot I am! I moved my backup to this EFG80 device via ftp. All I have to do is connect to it and ftp my backup back down to my Linux machine! Actually, I'd have already done it already, but I can't get back on my network. I'm REALLY back to square one! I went into YAST and started inetd, but that wasn't enough. I still can't get back on my network. I did a plain vanilla install, so do I need to get some additional packages installed before I can get this up and going? I tried simply doing --
Ping 192.168.1.77 (the ip address of my Linksys EFG80 where my backup is)
It came back with "Network is unreachable". What do I need to do to get basic networking going again. My machines all connect via a Linksys 4 port Router.
Check the settings of your network card. Rich
Thanks, Greg Wallace
-- C. Richard Matson
I go through a router. I can't even get to the router! And I mean I can't even "Ping" it! I have taken the following steps in YAST.
1) Made sure intetd was up and running 2) Gone to Network Advanced and a) Gone under Host name and DNS and *) Entered my machine name and the Domain Name I'm using in my router. *) Checked "Update name servers and search list via DHCP" b) Gone to Routing and checked "Enable IP forwarding"
No luck. I still can't ping my router. I never had this problem before, and I installed from the exact same disk. I did simply take all of the default packages, but I know you don't have to install a special package just to have internet support! This is so aggravating because as soon as I can get on the network and can grab my backup and get my system back. Grrrr! Something sort of amusing about this though -- The default "wallpaper" for Root shows a round back bomb with a burning fuse and a big triangle with an exclamation mark in it. The desktop itself is bright red!! I think Linux is playing games with me!!
Greg Wallace
This issue is resolved. The problem with my network connection was in my Router. I had gone to fixed IP addresses on all of my machines, meaning I had certain required things set up that would not be on a "fresh out of the box" installation. To get around that, I had to re-enable DHCP on the router and that took care of the problem. I was able to diagnose it because I finally saw an item in the "Administration Guide" (page 349) that said "See if your card has been integrated properly by entering the command ifstatus eth0". I did that end received an error message mentioning eth0 as the culprit. So, my ehternet connection wasn't functioning properly. Luckily, it wasn't hardware related (that's all I would have needed to completely go over the edge!). Anyway, once I got that up and going, I was able to suck my 6 GIG backup across my network. The recovery is running now. It's already through the packages and is now restoring my data, which includes literally 10's of thousands of Oracle files. It will run for hours, but I sort of like just sitting there watching it (gives me a good feeling). Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the old saying goes, so until I can get in and actually startup Oracle, I'll still be on pins and needles a bit.
Yours truly, Greg Wallace
And I'm staying as far away from system administration as I can get for at least the next six months!!
Greg W
Well, I did the restore and all is not well. At the end of the restore, I got a message about SuSE not being able to write the boot record. I try to re-boot and it just hangs with the word GRUB sitting there. When I re-boot from the Installation CD, I get the following --
Activating SWAP failed
Bread: Cannot read a block #2.
Warning... fsck.reiserfs for device /dev/hda3 exited with Signal 6. Fsck.reiserfs /dev/hda3 failed (status 0x0) Run manually! Failed . . . Fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read/write do: bash# mount -n -o remount,rw/
I'm sure this is due to the fact that the original setup had a Windows partition sitting above Linux. When I installed, I went into Partitioning, removed that Windows partition, and moved everything to the top. Hopefully, there's a way to get Linux to recognize this. I would think if I could get a clean boot out off of the installation CD, I'd be able to then re-write the MBR via "grub" and I'd be home free. I did go ahead and do --
Cd / Dir
It appears that all of my high level directories are there, including both of my Oracle directories. Can someone tell me what to do next here?
Thanks and yours truly, Greg Wallace
Well, I tried doing what Marcos Lazarini said. I entered -- Grub Grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 It came back (hd0,1), so I entered -- Root (hd0,1) Setup (hd0) It said it had written the MBR, so I re-booted. Now, I get this -- GRUB version 0.92 (640K lower / 2095556K upper memory) Below that is a box listing -- Linux Windows Floppy Failsafe When I hit enter on Linux, I get this -- Booting 'linux' Kernel (hd0/2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide=scsi vga=788 Error 22: No such partition Press any key to continue Why is he saying he's trying to boot hd0/2? When I did "find /boot/grub/stage1", I got back (hd0,1). I then said root (hd0,1) and setup (hd0) and got a message back saying everything was successful when I did that. Looks like it's trying to boot some non-existant hd0/2. There is nothing after my (hd0,1) linux partition on the disk, so there really is no hd0/2! Yours truly, Greg Wallace
Greg Wallace wrote:
<Please trim quotes>
It said it had written the MBR, so I re-booted. Now, I get this --
It wrote the mbr, but it didn't change your fstab or menu.lst.
