GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

[Jelle Geerts]

It's a laptop from Acer. It's the Acer 5633WLMi (the one with a
120GB harddrive):
	CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 1666MHz
	Motherboard: not sure about this one

I used GRUB-1.96 on ArchLinux before with my own patch to fix a
lag in booting up and it worked. I have tried GRUB with and
without the patch, neither did work (on Gentoo). While 2 weeks
ago on ArchLinux it did.

Output of `ls` in the GRUB rescue prompt doesn't display anything
at all but a newline.

Please CC me in responses.

Re: GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

[Robert Millan]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 04:49:17AM +0100, Jelle Geerts wrote:
> It's a laptop from Acer. It's the Acer 5633WLMi (the one with a
> 120GB harddrive):
> 	CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 1666MHz
> 	Motherboard: not sure about this one
> 
> I used GRUB-1.96 on ArchLinux before with my own patch to fix a
> lag in booting up and it worked. I have tried GRUB with and
> without the patch, neither did work (on Gentoo). While 2 weeks
> ago on ArchLinux it did.
> 
> Output of `ls` in the GRUB rescue prompt doesn't display anything
> at all but a newline.

`lsmod' then.

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What use is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)

Re: GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

[Jelle Geerts]

Phew, I uninstalled Gentoo and reinstalled Arch so I can't remember
for sure what modules were listed :(
I can remember 'ext2' was loaded.

Also, 'insmod normal' resulted in the same "error: unknown device" error.

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 04:49:17AM +0100, Jelle Geerts wrote:
> > It's a laptop from Acer. It's the Acer 5633WLMi (the one with a
> > 120GB harddrive):
> >       CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 1666MHz
> >       Motherboard: not sure about this one
> >
> > I used GRUB-1.96 on ArchLinux before with my own patch to fix a
> > lag in booting up and it worked. I have tried GRUB with and
> > without the patch, neither did work (on Gentoo). While 2 weeks
> > ago on ArchLinux it did.
> >
> > Output of `ls` in the GRUB rescue prompt doesn't display anything
> > at all but a newline.
>
> `lsmod' then.
>
> --
> Robert Millan
>
> <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
> <DRM> What use is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
> (as seen on /.)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>

Re: GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

[Pavel Roskin]

On Tue, 2008-03-11 at 11:00 +0100, Jelle Geerts wrote:

> Phew, I uninstalled Gentoo and reinstalled Arch so I can't remember
> for sure what modules were listed :(
> I can remember 'ext2' was loaded.

Interesting.  If some modules were loaded, then disk access was working
initially.  But it stopped working at some point.  Maybe it was the
"ata" module?  It should not be loaded by default, but maybe it was
loaded for some reason.

> Also, 'insmod normal' resulted in the same "error: unknown device" error.

That's not surprising considering that no devices can be accessed.

I normally verify the GRUB installation by running this as root:

qemu -hda /dev/sda

where /dev/sda is the bootable hard drive.  It should be safe if you
don't try to boot anything.  It's even possible to install GRUB 2, test
it with qemu and then install GRUB 1 without having to reboot.

Checking with qemu can separate BIOS issues from issues with GRUB 2
itself (wrong module dependencies) and grub.cfg (loading "ata" module).

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

Re: GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

[Jelle Geerts]

Nice, I'll remember this for future debugging :)
As I installed Arch now, everything works as normal again.

Thank you.

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-03-11 at 11:00 +0100, Jelle Geerts wrote:
>
>  > Phew, I uninstalled Gentoo and reinstalled Arch so I can't remember
>  > for sure what modules were listed :(
>  > I can remember 'ext2' was loaded.
>
>  Interesting.  If some modules were loaded, then disk access was working
>  initially.  But it stopped working at some point.  Maybe it was the
>  "ata" module?  It should not be loaded by default, but maybe it was
>  loaded for some reason.
>
>
>  > Also, 'insmod normal' resulted in the same "error: unknown device" error.
>
>  That's not surprising considering that no devices can be accessed.
>
>  I normally verify the GRUB installation by running this as root:
>
>  qemu -hda /dev/sda
>
>  where /dev/sda is the bootable hard drive.  It should be safe if you
>  don't try to boot anything.  It's even possible to install GRUB 2, test
>  it with qemu and then install GRUB 1 without having to reboot.
>
>  Checking with qemu can separate BIOS issues from issues with GRUB 2
>  itself (wrong module dependencies) and grub.cfg (loading "ata" module).
>
>  --
>  Regards,
>  Pavel Roskin
>
>
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  Grub-devel mailing list
>  Grub-devel@gnu.org
>  http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>

GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

[Jelle Geerts]

Hello,

After installing Gentoo + GRUB 1.96 and rebooting; I get a
"grub rescue>" prompt. I've ran `grub-install /dev/sda' and
`update-grub'.

I had to modify `/etc/grub.d/10_linux' in order to let it find
`/boot/kernel-2.6.23-gentoo-r9'. I don't think that this should
matter since `update-grub' displayed a message that Linux was
found (and the exact kernel filename matched the one I wanted).

Now some debugging information. In the "grub rescue>" prompt,
`insmod normal' resulted in `error: unknown device'.

`set' returned:
prefix=(hd0,2)/boot/grub
root=hd0,2

In Linux, my /dev/sda1 is swap and /dev/sda2 is the Linux ext3
partition.

Please CC me in responses.

Thanks in advance,
Jelle Geerts

Re: GRUB-1.96 won't boot, boots into rescue prompt

[Pavel Roskin]

On Mon, 2008-03-10 at 00:07 +0100, Jelle Geerts wrote:

> After installing Gentoo + GRUB 1.96 and rebooting; I get a
> "grub rescue>" prompt. I've ran `grub-install /dev/sda' and
> `update-grub'.
> 
> I had to modify `/etc/grub.d/10_linux' in order to let it find
> `/boot/kernel-2.6.23-gentoo-r9'. I don't think that this should
> matter since `update-grub' displayed a message that Linux was
> found (and the exact kernel filename matched the one I wanted).
> 
> Now some debugging information. In the "grub rescue>" prompt,
> `insmod normal' resulted in `error: unknown device'.
> 
> `set' returned:
> prefix=(hd0,2)/boot/grub
> root=hd0,2

Try the "ls" command without arguments.  It will show the available
drives.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin