Boyd Lynn Gerber wrote:

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, charles@daphatbell.com wrote:

...

There's only one entry which is as follows: (hd0) /dev/mapper/sil_ahabbjcdfeab I am assuming that it should have more than this? There should be sda and sdb (the two single drives, correct?

What raid controller are you using? I have a system that has a raid 10 with 4 drivers. It works really well. I can boot to XP or OpenSUSE 10.2.

It has 4 entries. (fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd0) /dev/sda (hd1) /dev/sdb (hd2) /dev/sdc

So yes, I think there is something wrong with it.

-- Boyd Gerber ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047

notice that I have: (fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd1) /dev/sda (hd0) /dev/hda and there is presently _no_ /dev/sda on my computer, so I wonder how this file is generated :-) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Votez pour nous, merci - vote for us, thanks :-) http://musique.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/Magic-Alliance/ http://photo.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/jddphoto/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

The Wednesday 2007-01-31 at 08:30 +0100, jdd wrote:

...

notice that I have:

(fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd1) /dev/sda (hd0) /dev/hda

and there is presently _no_ /dev/sda on my computer, so I wonder how this file is generated :-)

I supposse there was an sda at the time it was generated.

sure (some kind of usb device), but this mean grub don't really care of this file and build one when necessary jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Votez pour nous, merci - vote for us, thanks :-) http://musique.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/Magic-Alliance/ http://photo.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/jddphoto/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Charles R. Buchanan writes:

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:12:40 -0700, Boyd Lynn Gerber took time to say the following:

(^_^)On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, charles@daphatbell.com wrote: (^_^)> There's only one entry which is as follows: (^_^)> (hd0) /dev/mapper/sil_ahabbjcdfeab (^_^)> I am assuming that it should have more than this? There should be sda and sdb (^_^)> (the two single drives, correct? (^_^) (^_^)What raid controller are you using? I have a system that has a raid 10 (^_^)with 4 drivers. It works really well. I can boot to XP or OpenSUSE 10.2. (^_^) (^_^)It has 4 entries. (^_^)(fd0) /dev/fd0 (^_^)(hd0) /dev/sda (^_^)(hd1) /dev/sdb (^_^)(hd2) /dev/sdc (^_^) (^_^)So yes, I think there is something wrong with it. (^_^) (^_^)-- (^_^)Boyd Gerber

The raid controller itself is 'ati 4379' the driver itself is sil something or another.

I don't have a floppy drive in this computer.

Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like. -Will Rogers

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This is the output when I did the grub --device-map=device.map command: (fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd0) /dev/sda (hd1) /dev/sdb (hd2) /dev/sdc (hd3) /dev/sdd It looks good except I don't have a floppy and I haven't tested anything and I can't because I'm running late as it is. :-( -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed January 31 2007 14:13, Darryl Gregorash wrote:

With this and your /etc/fstab, it is possible to rebuild grub's menu.lst. Your root device is /dev/sda8, and /boot is on it (ie. not a separate partition). In grub, this is (hd0,7). Thus

gfxmenu (/dev/sda,7)/boot/message

should read

gfxmenu (hd0,7)/boot/message <snip> The kernel options are correct insofar as partition references are concerned (ie. the root= and resume= options).

Hi Darryl, The repaired menu.lst I posted yesterday (quoted below) seems to match your interpretation. One thing, though, I 'clipped out' one of the two apparent Windows installations thinking it could be added back later, manually or via the bootloader configuration module. That, and confirming the version numbers for his installed initrd and vmlinuz, are the only outstanding questions for this part of the puzzle.

- - - - - 8< - - - - - # Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun Jan 28 20:13:54 PST 2007 default 0 timeout 12 gfxmenu (hd0,7)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux### title openSUSE 10.2 root (hd0,7) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/sda8 resume=/dev/sda7 splash=silent showopts initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default

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

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe### title Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.2 root (hd0,7) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/sda8 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3 initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default

- - - - - 8< - - - - -

It is possible that the grub MBR contains incorrect offsets because of these errors. However, correct menu.lst only and see if you can boot; we can re-install the grub boot record later, if that proves to be necessary.

agreed

The only other possible source of a problem is a missing or incorrect stage 1.5 file embedded in the grub MBR. We'll check that if the above corrections do not work.

agreed If Charles is working a full day today we many not know the results before late evening (EDT). regards, Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed January 31 2007 15:18, Darryl Gregorash wrote:

Initrd? Vmlinuz? I never even looked at that. There should be symlinks, /boot/initrd and /boot/vmlinuz, to the correct files. I must be asleep, I just assumed those symlinks were used in the menu entries. (Of course, trying to wind through 5 or 6 separate threads trying to find everything didn't make for an easy search.)