When I hit enter on Linux, I get this --
Booting 'linux' Kernel (hd0/2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide=scsi vga=788 Error 22: No such partition Press any key to continue
Try using the boot parameter root=/dev/hda2 If that works correct your menu.lst and check your fstab, it seems you have changed your partition layout.
Why is he saying he's trying to boot hd0/2?
That is what your menu.lst says to do.
When I did "find /boot/grub/stage1", I got back (hd0,1).
Which is the now new correct setting, since you changed the partition layout.
I then said root (hd0,1) and setup (hd0) and got a message back saying everything was successful when I did that.
And it was as far as the mbr is concerned. -- Joe Morris New Tribes Mission Email Address: Joe_Morris@ntm.org Registered Linux user 231871
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004, Greg Wallace wrote:
On Friday, August 20, 2004 6:56 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Friday, August 20, 2004 4:51 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Friday, August 20, 2004 4:51 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Thursday 19 August 2004 @ 6:15 PM, C. Richard Matson wrote:
On Thursday 19 August 2004 6:39 pm, Greg Wallace wrote:
> What an idiot I am! I moved my backup to this EFG80 device via ftp. All >I > have to do is connect to it and ftp my backup back down to my Linux > machine! Actually, I'd have already done it already, but I can't get back > on my network. I'm REALLY back to square one! I went into YAST and > started inetd, but that wasn't enough. I still can't get back on my > network. I did a plain vanilla install, so do I need to get some > additional packages installed before I can get this up and going? I >tried > simply doing -- > > Ping 192.168.1.77 (the ip address of my Linksys EFG80 where my backup is) > > It came back with "Network is unreachable". What do I need to do to get > basic networking going again. My machines all connect via a Linksys 4 port > Router.
Check the settings of your network card. Rich
Thanks, Greg Wallace
-- C. Richard Matson
I go through a router. I can't even get to the router! And I mean I can't even "Ping" it! I have taken the following steps in YAST.
1) Made sure intetd was up and running 2) Gone to Network Advanced and a) Gone under Host name and DNS and *) Entered my machine name and the Domain Name I'm using in my router. *) Checked "Update name servers and search list via DHCP" b) Gone to Routing and checked "Enable IP forwarding"
No luck. I still can't ping my router. I never had this problem before, and I installed from the exact same disk. I did simply take all of the default packages, but I know you don't have to install a special package just to have internet support! This is so aggravating because as soon as I can get on the network and can grab my backup and get my system back. Grrrr! Something sort of amusing about this though -- The default "wallpaper" for Root shows a round back bomb with a burning fuse and a big triangle with an exclamation mark in it. The desktop itself is bright red!! I think Linux is playing games with me!!
Greg Wallace
This issue is resolved. The problem with my network connection was in my Router. I had gone to fixed IP addresses on all of my machines, meaning I had certain required things set up that would not be on a "fresh out of the box" installation. To get around that, I had to re-enable DHCP on the router and that took care of the problem. I was able to diagnose it because I finally saw an item in the "Administration Guide" (page 349) that said "See if your card has been integrated properly by entering the command ifstatus eth0". I did that end received an error message mentioning eth0 as the culprit. So, my ehternet connection wasn't functioning properly. Luckily, it wasn't hardware related (that's all I would have needed to completely go over the edge!). Anyway, once I got that up and going, I was able to suck my 6 GIG backup across my network. The recovery is running now. It's already through the packages and is now restoring my data, which includes literally 10's of thousands of Oracle files. It will run for hours, but I sort of like just sitting there watching it (gives me a good feeling). Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the old saying goes, so until I can get in and actually startup Oracle, I'll still be on pins and needles a bit.
Yours truly, Greg Wallace
And I'm staying as far away from system administration as I can get for at least the next six months!!
Greg W
Well, I did the restore and all is not well. At the end of the restore, I got a message about SuSE not being able to write the boot record. I try to re-boot and it just hangs with the word GRUB sitting there. When I re-boot from the Installation CD, I get the following --
Activating SWAP failed
Bread: Cannot read a block #2.
Warning... fsck.reiserfs for device /dev/hda3 exited with Signal 6. Fsck.reiserfs /dev/hda3 failed (status 0x0) Run manually! Failed . . . Fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read/write do: bash# mount -n -o remount,rw/
I'm sure this is due to the fact that the original setup had a Windows partition sitting above Linux. When I installed, I went into Partitioning, removed that Windows partition, and moved everything to the top. Hopefully, there's a way to get Linux to recognize this. I would think if I could get a clean boot out off of the installation CD, I'd be able to then re-write the MBR via "grub" and I'd be home free. I did go ahead and do --
Cd / Dir
It appears that all of my high level directories are there, including both of my Oracle directories. Can someone tell me what to do next here?
Thanks and yours truly, Greg Wallace
Well, I tried doing what Marcos Lazarini said. I entered --
Grub Grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
It came back (hd0,1), so I entered --
Root (hd0,1) Setup (hd0)
It said it had written the MBR, so I re-booted. Now, I get this --
GRUB version 0.92 (640K lower / 2095556K upper memory)
Below that is a box listing -- Linux Windows Floppy Failsafe
When I hit enter on Linux, I get this --
Booting 'linux' Kernel (hd0/2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide=scsi vga=788 Error 22: No such partition Press any key to continue
Why is he saying he's trying to boot hd0/2? When I did "find /boot/grub/stage1", I got back (hd0,1). I then said root (hd0,1) and setup (hd0) and got a message back saying everything was successful when I did that. Looks like it's trying to boot some non-existant hd0/2. There is nothing after my (hd0,1) linux partition on the disk, so there really is no hd0/2!
Yours truly, Greg Wallace
Greg, the point is you still have to change your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to point to the correct place. Grub works in a 2 stage process: What you've done: you have installed grub in you MBR, and configured it to look for this file (/boot/grub/menu.lst) in (hd0,1), which is the same as /dev/hda2. It found the menu.lst file, but this file points to the wrong place! Boot again with the rescue CD, and edit the menu.lst file (using pico, emacs, vi, etc), changing the (hd0,2) to (hd0,1), as you expected. You are almost there! :-) Grub usually permits the user to replace the boot parameters to the kernel on the fly, but SuSE disable it for some reason (may be they are tring to hide the details of the dark side of the force :-))... Regards, Marcos Lazarini
The Friday 2004-08-20 at 16:49 -0300, Marcos Vinicius Lazarini wrote:
Grub usually permits the user to replace the boot parameters to the kernel on the fly, but SuSE disable it for some reason (may be they are tring to hide the details of the dark side of the force :-))...
The parameter 'showopts' on the grub menu line hides all options to the left of it. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
Hey guys. I was up all night so I'm just starting to go through the posts. I'm going to print them all off and read them. I'll get back with you after I'm done. Thanks for all the great support. Greg W -----Original Message----- From: Carlos E. R. [mailto:robin1.listas@tiscali.es] Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 3:42 PM To: SLE Subject: Re: FW: FW: [SLE] Urgent! Need help! The Friday 2004-08-20 at 16:49 -0300, Marcos Vinicius Lazarini wrote:
Grub usually permits the user to replace the boot parameters to the kernel on the fly, but SuSE disable it for some reason (may be they are tring to hide the details of the dark side of the force :-))...
The parameter 'showopts' on the grub menu line hides all options to the left of it. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004, Greg Wallace wrote:
On Friday, August 20, 2004 6:56 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Friday, August 20, 2004 4:51 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Friday, August 20, 2004 4:51 AM, Greg Wallace wrote
On Thursday 19 August 2004 @ 6:15 PM, C. Richard Matson wrote:
>On Thursday 19 August 2004 6:39 pm, Greg Wallace wrote:
>> What an idiot I am! I moved my backup to this EFG80 device via ftp. All >>I >> have to do is connect to it and ftp my backup back down to my Linux >> machine! Actually, I'd have already done it already, but I can't get back >> on my network. I'm REALLY back to square one! I went into YAST and >> started inetd, but that wasn't enough. I still can't get back on my >> network. I did a plain vanilla install, so do I need to get some >> additional packages installed before I can get this up and going? I >>tried >> simply doing -- >> >> Ping 192.168.1.77 (the ip address of my Linksys EFG80 where my backup is) >> >> It came back with "Network is unreachable". What do I need to do to get >> basic networking going again. My machines all connect via a Linksys 4 >port >> Router.
>Check the settings of your network card. Rich
> Thanks, > Greg Wallace
>-- >C. Richard Matson
I go through a router. I can't even get to the router! And I mean I can't even "Ping" it! I have taken the following steps in YAST.
