[openSUSE] BIOS/GRUB Problem

[Stan Goodman]

At 16:02:58 on Saturday Saturday 23 October 2010, Felix Miata

If BIOS confusion is the reason for the problem, that would mean
that the BIOS chip has stored somewhere the assumed order and
location of the HDs. I have to wonder if there is not a way to
delete that memory, perhaps by removing a jumper on the MB. I don't
find any reference to such a jumper in the MB documentation (this
is an Intel board, 915GAV -- an older board with a Pentium IV CPU).

When specific instructions for BIOS reset are missing from the
manual, all that's usually required is to unplug the power supply,
and remove the battery from the motherboard for several minutes or
more. Usually in recent years these batteries have been common #2032
disk batteries readily available in stores. Maybe yours is pooping
out prematurely. Does its clock keep accurate time when left off a
few days at a time?

I might pull the battery and let the machine sit overnight.

I have done that, and gone through the BIOS settup. The result is that I
don't get to the GRUB prompt anymore, because the screen goes black after
the POST routine. There is no difference when the boot order is set for
either HD. Previously, this happened only with one of the HDs.

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman

I might pull the battery and let the machine sit overnight.

I have done that, and gone through the BIOS settup. The result is that I
don't get to the GRUB prompt anymore, because the screen goes black after
the POST routine. There is no difference when the boot order is set for
either HD. Previously, this happened only with one of the HDs.

It's quite common for that result from (first) BIOS disk (0) to be
incorrectly configured to boot. The BIOS has transferred control to a (first)
BIOS disk (0) that has either no boot code, or invalid boot code, or has
standard MBR code but no boot flag set on any primary partition on that same HD.

What probably happened, and I expected as much based upon your experience, is
that the BIOS reset values and the BIOS settings prior to clearing had the
Seagate and Hitachi reversed, which is the root of your trouble. Apparently
now you have inappropriately configured Grub on MBR of (first) BIOS HD (0),
unless you're only getting the black screen after selecting something from
the BM menu. I'm assuming, since the thread is a mile long and I can't
remember the whole history, that BM isn't working currently.

<aside>
I had Bob S's 2 PATA/1 SATA system here for several days until this AM. The
disagreement among the BIOS, Grub, and the disk drivers for Knoppix, 10.2,
11.0, 11.2, 11.3 & 11.4 were unbelievable. It's no wonder people's systems
won't boot after installation to a multi-HD system, particularly when PATA &
SATA are both present. http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Linux/Bobs/ contains the
partitioning information for 10.2, 11.0, 11.2, 11.3 & 11.4 respectively.

He had a perfectly working 11.0 on hdb, with hda set as the first BIOS HD,
and the SATA as the #3 BIOS HD. He tried to install 11.0 to the SATA, but the
installer put sufficient portions of 11.3 on 11.0's / to irreparably corrupt
it. I wound up doing fresh installs of 11.0, 11.2, 11.3 & 11.4M2, preserving
intact only 10.2
</aside>

I suggest, if the facts above match my memory and both BM is not functional
and it is not 11.3's grub prompt you were able to boot from manually in
recent week(s), to leave the Hitachi unconnected, ensure the Seagate is
connected to the first SATA port, and do a Grub repair, followed by MBR
restoration:

1-boot the 11.3 DVD to repair shell prompt
2-grub

Post by Stan Goodman
find /boot/grub/stage1 # should indicate (hd0,5)
root (hd0,5)
setup (hd0,5)
quit

3-reboot to something that can run DFSee, and start it
4-newmbr 1
5-reboot to Seagate

At this point the BM menu should come up, and you should be able to select
sda6/11.3 to boot from, whereupon 11.3's grub menu should come up, from which
you should be able to get 11.3 booted. If my memory is wrong, please refresh
it. I can't tell from ftp://hashkedim.com/pub/DFSWORK.LOG which is Hitachi
and which is Seagate. I don't remember if we ever decided which Grub you were
successfully using before the BIOS reset.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman

I might pull the battery and let the machine sit overnight.

I have done that, and gone through the BIOS settup. The result is
that I don't get to the GRUB prompt anymore, because the screen goes
black after the POST routine. There is no difference when the boot
order is set for either HD. Previously, this happened only with one
of the HDs.