Well, this thread has multiplied substantially so losing a detail here or there is understandable. In fact, I was momentarily puzzled when I saw the version numbers but got distracted before following up on it. /I/ didn't add them on /my/ system... could be an update script?... the bootloader configuration module? The links exist here under /boot... <sigh>... I guess the thing to do is remove the version bits from menu.lst and confirm/create the appropriate links, like I'm about to do here :-) Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed January 31 2007 17:09, Darryl Gregorash wrote:

This entire thread has been very confusing and puzzling. I have never seen any reports of this kind of behaviour in the grub install routines, nor have I ever encountered a problem with those routines myself.

I ran into a similar problem when I first installed 10.1 to test drive it. 10.0 was my daily desktop and I'd kept 9.3 as a backup on an adjacent partition. Moreover, I'd just added a much larger third disk and a combined six or seven additional partitions. /home and /swap were designated to be shared across all three Linux installations, plus slices for the XP side and backups. This obviously confused the installer. I didn't check what the bootloader configuration module was going to write. I just accepted it... trusting soul :-) ... because I'd never had a problem with it before. But the system stumbled and locked up at next boot. I booted into 9.3 normally (no changes) and inspected the situation. Sure enough, the default and 10.1 portions of menu.lst were incorrectly written... specifically, wrong partition numbers. The paths were correct, but it had misinterpreted which slice was 10.1 '/'. The system was fine after I cleaned it up manually. Now I purposely take the time to visually confirm what it wants to do before committing. No more problems. Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:36:47 -0500, Carl Hartung took time to say the following: (^_^)Hi Darryl, (^_^) (^_^)The repaired menu.lst I posted yesterday (quoted below) seems to match your (^_^)interpretation. One thing, though, I 'clipped out' one of the two apparent (^_^)Windows installations thinking it could be added back later, manually or via (^_^)the bootloader configuration module. That, and confirming the version numbers (^_^)for his installed initrd and vmlinuz, are the only outstanding questions for (^_^)this part of the puzzle. (^_^) (^_^)> - - - - - 8< - - - - - (^_^)> # Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun Jan 28 20:13:54 PST 2007 (^_^)> default 0 (^_^)> timeout 12 (^_^)> gfxmenu (hd0,7)/boot/message (^_^)> (^_^)> ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux### (^_^)> title openSUSE 10.2 (^_^)> root (hd0,7) (^_^)> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/sda8 (^_^)> resume=/dev/sda7 splash=silent showopts (^_^)> initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default (^_^)> (^_^)> ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Windows ### (^_^)> title windows 1 (^_^)> rootnoverify (hd0,0) (^_^)> chainloader (hd0,0)+1 (^_^)> (^_^)> ###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe### (^_^)> title Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.2 (^_^)> root (hd0,7) (^_^)> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/sda8 showopts (^_^)> ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3 (^_^)> initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default (^_^)> (^_^)> - - - - - 8< - - - - - (^_^) (^_^)> It is possible that the grub MBR contains incorrect offsets because of (^_^)> these errors. However, correct menu.lst only and see if you can boot; we (^_^)> can re-install the grub boot record later, if that proves to be necessary. (^_^) (^_^)agreed (^_^) (^_^)> The only other possible source of a problem is a missing or incorrect (^_^)> stage 1.5 file embedded in the grub MBR. We'll check that if the above (^_^)> corrections do not work. (^_^) (^_^)agreed (^_^) (^_^)If Charles is working a full day today we many not know the results before (^_^)late evening (EDT). (^_^) (^_^)regards, (^_^) (^_^)Carl I'm not certain if I posted it or not, but the version numbers are the same. <drum roll> After re-checking the fstab, menu.lst and device.map files, I decided to give it a try. <pause for affect> I have some good news and some not so bad news I guess. I went to re-install the bootloader, and it did NOT give me the error it has been giving me. That's the "good" news. the "not so bad news" is, There's still no grub bootloader when the computer boots up. :-( It still goes straight into XP. Which will be the default anyway if the bootloader was actually functioning. So that's where things are right now. Good Night! Thanks to everyone who helped me get this far. Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like. -Will Rogers -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 07:17 -0500, Carl Hartung wrote: {snip}

...

That's the "good" news. the "not so bad news" is, There's still no grub bootloader when the computer boots up. :-( It still goes straight into XP.