1) Made sure intetd was up and running 2) Gone to Network Advanced and a) Gone under Host name and DNS and *) Entered my machine name and the Domain Name I'm using in my router. *) Checked "Update name servers and search list via DHCP" b) Gone to Routing and checked "Enable IP forwarding"
No luck. I still can't ping my router. I never had this problem before, and I installed from the exact same disk. I did simply take all of
default packages, but I know you don't have to install a special
just to have internet support! This is so aggravating because as soon as I can get on the network and can grab my backup and get my system back. Grrrr! Something sort of amusing about this though -- The default "wallpaper" for Root shows a round back bomb with a burning fuse and a big triangle with an exclamation mark in it. The desktop itself is bright red!! I think Linux is playing games with me!!
Greg Wallace
This issue is resolved. The problem with my network connection was in my Router. I had gone to fixed IP addresses on all of my machines, meaning I had certain required things set up that would not be on a "fresh out of the box" installation. To get around that, I had to re-enable DHCP on the router and that took care of the problem. I was able to diagnose it because I finally saw an item in the "Administration Guide" (page 349) that said "See if your card has been integrated properly by entering the command ifstatus eth0". I did that end received an error message mentioning eth0 as the culprit. So, my ehternet connection wasn't functioning properly. Luckily, it wasn't hardware related (that's all I would have needed to completely go over the edge!). Anyway, once I got that up and going, I was able to suck my 6 GIG backup across my network. The recovery is running now. It's already through the packages and is now restoring my data, which includes literally 10's of thousands of Oracle files. It will run for hours, but I sort of like just sitting there watching it (gives me a good feeling). Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as
On Friday, August 20, 2004 11:50 AM, Marcos Vinicius Lazarini wrote the package the
old
saying goes, so until I can get in and actually startup Oracle, I'll still be on pins and needles a bit.
Yours truly, Greg Wallace
And I'm staying as far away from system administration as I can get for at least the next six months!!
Greg W
Well, I did the restore and all is not well. At the end of the restore, I got a message about SuSE not being able to write the boot record. I try to re-boot and it just hangs with the word GRUB sitting there. When I re-boot from the Installation CD, I get the following --
Activating SWAP failed
Bread: Cannot read a block #2.
Warning... fsck.reiserfs for device /dev/hda3 exited with Signal 6. Fsck.reiserfs /dev/hda3 failed (status 0x0) Run manually! Failed . . . Fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root file system is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read/write do: bash# mount -n -o remount,rw/
I'm sure this is due to the fact that the original setup had a Windows partition sitting above Linux. When I installed, I went into Partitioning, removed that Windows partition, and moved everything to the top. Hopefully, there's a way to get Linux to recognize this. I would think if I could get a clean boot out off of the installation CD, I'd be able to then re-write the MBR via "grub" and I'd be home free. I did go ahead and do --
Cd / Dir
It appears that all of my high level directories are there, including both of my Oracle directories. Can someone tell me what to do next here?
Thanks and yours truly, Greg Wallace
Well, I tried doing what Marcos Lazarini said. I entered --
Grub Grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
It came back (hd0,1), so I entered --
Root (hd0,1) Setup (hd0)
It said it had written the MBR, so I re-booted. Now, I get this --
GRUB version 0.92 (640K lower / 2095556K upper memory)
Below that is a box listing -- Linux Windows Floppy Failsafe
When I hit enter on Linux, I get this --
Booting 'linux' Kernel (hd0/2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide=scsi vga=788 Error 22: No such partition Press any key to continue
Why is he saying he's trying to boot hd0/2? When I did "find /boot/grub/stage1", I got back (hd0,1). I then said root (hd0,1) and setup (hd0) and got a message back saying everything was successful when I did that. Looks like it's trying to boot some non-existant hd0/2. There is nothing after my (hd0,1) linux partition on the disk, so there really is no hd0/2!
Yours truly, Greg Wallace
Greg, the point is you still have to change your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to point to the correct place. Grub works in a 2 stage process:
What you've done: you have installed grub in you MBR, and configured it to look for this file (/boot/grub/menu.lst) in (hd0,1), which is the same as /dev/hda2. It found the menu.lst file, but this file points to the wrong place! Boot again with the rescue CD, and edit the menu.lst file (using pico, emacs, vi, etc), changing the (hd0,2) to (hd0,1), as you expected.
You are almost there! :-)
Grub usually permits the user to replace the boot parameters to the kernel on the fly, but SuSE disable it for some reason (may be they are tring to hide the details of the dark side of the force :-))...
Regards, Marcos Lazarini
Marcos: I made the changes as per your instructions. Then I went ahead and did -- Grub Find /boot/grub/stage1 --> It returned (hd0,2) and (hd0,4) Root (hd0,2) Setup (hd0) And it said it couldn't write the file I repeated -- Find /boot/grub/stage1 --> It only returned (hd0,4) this time Root (hd0,2) --> It basically said no can do, so I said Root (hd0,4) --> It looked like it worked that time Setup (hd0) --> It wrote the file. I then re-booted and grub (phase 1, I guess), gave me a prompt like Linux Windows floppy failsafe I press enter on Linux and I get this back -- Booting 'linux' Kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide=scsi vga=788 Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition Press any key to continue Why is he trying to boot (hd0,4)? I believe that's the empty partition he set aside for me for future use. I say that because when I did my install, he should me a map of everything he was going to put out there (I may have mentioned this before). As I recall, it was Swap Linux Swap Reserved for future use Reiserfs Something like that. So it looks like he's trying to boot the empty partition 4 instead of 2. Is that right? If so, do I need to go back I and edit menu.lst again? Thanks and yours truly, Greg Wallace
* Greg Wallace
276 lines of unnecessary quoted mat'l removed. PLEASE, (yes shouting) trim your quotes.
Something like that. So it looks like he's trying to boot the empty partition 4 instead of 2. Is that right?
looks like (if you accurately recall the drive assignment)
If so, do I need to go back I and edit menu.lst again?
yes ps: If you didn't understand the subtle hint above, TRIM YOUR QUOTES! -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/photos
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Friday, August 20, 2004 11:50 AM, Marcos Vinicius Lazarini wrote
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004, Greg Wallace wrote: (...) Marcos:
I made the changes as per your instructions. Then I went ahead and did --
Grub Find /boot/grub/stage1 --> It returned (hd0,2) and (hd0,4) Root (hd0,2) Setup (hd0)
And it said it couldn't write the file
I repeated --
Find /boot/grub/stage1 --> It only returned (hd0,4) this time Root (hd0,2) --> It basically said no can do, so I said Root (hd0,4) --> It looked like it worked that time Setup (hd0) --> It wrote the file.
I then re-booted and grub (phase 1, I guess), gave me a prompt like
Linux Windows floppy failsafe
I press enter on Linux and I get this back --
Booting 'linux' Kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide=scsi vga=788 Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
Press any key to continue
Why is he trying to boot (hd0,4)? I believe that's the empty partition he set aside for me for future use. I say that because when I did my install, he should me a map of everything he was going to put out there (I may have mentioned this before). As I recall, it was
Swap Linux Swap Reserved for future use Reiserfs
Something like that. So it looks like he's trying to boot the empty partition 4 instead of 2. Is that right? If so, do I need to go back I and edit menu.lst again?
Thanks and yours truly, Greg Wallace
Greg, As I told you, the 'find /boot/grub/stage1' sometimes fails. Do it in the old-fashioned way - find yourself this file. Below I'll paste the steps in my machine: Boot using the Rescue CD, and log as root; type 'fdisk -l'; here I got ---------- Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 2484 cylinders Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 32 16096+ 83 Linux /dev/hda2 33 2216 1100736 83 Linux /dev/hda3 2217 2484 135072 82 Linux swap ----------- Notice a star marking hda1 - that's a good hint. Your boot partition should be marked like that (should be or must be? not sure) As you told earlier, you should have only one Linux partition, so it won't be difficult to find. Just to confirm, mount this device and check its contents. You can use any directory as a mount point: cd /mnt mkdir linux mount /dev/hdxxxxx linux cd linux ls You should see directories like these: bin cdrom etc home lib opt root sys usr boot dev floppy initrd mnt proc sbin tmp var if not, start again: cd /mnt umount linux fdisk -l .... When you find, then try this one: ls -l boot/grub/stage1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 Aug 14 23:14 /boot/grub/stage1 You have found the partition you was looking for!. Now edit boot/grub/menu.lst to reflect the changes; it will use. In mine, I have to change the partition number in 2 places - kernel and initrd parameters. Just as an example, here is a fragment of my menu.lst: -------------- ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux### title Linux kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 vga=0x31a splash=silent desktop showopts initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd -------------- If you have changed the partition's organization (in relation to the situation it had during the backup), you should also change your etc/fstab to reflect the new structure. Otherwise, you will be able to load the kernel, but the kernel won't be able to actually boot the system. You should change only the first column. --------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> /dev/hda1 /boot ext3 defaults 0 0 /dev/hda2 / reiserfs defaults 0 0 /dev/hda3 none swap sw 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 --------------- As you can see, I have a separated boot partition because this is an (very) old machine and have problems booting kernels located beyond cylinder 1024. That's not you case - just to clarify my architecture. I hope that is enough to make your system bootable again. From this situation, we all learned one lesson: *always* save, with your backups, the partition scheme you were using in that moment; in case of a disaster, it will be easier if you put each partition back online in its original relative-position (even if you have to create empty ones), and avoid all that confusion with partition numbers and letters. Good luck in your tries!
On Friday, August 20, 2004 @ 9:01 PM, Marcos Vinicius Lazarini wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Friday, August 20, 2004 11:50 AM, Marcos Vinicius Lazarini wrote
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004, Greg Wallace wrote: (...) Marcos:
I made the changes as per your instructions. Then I went ahead and did --
Grub Find /boot/grub/stage1 --> It returned (hd0,2) and (hd0,4) Root (hd0,2) Setup (hd0)
And it said it couldn't write the file
I repeated --
Find /boot/grub/stage1 --> It only returned (hd0,4) this time Root (hd0,2) --> It basically said no can do, so I said Root (hd0,4) --> It looked like it worked that time Setup (hd0) --> It wrote the file.
I then re-booted and grub (phase 1, I guess), gave me a prompt like
Linux Windows floppy failsafe
I press enter on Linux and I get this back --
Booting 'linux' Kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide=scsi vga=788 Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
Press any key to continue
Why is he trying to boot (hd0,4)? I believe that's the empty partition he set aside for me for future use. I say that because when I did my install, he should me a map of everything he was going to put out there (I may have mentioned this before). As I recall, it was
Swap Linux Swap Reserved for future use Reiserfs
Something like that. So it looks like he's trying to boot the empty partition 4 instead of 2. Is that right? If so, do I need to go back I and edit menu.lst again?
Thanks and yours truly, Greg Wallace
Greg,
As I told you, the 'find /boot/grub/stage1' sometimes fails. Do it in the old-fashioned way - find yourself this file. Below I'll paste the steps in my machine:
Boot using the Rescue CD, and log as root; type 'fdisk -l'; here I got ---------- Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 2484 cylinders Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 32 16096+ 83 Linux /dev/hda2 33 2216 1100736 83 Linux /dev/hda3 2217 2484 135072 82 Linux swap ----------- Notice a star marking hda1 - that's a good hint. Your boot partition should be marked like that (should be or must be? not sure) As you told earlier, you should have only one Linux partition, so it won't be difficult to find.
Just to confirm, mount this device and check its contents. You can use any directory as a mount point:
cd /mnt mkdir linux mount /dev/hdxxxxx linux cd linux ls
You should see directories like these: bin cdrom etc home lib opt root sys usr boot dev floppy initrd mnt proc sbin tmp var
if not, start again: cd /mnt umount linux fdisk -l ....
When you find, then try this one: ls -l boot/grub/stage1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 Aug 14 23:14 /boot/grub/stage1
You have found the partition you was looking for!. Now edit boot/grub/menu.lst to reflect the changes; it will use. In mine, I have to change the partition number in 2 places - kernel and initrd parameters. Just as an example, here is a fragment of my menu.lst: -------------- ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux### title Linux kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 vga=0x31a splash=silent desktop showopts initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd --------------
If you have changed the partition's organization (in relation to the situation it had during the backup), you should also change your etc/fstab to reflect the new structure. Otherwise, you will be able to load the kernel, but the kernel won't be able to actually boot the system. You should change only the first column. --------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> /dev/hda1 /boot ext3 defaults 0 0 /dev/hda2 / reiserfs defaults 0 0 /dev/hda3 none swap sw 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 ---------------
As you can see, I have a separated boot partition because this is an (very) old machine and have problems booting kernels located beyond cylinder 1024. That's not you case - just to clarify my architecture.
I hope that is enough to make your system bootable again.
From this situation, we all learned one lesson: *always* save, with your backups, the partition scheme you were using in that moment; in case of a disaster, it will be easier if you put each partition back online in its original relative-position (even if you have to create empty ones), and avoid all that confusion with partition numbers and letters.
Good luck in your tries!
Marcos: You don't know how much I appreciate the help you have given me. Thanks to you detailed and accurate information, I have gained a great deal more insight into the installation process, the boot process, and how the boot process ties into the startup of the system. I am still not up yet, but I think I can now provide some much more meaningful information as to where I am. I had to do quite a bit of clean-up in the menu.lst file. Here's what I now have. I have added a few comments that might hopefully make some things clearer about how I got to this. Short comments appear next to the menu.lst line it applies to. Longer comments are at the end. To begin with, I had to change (hd0,2) to (hd0,1) in many places. Here's what I now have -- fxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message color white/blue black/light gray default 0 timeout 8 title linux kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi vga=788 makeactive <-- I added this not sure if that was correct or not. title windows root (hd0,2) # makeactive <-- This is a null/zero length partition (see Note1 below) chainloader + 1 title floppy root (fd0) chainloader + 1 title failsafe kernel(hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz.shipped root=/dev/hda3 ide=nodma apm=off ocpi=off vga=normal nosmp maxcpus=0 disablepic 3 initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.shipped When I ran the last install, Linux suggested (as best I can remember) -- Swap 3 G Linux Windows Swap ? <-- Some smaller size, as I recall <-- Not sure if there was anything in here Reiserfs <-- sp? I had manually gone in and edited the partition setup on the previous install and that was a complete disaster. So, this time, I tried to go along with Linux as best as I could. I didn't really want Windows on the machine, but I was afraid to strip out that partition completely, so I simply made it 0 length. It seemed to be giving me problems during start-up, so I added commented out the "make active" statement. There was no such statement on the Linux partition, so I added one in (was that bad, or would it probably be ignored anyway?). I have no idea what Reiserfs is, but since Linux was wanting to give it to me, I basically said "Ok, whatever you say". When I try to boot the machine now, it hangs completely in Stage 1. When I boot from the CD, I get this -- SELECT SYSTEM /dev/hda2 (SuSE Linux 8.1 (i386)) /dev/hda7 (SuSE Linux 8.1 (i386)) Since it has these two choices here, that makes me think that that's why it's hanging on a regular boot (it has two systems and doesn't know which one to go to). If I select the first one, I basically get the same messages I was getting before (the ones I posted). Before I go further, I'd like to add some general comments. If I get this system back up and running, given that I now know I can get it back from a backup, I plan to continue on and upgrade to 8.2, 9.0, 9.1. Given that, if there are partitioning problems here that can be worked around (say I really don't need either the Windows or the Reiserfs partition), I'd like to be able to just kill those when I move to 8.2. On the other hand, if there is no work around, I guess I'll have to go back through the whole process again. It is terribly slow because of all of the files in there under Oracle. I have Oracle Client on my Windows machine and I have 12 M of occupied storage. There are app. 120,000 files in that 12 M (10,000 files per M!). And that's just Oracle Client! God knows how many files are in the database server setup on my Linux machine. The installation process eats up a good part of a day! Then again, as I said above, I have to get it to work, so whatever it takes to do that I'm most certainly prepared to go through. Any further assistance greatly appreciated. Respectfully yours, Greg Wallace
Greg Wallace wrote:
On Friday, August 20, 2004 @ 9:01 PM, Marcos Vinicius Lazarini wrote:
Greg,
As I told you, the 'find /boot/grub/stage1' sometimes fails. Do it in the old-fashioned way - find yourself this file. Below I'll paste the steps in my machine:
Boot using the Rescue CD, and log as root; type 'fdisk -l'; here I got ---------- Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 63 sectors, 2484 cylinders Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 32 16096+ 83 Linux /dev/hda2 33 2216 1100736 83 Linux /dev/hda3 2217 2484 135072 82 Linux swap ----------- Notice a star marking hda1 - that's a good hint. Your boot partition should be marked like that (should be or must be? not sure) As you told earlier, you should have only one Linux partition, so it won't be difficult to find.
Just to confirm, mount this device and check its contents. You can use any directory as a mount point:
cd /mnt mkdir linux mount /dev/hdxxxxx linux cd linux ls
You should see directories like these: bin cdrom etc home lib opt root sys usr boot dev floppy initrd mnt proc sbin tmp var
if not, start again: cd /mnt umount linux fdisk -l ....
When you find, then try this one: ls -l boot/grub/stage1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 Aug 14 23:14 /boot/grub/stage1
You have found the partition you was looking for!. Now edit boot/grub/menu.lst to reflect the changes; it will use. In mine, I have to change the partition number in 2 places - kernel and initrd parameters. Just as an example, here is a fragment of my menu.lst: -------------- ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux### title Linux kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 vga=0x31a splash=silent desktop showopts initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd --------------
If you have changed the partition's organization (in relation to the situation it had during the backup), you should also change your etc/fstab to reflect the new structure. Otherwise, you will be able to load the kernel, but the kernel won't be able to actually boot the system. You should change only the first column. --------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> /dev/hda1 /boot ext3 defaults 0 0 /dev/hda2 / reiserfs defaults 0 0 /dev/hda3 none swap sw 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 ---------------
As you can see, I have a separated boot partition because this is an (very) old machine and have problems booting kernels located beyond cylinder 1024. That's not you case - just to clarify my architecture.
I hope that is enough to make your system bootable again.
