Re: grub-probe seems to be having problems

["Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko" <phcoder@gmail.com>]

On 20.03.2012 20:02, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 11:28:18AM +0100, Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
>> There is no need to debug. I know exactly why GRUB is confused:
>> because as far as my understanding goes the superblock makes no
>> sense (details in previous mail). What we need is that someone
>> familiar with md tells me how this sector should be interpreted.
> This is just weird.
>
> I run grub-probe and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
>
> Something is giving inconsistent results.  I don't know if it is a
> problem in 2.6.32 kernel returning inconsistent data for the superblock,
> or if grub isn't correctly initializing the superblock before filling it,
> or if grub isn't actually reading the superblock properly.
My conclusions are based on direct examination of the files you supplied 
not GRUB output.
> Sometimes /dev/sdd2 isn't being recognized as a member of /dev/md0,
> and other times it is.
>
> By the way, the code in grub-install that tries to check if a PReP
> partition is empty using 'cmp' doesn't work.  It always fails.
> The suggestion it gives doesn't help.
>
> Forcing the partition to contain an elf header makes grub-install happy,
> but that's not so easy to do until you got grub already installed there.
>
> Also a recent change to non powerpc ieee1275 in grub-install has broken
> nvsetenv, since ofpath is no longer being set on powerpc.  So boot-device
> isn't set anymore.  This worked a few weeks ago.
The change in question isn't "non-powerpc", quite the opposite, it was 
to fix the install on powerpc Mac. Just different vendors use different 
boot methods.
Please try this:
=== modified file 'util/grub-install.in'
--- util/grub-install.in    2012-03-10 11:33:52 +0000
+++ util/grub-install.in    2012-03-20 19:08:57 +0000
@@ -764,6 +764,12 @@
          echo "  dd if=/dev/zero of=${install_device}"
          exit 1
              fi
+        ofpath="`$ofpathname "${install_device}"`" || {
+        # TRANSLATORS: "device tree path" is the name of the device
+            # for IEEE1275
+        gettext_printf "Couldn't find IEEE1275 device tree path for 
%s.\nYou will have to set \`boot-device' variable manually.\n" "$dev" 1>&2
+        exit 1
+        }
      fi

      "$nvsetenv" boot-device "$boot_device" || {




-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko