[linux-lvm] Grub/LVM boot problem

[linux-lvm] Grub/LVM boot problem

[John Koshi]

Hi,

I have a problem with the grub bootloader, as follows. I have a
laptop, with an 80G disk, with Windows XP on the first half of
the disk (NTFS), and Fedora core 4 (LVM) on the rest. Dual boot
is managed by grub, installed with the Fedora install.

I wish to clone this disk, so I don't lose hours of setup/installs
on both OS's, and my work, in case of a crash. I did the following:

1) Installed Acronis 10 under Windows, and cloned the entire disk
   to a 120G USB disk.
2) Restored from that clone onto a new 80G disk of the same geometry,
   and replaced the existing disk with the newly cloned one.
3) On start-up, got a grub hang, so did the following:
      a) Boot from Fedora core 4 rescue CD
      b) chroot /mnt/sysimage
      c) grub-install /dev/hda
      d) Enter grub
      e) grub> find /grub/stage1 -> gave me (hd0,3)
      f) grub> root (hd0,3)
      g) grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4 ro root=/dev/hda4
      h) grub> initrd /initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img -> gave me 
                    "Error 16: Inconsistent filesystem structure"
      i) Exit grub, repeat to step b) above, and rebuild initrd:
         "mkinitrd -v -f initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img 2.6.17-1.2142_FC4
      j) Repeat from d) again, and get the same Error 16 as above.
4) Note that after step 3-c) above, I got past the grub hang, and was able
   to boot Windows. But selecting the Linux installation gave me "Error 17:
   Cannot mount selected partition". That's when I did the remaining steps
   above.

Sorry about the long-winded explanation, but this is frustrating, and I
wanted to provide all the details, in the hope that some-one could throw
some light on the dark innards of grub vis-a-vis LVM, to resolve this.

Thanks in advance.

regards,
John

Re: [linux-lvm] Grub/LVM boot problem

[Matthew Gillen]

John Koshi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have a problem with the grub bootloader, as follows. I have a
> laptop, with an 80G disk, with Windows XP on the first half of
> the disk (NTFS), and Fedora core 4 (LVM) on the rest. Dual boot
> is managed by grub, installed with the Fedora install.
> 
> I wish to clone this disk, so I don't lose hours of setup/installs
> on both OS's, and my work, in case of a crash. I did the following:
> 
> 1) Installed Acronis 10 under Windows, and cloned the entire disk
>    to a 120G USB disk.
> 2) Restored from that clone onto a new 80G disk of the same geometry,
>    and replaced the existing disk with the newly cloned one.
> 3) On start-up, got a grub hang, so did the following:
>       a) Boot from Fedora core 4 rescue CD
>       b) chroot /mnt/sysimage
>       c) grub-install /dev/hda
>       d) Enter grub
>       e) grub> find /grub/stage1 -> gave me (hd0,3)
>       f) grub> root (hd0,3)
>       g) grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4 ro root=/dev/hda4
>       h) grub> initrd /initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img -> gave me 
>                     "Error 16: Inconsistent filesystem structure"
>       i) Exit grub, repeat to step b) above, and rebuild initrd:
>          "mkinitrd -v -f initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img 2.6.17-1.2142_FC4
>       j) Repeat from d) again, and get the same Error 16 as above.
> 4) Note that after step 3-c) above, I got past the grub hang, and was able
>    to boot Windows. But selecting the Linux installation gave me "Error 17:
>    Cannot mount selected partition". That's when I did the remaining steps
>    above.
> 
> Sorry about the long-winded explanation, but this is frustrating, and I
> wanted to provide all the details, in the hope that some-one could throw
> some light on the dark innards of grub vis-a-vis LVM, to resolve this.
> 
> Thanks in advance.

If you boot rescue disk, but don't try to mount the system, can you run fsck
on the linux partitions?  Is that error from step 4 from grub, or after the
kernel starts booting?  If the latter, and your root filesystem is a Logical
Volume, you might replace the 'root=/dev/hda4' with
'root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00' or whatever the device name is for your
configuration.

Is there any reason you're not using RAID-1?  Keeps your backup in sync
automatically in real time, and works with LVM...

I've never heard of Acronis, so I can't speak to it's abilities, but I'm
typically suspicious of windows-based software when dealing with linux
partitions.

HTH,
Matt

Re: [linux-lvm] Grub/LVM boot problem

[John Koshi]

Matt,

Thanks for your feedback.

The Error 16 is from grub: "Inconsistent filesystem structure".
I assumed grub was complaining about the initrd image, but not
sure of this now.

I should be able to do an fsck on the Linux partitions from the
Linux rescue CD. I can see all my directories and files when
mounted in rescue mode.

I did try "root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00", and "root=/LABEL=/",
in place of "root=/dev/hda4" on the "kernel" line, but got the
same result.

Acronis works almost like dd, and can do a verbatim copy of a
disk. I looked into everything else, before I went with this.

regards,
John


--- Matthew Gillen <me@mattgillen.net> wrote:

> John Koshi wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have a problem with the grub bootloader, as follows. I have a
> > laptop, with an 80G disk, with Windows XP on the first half of
> > the disk (NTFS), and Fedora core 4 (LVM) on the rest. Dual boot
> > is managed by grub, installed with the Fedora install.
> > 
> > I wish to clone this disk, so I don't lose hours of setup/installs
> > on both OS's, and my work, in case of a crash. I did the following:
> > 
> > 1) Installed Acronis 10 under Windows, and cloned the entire disk
> >    to a 120G USB disk.
> > 2) Restored from that clone onto a new 80G disk of the same geometry,
> >    and replaced the existing disk with the newly cloned one.
> > 3) On start-up, got a grub hang, so did the following:
> >       a) Boot from Fedora core 4 rescue CD
> >       b) chroot /mnt/sysimage
> >       c) grub-install /dev/hda
> >       d) Enter grub
> >       e) grub> find /grub/stage1 -> gave me (hd0,3)
> >       f) grub> root (hd0,3)
> >       g) grub> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4 ro root=/dev/hda4
> >       h) grub> initrd /initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img -> gave me 
> >                     "Error 16: Inconsistent filesystem structure"
> >       i) Exit grub, repeat to step b) above, and rebuild initrd:
> >          "mkinitrd -v -f initrd-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4.img 2.6.17-1.2142_FC4
> >       j) Repeat from d) again, and get the same Error 16 as above.
> > 4) Note that after step 3-c) above, I got past the grub hang, and was able
> >    to boot Windows. But selecting the Linux installation gave me "Error 17:
> >    Cannot mount selected partition". That's when I did the remaining steps
> >    above.
> > 
> > Sorry about the long-winded explanation, but this is frustrating, and I
> > wanted to provide all the details, in the hope that some-one could throw
> > some light on the dark innards of grub vis-a-vis LVM, to resolve this.
> > 
> > Thanks in advance.
> 
> If you boot rescue disk, but don't try to mount the system, can you run fsck
> on the linux partitions?  Is that error from step 4 from grub, or after the
> kernel starts booting?  If the latter, and your root filesystem is a Logical
> Volume, you might replace the 'root=/dev/hda4' with
> 'root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00' or whatever the device name is for your
> configuration.
> 
> Is there any reason you're not using RAID-1?  Keeps your backup in sync
> automatically in real time, and works with LVM...
> 
> I've never heard of Acronis, so I can't speak to it's abilities, but I'm
> typically suspicious of windows-based software when dealing with linux
> partitions.
> 
> HTH,
> Matt
> 
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