From this situation, we all learned one lesson: *always* save, with your backups, the partition scheme you were using in that moment; in case of a disaster, it will be easier if you put each partition back online in its original relative-position (even if you have to create empty ones), and avoid all that confusion with partition numbers and letters.
Good luck in your tries!
Marcos:
You don't know how much I appreciate the help you have given me. Thanks to you detailed and accurate information, I have gained a great deal more insight into the installation process, the boot process, and how the boot process ties into the startup of the system. I am still not up yet, but I think I can now provide some much more meaningful information as to where I am. I had to do quite a bit of clean-up in the menu.lst file. Here's what I now have. I have added a few comments that might hopefully make some things clearer about how I got to this. Short comments appear next to the menu.lst line it applies to. Longer comments are at the end. To begin with, I had to change (hd0,2) to (hd0,1) in many places. Here's what I now have --
fxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message color white/blue black/light gray default 0 timeout 8
title linux kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi vga=788 makeactive <-- I added this not sure if that was correct or not. title windows root (hd0,2) # makeactive <-- This is a null/zero length partition (see Note1 below) chainloader + 1 title floppy root (fd0) chainloader + 1 title failsafe kernel(hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz.shipped root=/dev/hda3 ide=nodma apm=off ocpi=off vga=normal nosmp maxcpus=0 disablepic 3 initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.shipped
When I ran the last install, Linux suggested (as best I can remember) --
Swap 3 G Linux Windows Swap ? <-- Some smaller size, as I recall <-- Not sure if there was anything in here Reiserfs <-- sp?
I had manually gone in and edited the partition setup on the previous install and that was a complete disaster. So, this time, I tried to go along with Linux as best as I could. I didn't really want Windows on the machine, but I was afraid to strip out that partition completely, so I simply made it 0 length. It seemed to be giving me problems during start-up, so I added commented out the "make active" statement. There was no such statement on the Linux partition, so I added one in (was that bad, or would it probably be ignored anyway?). I have no idea what Reiserfs is, but since Linux was wanting to give it to me, I basically said "Ok, whatever you say". When I try to boot the machine now, it hangs completely in Stage 1. When I boot from the CD, I get this --
SELECT SYSTEM
/dev/hda2 (SuSE Linux 8.1 (i386)) /dev/hda7 (SuSE Linux 8.1 (i386))
Since it has these two choices here, that makes me think that that's why it's hanging on a regular boot (it has two systems and doesn't know which one to go to). If I select the first one, I basically get the same messages I was getting before (the ones I posted). Before I go further, I'd like to add some general comments. If I get this system back up and running, given that I now know I can get it back from a backup, I plan to continue on and upgrade to 8.2, 9.0, 9.1. Given that, if there are partitioning problems here that can be worked around (say I really don't need either the Windows or the Reiserfs partition), I'd like to be able to just kill those when I move to 8.2. On the other hand, if there is no work around, I guess I'll have to go back through the whole process again. It is terribly slow because of all of the files in there under Oracle. I have Oracle Client on my Windows machine and I have 12 M of occupied storage. There are app. 120,000 files in that 12 M (10,000 files per M!). And that's just Oracle Client! God knows how many files are in the database server setup on my Linux machine. The installation process eats up a good part of a day! Then again, as I said above, I have to get it to work, so whatever it takes to do that I'm most certainly prepared to go through. Any further assistance greatly appreciated.
Respectfully yours, Greg Wallace
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi vga=788 Here you load the kernel (/boot/vmlinuz) from /dev/hda2 (hd0,1), and give parameters ' root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi vga=788'. Notice that you inform the kernel to look for it's root filesystem (the / directory) in
Greg, You must understand that your menu.lst file alone is (in practical terms) useless if we don't know (without doubts and guesses) your partition scheme and the mount points. How can I say: "Hey, change hd0,1 to hd0,2 in menu.lst" if you provide no solid info about the partitions? I'm trying yo make you understand the close-relation between those: menu.lst (GRUB) <-> `fdisk -l` (Partitions) <-> /etc/fstab (mount point) For now, I can only see an inconsistency in your menu.lst. partition /dev/hda3 (hd0,2). (Based on what you posted here, I'm assuming you have only one linux partition for everything) I'm not sure about the 'makeactive' option, I have never used, don't think it will be necessary. You have to pay attention to the details; one number wrong in any of these steps and your system won't boot anymore. (I'm leaving now; will try to read mails tomorrow - otherwise, be back on monday) Regards, Marcos Lazarini
participants (6)
-
C. Richard Matson -
Carlos E. R. -
Greg Wallace -
Joe Morris (NTM) -
Marcos Vinicius Lazarini -
Patrick Shanahan