Fedora Core 2 /Gentoo Dual Boot - GRUB Configuration Problem.

[anthonyi 0]

I did a Gentoo stage 1 install yesterday on my second SATA drive (/dev/hdg). My first SATA drive has FC2 on it booted via GRUB as follows:

 

title Fedora Core (2.6.7-cko8)

root (hd0,0)

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.7-cko8 ro root=/dev/hde3 rhgb quiet

initrd /initrd-2.6.7-cko8

 

When I got to the point in the Gentoo install where GRUB is installed I did *not* do so - assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that my existing GRUB install on the first SATA drive (/dev/hde) would boot Gentoo with appropriate entries in /etc/grub.conf.

 

I'm using

 

title Gentoo (2.6.8-gentoo-r3)

root (hd2,0)

kernel /kernel-2.6.8-gentoo-r3 root=/dev/hdg3

 

to attempt to boot GRUB.

 

The boot starts but stops with a kernel panic stating that it cannot mount /dev/hdg3 as a root device. I have also tried /dev/sdb3 (as the Gentoo kernel is compiled to 'see' SATA devices as SCSI disks) to no avail.

 

I'm also surprised that I need to use (hd2,0) as I had assumed I would need (hd1,0) - however that appears to be my WinXP drive (which, physically, is an ATA drive - primary/master).

 

I'm also unsure why I was not instructed to create an initial ram disk by the Gentoo handbook (I did not use genkernel).

 

Having spent the last 12 hours 'emerging' it's frustrating to fall at this hurdle...but my level of knowledge is insufficient to get me a booted Gentoo system.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[danleff 0]

I had the same issue with raid enabled with a dual boot of Debian and Mandrake. I think that I may have an answer, let me look at this later today (unless someone else jumps in first).

 

It's best to allow grub to be installed from the newest installed distro, so that the device.map file gets written properly and detect all your drives and OS, as Gentoo sees them. However, basically what you need to do is determine how Fedora sees the drives and edit the grub menu and device.map files accordingly, if you want to keep the Fedora grub bootloader. Both distros may see the drives differently.

 

Get into Fedora and see what the Gentoo install seems to be able to be mounted on. Also, is the Gentoo install on the first partition of the second sata drive? If so, then root would not be root=/dev/hdg3, rather root=/dev/hdg1. If they are set up as raid, this is another issue. Then it would be important to note where Fedora sees it, which seems to be as an ide drive, rather than raid.

 

The other option would be to allow Gentoo to write grub. But let's see what you got first.

 

If grub is in the /boot directory of the Gentoo install, see what that says also (where root is located), once you mount the Gentoo partition with Fedora.

[anthonyi 0]

Hi,

 

I got it to boot! I got back into Gentoo using the Live CD and recompiled the kernel with the deprecated SATA/IDE support option enabled and this seems to have 'persuaded' Gentoo to 'see' my devices the same way Fedora does and I can now but into both Fedora and my new Gentoo build from the Fedora installed GRUB on the first SATA drive's MBR.

 

Now, I just have to figure out how to setup my wireless NIC in Gentoo - works great with Driverloader in Fedora but is unrecognized by Driverloader in Gentoo.

 

And this was supposed to be a suck-it-and-see trial install of Gentoo to see if I wanted to replace FC2 with it. It's been fun installing it but I'm starting to think I would spend more time configuring and tweaking Gentoo than actually doing stuff!

 

Cheers,

Anthony