The bootloader wasn't successfully installed at the last attempt. Either that, or XP 'repaired' it.

{snip} I have installed three separate Linux Distro's and neither time has my XP-SP2-Home edition "repaired" the boot loader. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 01 February 2007 18:44, Bruce Marshall wrote: ...

...

...

The bootloader wasn't successfully installed at the last attempt. Either that, or XP 'repaired' it.

{snip}

I have installed three separate Linux Distro's and neither time has my XP-SP2-Home edition "repaired" the boot loader.

As long as linux is installed *after* XP, there should be no problems. It's when XP is re-installed or installed *after* Linux that it clobbers the MBR sector.

The XP itself will not repair, but Norton Antivirus might, if configured to check boot sector and action is set to automatically restore it. I don't know about other antivirus software, but they probably have the same functionality. -- Regards, Rajko. http://en.opensuse.org/Portal -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2007-02-02 at 07:09 -0000, riccardo35@ wrote:

1) boot from DOS floppy [DOS vers 6 or less in my case] , and do :-

fdisk /mbr

Beware of msdos fdisk! I'm in the process of activating a big disk. I had made, in linux, a partition for windows, loaded it from an image, then tested it. I tried fdisk to check how did it see the partitions, run fdisk /mbr, then tried to see if windows run, then cam back to linux. The extended partition had been shrinked! It should be: /dev/hdc2 2795 38913 290125867+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA) and was modified by dos fdisk (I did not tell it to write anything) to: /dev/hdc2 2795 18474 125949600 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) and there were some partitions left out of that space: /dev/hdc13 18475 21085 20972826 83 Linux /dev/hdc14 21086 23696 20972826 83 Linux ... so that linux fdisk complained: Logical partition 13 not entirely in partition 2 Logical partition 14 not entirely in partition 2 and they were not mounted. This originates, I guess, because the disk is 320GB, and the bios doesn't see the full size nor Windows Me, it seems - but linux does fine. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFww5btTMYHG2NR9URAl2iAJ9JL9phJcxo8P7sUSBWWtwFTxw1IgCfYQji dJ1M+TN8OU1Ov5nCeg+BVMo= =e/9F -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 20:30 -0500, Carl Hartung wrote:

On Thu February 1 2007 19:30, Mike McMullin wrote:

...

I have installed three separate Linux Distro's and neither time has my XP-SP2-Home edition "repaired" the boot loader.

I know it's hard to keep track of everything in this convoluted thread, Mike :-) but at some point I distinctly recall Charles mentioning he was doing a restore or recovery of the XP installation. I'm pretty sure a 'back to factory' recovery would overwrite grub.

Yes it would, someone suggested a nice simple how-to to fix the mbr from the rescue console. That would be nice. However I think your mining along the vein of writing to the MBR is probably fruitful. So if I could ask a question of the OP, did you have grub write to the MBR since you restored your XP? The system booting directly into XP would seem to indicate that you didn't. Carl - What do you think of the idea of having the XP bootloader handle booting instead of Grub? There are reasonably simple instructions for editing the required files in XP as well as how to get file(s) he will need to copy over to his XP root partition. Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:01:39 -0500, Mike McMullin took time to say the following: (^_^)> I know it's hard to keep track of everything in this convoluted thread, (^_^)> Mike :-) but at some point I distinctly recall Charles mentioning he was (^_^)> doing a restore or recovery of the XP installation. I'm pretty sure a 'back (^_^)> to factory' recovery would overwrite grub. (^_^) (^_^) Yes it would, someone suggested a nice simple how-to to fix the mbr (^_^)from the rescue console. That would be nice. However I think your (^_^)mining along the vein of writing to the MBR is probably fruitful. So if (^_^)I could ask a question of the OP, did you have grub write to the MBR (^_^)since you restored your XP? The system booting directly into XP would (^_^)seem to indicate that you didn't. (^_^) (^_^) Carl - What do you think of the idea of having the XP bootloader (^_^)handle booting instead of Grub? There are reasonably simple (^_^)instructions for editing the required files in XP as well as how to get (^_^)file(s) he will need to copy over to his XP root partition. (^_^) (^_^) Mike I am pretty slow, but sometimes I pick things up if I see them used more than once! (referring to "OP" which i am assuming means original poster?) Anyway, yes, I had it checked to write to the MBR and nothing happened. To your original remarks earlier, it is true that XP won't automatically repair or revert the MBR to a before linux state. You have to do that manually or via a install. Carl is correct, it was a strict recovery because the MBR was totally hosed. Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like. -Will Rogers -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 23:40:46 -0600, "Rajko M." took time to say the following: (^_^) (^_^)Some ideas how grub works, and what might be problem, may be picked up in (^_^)recent article (^_^) http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs/grub (^_^)I hope that original author will add more. (^_^) (^_^)-- (^_^)Regards, Rajko. (^_^)http://en.opensuse.org/Portal Thanks for the link Rajko. While on the road the thought occured to me that the RAID is the problem and I was under the thinking that since Linux was installed on sda, it would be the drive that the mbr would be located, but it had totally escaped me that XP actually boots from the raid array. So doing some research I found that Linux will have trouble with the raid, especially since it's basically a software (via the bios) raid and while there was an example of how to get around that, it wouldn't be physically possible with the way that drive is setup, so I'm going to get rid of the raid, free up both those drives and go from there. Carl probably passed right out about now. :-) I'm sure we might have hit on something that SuSe might want to take a look at, and a LOT of time was spent on this and I do appreciate all the efforts and suggestions people have given me, but although I really felt like giving up the other day, I decided I'm NOT going to let Linux kick my butt DARN IT! :-) So I'll be offline for a little bit this evening doing some serious re-configurations! :-) Thanks! Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like. -Will Rogers -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2007-02-02 at 17:56 -0500, Mike McMullin wrote:

