FC5 + grub (not a dual boot).

[august.fly 0]

hi (first post),

 

I'm trying to set up a home file server running fc5 and am having alot of trouble getting grub into the correct place. Basically the machine as setup sees nothing in the mbr despite my attempts and never boots past bios. I have tried installing FC5 with a number of different "boot loader" options without success. I now have it installed without a boot loader and am trying to configure/install grub from the CLI as chroot off the rescue disk.

 

setup:

 

2x80gb sata on motherboard (INTEL D865GBF) controllers, 3 partitions:

sda1 + sdb1 = raid 1, ext2 = /

sda2/sdb2 = swap

sda3 + sdb3 = raid 1 + LVM, etc = /usr, /home, etc.

 

2 pci ide controllers running 4x120gb raid 5. devices hde,hdg,hdi,hdk.

 

mdadm reports all raid arrays up and clean.

 

BIOS hard drive table (in equivalent device names).

1. sda

2. sdb

3. hde

4. hdg

5. hdi

6. hdk

 

And the BIOS boot order is:

 

1. dvd drive

2. sda

3. disabled.

 

in linux rescue off FC5 disk, I ran grub to check geometries, and confirming the following device.map file:

 

(fd0) /dev/fd0

(hd0) /dev/hde

(hd1) /dev/hdg

(hd2) /dev/sda

(hd3) /dev/sdb

 

which i got after running

 

grub-install /dev/sda

grub-install /dev/sdb

 

to get grub into the mbr of the two disks which make up the raid 1 /. In grub,

running find /boot/grub/stage1 gives

(hd2,0)

(hd3,0)

as i would expect.

 

but reboots drop to nothing (still). Meaning it never gets to an mbr that contains a boot loader I think.

 

I can post all the relevant sfdisk etc output files and partition tables as needed but my only guess is that the problem is in disk mapping between the bios and grub. My guess is that despite the obvious, the machine is dropping to the mbr of, probably /dev/hde, which has no boot loader. I had this same setup (sans the raid 5 array) setup in FC4 and there were no grub/boot problems then.

 

totally lost,

 

august.fly

 

[danleff 0]

I would be the first to admit that i don't know a thing about raid arrays, but someday....

 

However, did you originally set up the bootloader using the advanced bootloader feature during the installation process? This part of the insttructions speaks to grub and raid arrays.

 

Also, did you see these notes on raid and Fedora Core 5?

[august.fly 0]

the only options offered me by the advanced bootloader were:

 

1. install on /dev/md0

2. change order of disks

3. lba enable.

 

there were no options for putting grub anywhere else. I admit that I tried to install both by changing the order of the disks to match the BIOS and by leaving it alone. Neither worked. (leaving it alone does not match the order in the bios).

 

I guess what I would like to know is how to double check where grub installs itself. I know that (using the disk names given in my first post):

 

1. in grub doing geometry (hd0) it reports a partition with an unknown format. This makes sense, hd0 is an LVM. ditto for hd1

 

2. grub says geometry of hd2 (and hd3) has three partitions, teh first one is ext2 (the md0 device) and the second 2 are unknown format (swap and an LVM raid). So the device map seems to make sense.

 

3. grub-install /dev/sda runs like it is installing onto sda (into the mbr, right?) and in grub the command "find /boot/grub/stage1" reports "(hd2,0)" as it should. but how do I know it is really there?

 

4. but the machine never boots past bios, which means either:

4a: that grub didn't install onto the mbr of the sda (like a grub bug);

4b: or that the machine isn't looking at the mbr of sda for the boot loader.

 

but since I have indeed told it boot from there in the BIOS it should boot from there.

 

right?

 

If you have any suggestions on how to check the mbr of various disks that would be great. I'm considering fdisk /mbr all the disks so none are bootable (is that correct?), reseting the bios options to defaults and starting over. But advice on how to check if grub is installed into an mbr (even if it isn't the one the computer is trying to access) would be great.

 

again thanks for any replies.

 

- a.f

 

PS: regarding the FC5 wishlist link you sent danleff, thanks. I'm doing all software RAID with mdadm, not using any raid controllers on the motherboard. I am using PCI controllers for the 4 ide disks. but as I said before, FC4 seemed to have no problem with booting off a raid 1 disk before, but I don't remember what options FC4 offered me for the bootloader.

 

[arsphl 0]

Hello,

 

I have been fighting the same problems. AT some point I did deactivate the Raid so that I could work but it has proven an unstable solution. So I am back to try to setup this raid booting thing.

 

Have you ever got farther on that subject?

 

Cheers,

 

Asrphl

 

Originally posted by august.fly:

Quote:

the only options offered me by the advanced bootloader were:

 

1. install on /dev/md0

2. change order of disks

3. lba enable.

 

there were no options for putting grub anywhere else. I admit that I tried to install both by changing the order of the disks to match the BIOS and by leaving it alone. Neither worked. (leaving it alone does not match the order in the bios).

 

 

[danleff 0]

Take a look at the Fedora 5 Installation Guide here.

 

This article may also help, as well as this one.