It's quite common for that result from (first) BIOS disk (0) to be
incorrectly configured to boot. The BIOS has transferred control to a
(first) BIOS disk (0) that has either no boot code, or invalid boot
code, or has standard MBR code but no boot flag set on any primary
partition on that same HD.
What probably happened, and I expected as much based upon your
experience, is that the BIOS reset values and the BIOS settings prior
to clearing had the Seagate and Hitachi reversed, which is the root of
your trouble. Apparently now you have inappropriately configured Grub
on MBR of (first) BIOS HD (0), unless you're only getting the black
screen after selecting something from the BM menu. I'm assuming, since
the thread is a mile long and I can't remember the whole history, that
BM isn't working currently.
<aside>
I had Bob S's 2 PATA/1 SATA system here for several days until this AM.
The disagreement among the BIOS, Grub, and the disk drivers for
Knoppix, 10.2, 11.0, 11.2, 11.3 & 11.4 were unbelievable. It's no
wonder people's systems won't boot after installation to a multi-HD
system, particularly when PATA & SATA are both present.
http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Linux/Bobs/ contains the partitioning
information for 10.2, 11.0, 11.2, 11.3 & 11.4 respectively.
He had a perfectly working 11.0 on hdb, with hda set as the first BIOS
HD, and the SATA as the #3 BIOS HD. He tried to install 11.0 to the
SATA, but the installer put sufficient portions of 11.3 on 11.0's / to
irreparably corrupt it. I wound up doing fresh installs of 11.0, 11.2,
11.3 & 11.4M2, preserving intact only 10.2
</aside>
I suggest, if the facts above match my memory and both BM is not
functional and it is not 11.3's grub prompt you were able to boot from
manually in recent week(s), to leave the Hitachi unconnected, ensure
the Seagate is connected to the first SATA port, and do a Grub repair,

Seagate is hd0/sda/v11.3; Hitachi is hd1. I have been booting through GRUB
on hd1.

When the machine is turned on, BM does come up, and I can select either
OS, and the corresponding herald screen comes up, followed by a complaint
of Error 15 (I think, just from memory), with the added note that a file
(unnamed) has not been found. Then I can get to either GRUB, the one on
hd1 can boot, that on hd0 makes a black screen.

Post by Felix Miata
1-boot the 11.3 DVD to repair shell prompt
2-grub

Post by Stan Goodman
find /boot/grub/stage1 # should indicate (hd0,5)
root (hd0,5)
setup (hd0,5)
quit

3-reboot to something that can run DFSee, and start it
4-newmbr 1
5-reboot to Seagate

I assume that #1 begins with selecting Rescue System. What then?

Post by Felix Miata
At this point the BM menu should come up, and you should be able to
select sda6/11.3 to boot from, whereupon 11.3's grub menu should come
up, from which you should be able to get 11.3 booted. If my memory is
wrong, please refresh it. I can't tell from
ftp://hashkedim.com/pub/DFSWORK.LOG which is Hitachi and which is
Seagate. I don't remember if we ever decided which Grub you were
successfully using before the BIOS reset.

See above.

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata
It's quite common for that result from (first) BIOS disk (0) to be
incorrectly configured to boot. The BIOS has transferred control to a
(first) BIOS disk (0) that has either no boot code, or invalid boot
code, or has standard MBR code but no boot flag set on any primary
partition on that same HD.
What probably happened, and I expected as much based upon your
experience, is that the BIOS reset values and the BIOS settings
prior to clearing had the Seagate and Hitachi reversed, which is the
root of your trouble. Apparently now you have inappropriately
configured Grub on MBR of (first) BIOS HD (0), unless you're only
getting the black screen after selecting something from the BM menu.
I'm assuming, since the thread is a mile long and I can't remember
the whole history, that BM isn't working currently.
<aside>
I had Bob S's 2 PATA/1 SATA system here for several days until this
AM. The disagreement among the BIOS, Grub, and the disk drivers for
Knoppix, 10.2, 11.0, 11.2, 11.3 & 11.4 were unbelievable. It's no
wonder people's systems won't boot after installation to a multi-HD
system, particularly when PATA & SATA are both present.
http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Linux/Bobs/ contains the partitioning
information for 10.2, 11.0, 11.2, 11.3 & 11.4 respectively.
He had a perfectly working 11.0 on hdb, with hda set as the first
BIOS HD, and the SATA as the #3 BIOS HD. He tried to install 11.0 to
the SATA, but the installer put sufficient portions of 11.3 on 11.0's
/ to irreparably corrupt it. I wound up doing fresh installs of 11.0,
11.2, 11.3 & 11.4M2, preserving intact only 10.2
</aside>
I suggest, if the facts above match my memory and both BM is not
functional and it is not 11.3's grub prompt you were able to boot
from manually in recent week(s), to leave the Hitachi unconnected,
ensure the Seagate is connected to the first SATA port, and do a Grub

Seagate is hd0/sda/v11.3; Hitachi is hd1. I have been booting through
GRUB on hd1.
When the machine is turned on, BM does come up, and I can select either
OS, and the corresponding herald screen comes up, followed by a
complaint of Error 15 (I think, just from memory), with the added note
that a file (unnamed) has not been found. Then I can get to either
GRUB, the one on hd1 can boot, that on hd0 makes a black screen.

Post by Felix Miata
1-boot the 11.3 DVD to repair shell prompt
2-grub
3-reboot to something that can run DFSee, and start it
4-newmbr 1
5-reboot to Seagate

I assume that #1 begins with selecting Rescue System. What then?

Post by Felix Miata
At this point the BM menu should come up, and you should be able to
select sda6/11.3 to boot from, whereupon 11.3's grub menu should
come up, from which you should be able to get 11.3 booted. If my
memory is wrong, please refresh it. I can't tell from
ftp://hashkedim.com/pub/DFSWORK.LOG which is Hitachi and which is
Seagate. I don't remember if we ever decided which Grub you were
successfully using before the BIOS reset.

See above.

While awaiting a reply, I booted to DFSee to try to find anything that
seemed out of the ordinary. I found that DFSee says that "MBR boot code
unknown to DFSee" (it should be generic). So I thought to take a shot at
making new MBR code. When it came to choosing which HD, DFSee reported
that the sole disk present as "1 Disk2 ....". Before any of this mess
happened, I reported to Jan that, depending where in DFSee one looked, the
HD numbers were interchanged, or they were both labeled Disk2. He didn't
know what to make of this.

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman
Seagate is hd0/sda/v11.3; Hitachi is hd1. I have been booting through GRUB
on hd1.
When the machine is turned on, BM does come up, and I can select either
OS, and the corresponding herald screen comes up, followed by a complaint
of Error 15 (I think, just from memory), with the added note that a file
(unnamed) has not been found. Then I can get to either GRUB, the one on
hd1 can boot, that on hd0 makes a black screen.

Post by Felix Miata
1-boot the 11.3 DVD to repair shell prompt
2-grub

Post by Stan Goodman
find /boot/grub/stage1 # should indicate (hd0,5)
root (hd0,5)
setup (hd0,5)
quit

3-reboot to something that can run DFSee, and start it
4-newmbr 1
5-reboot to Seagate

I assume that #1 begins with selecting Rescue System. What then?

You should have a root/rescue prompt (#; 1 above). Do 2 above (only, if you
performed steps outlined in my 2010/10/28 10:13 (GMT-0400) thread reply;
additionally 3-5 if you didn't).

I'm going out for a while in about an hour.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman
While awaiting a reply, I booted to DFSee to try to find anything that
seemed out of the ordinary. I found that DFSee says that "MBR boot code
unknown to DFSee" (it should be generic). So I thought to take a shot at
making new MBR code. When it came to choosing which HD, DFSee reported
that the sole disk present as "1 Disk2 ....". Before any of this mess
happened, I reported to Jan that, depending where in DFSee one looked, the
HD numbers were interchanged, or they were both labeled Disk2. He didn't
know what to make of this.

1-Boot to BIOS setup
2-Note which HD is selected as first boot priority
3-Exit BIOS setup with save & power down
4-Disconnect SATA cable and/or power cable from Hitachi
5-Boot to BIOS setup
6-Note if first boot priority has changed
7-Use DFSee to give the Seagate a LVM disk name that includes the word Seagate
8-Use DFSee to 'newmbr 1' (or same thing via its menu)
9-Try to boot Seagate

10-Reconnect Hitachi
11-Boot to BIOS setup
12-Ensure Seagate is first HD priority
13-Exit BIOS setup with save, power off
14-Use DFSee to give Hitachi a LVM disk name that includes the word Hitachi
15-Use DFSee to newmbr the Hitachi
16-Note which disk is #1 & which is #2 according to DFSee
17-Exit DFSee
18-Restart DFSee with new logname DFSWORK2.TXT
19-Exit DFSee
20-Upload DFSWORK2.TXT to ftp://hashkedim.com/pub/
21-Make hashkedim.com/pub available via HTTP (cannot right click links to
open in new tabs from FTP list in Firefox 4 or SeaMonkey 2.1)
22-Boot whichever HD brings up BM
23-Try to get a Grub prompt or menu
24-report back
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Stan Goodman]

Now I am really confused. in your paragraph just above, and again a
few paragraphs up, you say I will need to reinstall. Yet near the
top, you say that isn't necessary yet, and also that we seem to be
closing in in fixing the existing installation.

A successful fsck may preclude need to reinstall. If you can find a
howto or someone else who knows more about manual fsck from a recovery
prompt, or can achieve successful fsck by booting something besides
11.3, then maybe 11.3 will work with little or no further fuss.
Otherwise, reinstall, or install to sda8 or 9. Either way, for
safety's sake, install with the Hitachi disconnected until after
installation has successfully completed.

I guess the way to go for fsck information would be to find a forum
concerned with GRUB. How to reinstall just the / on another partition is
the clear next step.

Thanks, Felix.

[Stan Goodman]

A reboot brought the system to its present state, which is that the
desktop is now up partially. The chameleon is still there, with the
progress gauge (with no progress), but the upper-left quadrant is
occupied by the Desktop Folder window. neither the folder nor the
rest of the screen is populated.
This would seem to be progress. What I would like to do is to run fsk
on sda7 again, but I am unsure how to reboot, since there is no
button to do so, and I am reluctant to screw things up again by using
the OFF switch. Actually, I think that switch does an orderly
shutdown before removing power, but I would like to be sure.

1-Switch to 1 of your 6 virtual consoles (Ctrl-Alt-F[1-6]; e.g.
Crtl-Alt-F2) 2-login as root
3A-init 6 # reboot, or
3B-init 3 # shut down X
4-fsck /dev/sda7 # what you wish
5-init 5 # restart X
6-Switch to 1 of your 6 virtual consoles (Ctrl-Alt-F[1-6]; e.g.
Crtl-Alt-F2) 7-login as root # if not still logged in from #2 above
8-init 3 # shut down X
9-zypper up # refreshes repos & updates installed packages to latest
versions 10-init 5 # restart X
11-report back
As an alternative to #3A, reboot from root login can also be
accomplished using the reboot command, or the shutdown command, both
of which have man pages.
Also, telinit can be substituted for any instance above of init, which
also has a man page explaining what the init/telinit numbers mean.
e.g., 3 produces runlevel 3, which is full system function except for
anything that requires X to work.
Any time you need to reboot while X is dysfunctional, you can prevent
having X start by appending any of single, 1, 2 or 3 to the kernel
line while in the Grub menu or from a Grub prompt. Then after
performing repairs to the X system, init 5 will attempt to start X and
bring up the GDM/KDM/XDM login screen.
To test if your window manager is working without bothering with the
login screen, you can login from any of the virtual consoles as any
regular user (or root if you dare), then run the command startx. Done
this way if the display manager is still not producing a menu that
allows you to exit, you can kill X completely with Ctrl-Alt-BS
Ctrl-Alt-BS.

I was prepared this morning to proceed according to your suggestions, but
v11.3 seems to have booted to completion, with a populated desktop and all
the apps that were loaded weeks ago running.

Remembering that the system ran well when I was able to boot from the GRUB
prompt, without evident graphic problems, I think it would be worth a try
to continue to use it now, until if and when such problems appear.

What I see from the reports of problems with 11.3 on Intel boards is that
many of them concern either laptops or Nvidia cards, neither of which is
the case here.

So I think and hope that the problems are straightened out. Felix, I am
greatly indebted to you for your advice and guidance, not to mention your
patience. From my own point of view, I have learned quite a lot about the
booting process and about GRUB that I wouldn't have learned had the
original problem not occurred, so it certainly has not been a waste of
time for me.

WARNING: Anyone who switches my drives in the future will be shot, whether
it was me or anyone else.