As far as I know, it won't, but I'm not an MS Guru. Someone mentioned Norton Anti Virus (and IIRC McAffee) might have auto-repaired the boot sector thinking it might have been changed due to virus activity. I do remember having this "fixed" for me a few times before finding the setting to not "fix" it. Let me clarify one thing, you did the Grub install and then re-booted, and it went into XP without showing the Grub menu, correct?

Norton System Works '06 edition was roundly criticized for this since it also affected American tax software which also demanded changes to the MBR. Lets hope '07 corrects this. Dumb idea to use the boot sector for anything but booting systems. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 06 February 2007 09:44:34 am James Knott wrote:

Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

Norton System Works '06 edition was roundly criticized for this since it also affected American tax software which also demanded changes to the MBR.

Lets hope '07 corrects this. Dumb idea to use the boot sector for anything but booting systems.

Why would a tax program have to change the MBR???

Because Intuit, in their infinite wisdom, figured they'd use it as a way to track appropriate use of their software. IIRC it was analogous to XP's activation scheme. Problem was they didn't do it right and it caused all kinds of headaches. The MBR has unused space in it for anyone's use. Most hardware and software companies avoid it because they don't want the support headaches that would come with using it. As Maxwell Smart would say " Ah-ha! The old never-ending-fingerpointing-routine!" Stan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2007-02-06 at 10:44 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Why would a tax program have to change the MBR???

Copy protection I suppose. Like I said no good reason. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 07 February 2007, Mike McMullin wrote:

On Sat, 2007-02-03 at 16:53 -0800, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

Norton System Works '06 edition was roundly criticized for this since it also affected American tax software which also demanded changes to the MBR.

Which begs the question as to what the tax software was doing mucking about with the MBR? Who wrote it?

Intuit's TurboTax, back in 2002/2003. Macrovision wrote the DRM portion, SafeCast, which mucked with the MBR. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed January 31 2007 02:28, Darryl Gregorash wrote:

On 2007-01-30 22:34, charles@daphatbell.com wrote:

...

There's only one entry which is as follows: (hd0) /dev/mapper/sil_ahabbjcdfeab I am assuming that it should have more than this? There should be sda and sdb (the two single drives, correct?

Good grief, that makes no sense at all. Perhaps it is an artifact of a failed installation (?).

Rename the device.map file, then run

grub --device-map

and see what it generates.

Hi Darryl, I wonder what /dev/mapper/sil_ahabbjcdfeab actually is? A quick Google on "/dev/mapper/*" yields links concerning RAID, LVM, one thread is on "strange problems with REALLY long filesystems" [Charles' qualifies,] several others on encrypted root filesystems... gibberish or artifact or remnant, whatever, this really deserves a closer look since the system has on-board hardware RAID. I can't wait to see what grub produces for a device.map, either! Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2007-01-31 03:32, jdd wrote:

Carl Hartung wrote:

...

...

grub --device-map

this gives only an error (lacking parameter), but "grub" alone (followed by quit) build a valid map

More proof never to trust the programmer to write the documentation (I took my remarks straight from "info grub") :-) Thanks for the correction. -- Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. -- HG Wells -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org