Grub error 2, stage 1.5

I gave up on Lilo after getting the infamous no init found error in a knx-install (2003-06-06-EN). Seemed to me that Lilo was screwed as it wouldn't accept old /etc/lilo.confs which had worked fine with 3.1. However, Knoppix boots fine from a boot floppy -- hardly an optimal solution given that I need to dual boot with SuSE and floppys are dreadfully fragile.

So I put Grub on and get stage 1.5 error 2. The error reference says:

2 : "Selected disk doesn't exist"

This error is returned if the device part of a device- or full filename refers to a disk or BIOS device that is not present or not recognized by the BIOS in the system.

Which doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Knoppix is on hda1. This is the (relevant, I think) part of /boot/grub/menu.lst :

## ## End Default Options ##

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.20-xfs
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-xfs root=/dev/hda1 ro
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.20-xfs (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-xfs root=/dev/hda1 ro single
savedefault
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

Any ideas (even on what I may have done to deserve this) gratefully recieved.

:(

stage 1.5 has nothing to do with menu.lst(that is read by stage2). Seems that it cannot find stage2.

what version of grub you are running ?

A suggestion for GRUB, remove(or at least move) stage1.5 files as it may interfere with other boot loaders like NT(if you don't have M$ stuff, you can use stage1.5 safely).

Let's see:

knoppix@molehole:~$ grub --version
grub (GNU GRUB 0.93)

I've not used Windows since January and never anything later than 98 on these disks (SuSE's on another drive).

The device map shows:

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdc
(hd2) /dev/sda

which looks right (no CD listed, though)

knoppix@molehole:/boot/grub$ ls
device.map ffs_stage1_5 minix_stage1_5 stage2
e2fs_stage1_5 jfs_stage1_5 reiserfs_stage1_5 vstafs_stage1_5
fat_stage1_5 menu.lst stage1 xfs_stage1_5

I'm using ext3 for everything except swap.

I checked with cfdisk to see if hda1 was bootable, and it was. There's no issue with the size of initrd.

Suggestions welcomed. :wink:

how did you install GRUB ?

(already included -- but not the default boot manager -- in 3.2)

(as root):

grub-install /dev/hda

and

update-grub

(exactly as it says in /usr/share/doc/grub/README.Debian, but that doesn't mean it's right!)

My WAG is that you have multiple hd and the grub stage1 and stage1.5 is being installed to hda but stage2 may be on another disk which confuse stage 1.5 so when it try to find it, it fails.

knoppix@molehole:/boot/grub$ ls
device.map ffs_stage1_5 minix_stage1_5 stage2
e2fs_stage1_5 jfs_stage1_5 reiserfs_stage1_5 vstafs_stage1_5
fat_stage1_5 menu.lst stage1 xfs_stage1_5

So, what do I look for? (Seems strange that there is no e2fs_stage2, although there is a "common" stage2, and no mention of a e3fs at all.....).

Sheesh!

An updatedb and locate reveal only the stuff we know I have. I'll try mounting all the partitions and see if there's anything on any of them.

Goddammitt! I'm puzzled that it works fine off the floppy, is there anyway I can (so to speak) write from the floppy back to the hard drive and point Lilo or Grub at that?

I would suggest you to remove(or mv to somewhere else) the 1.5 stage files(all) and run the installation again. At least that way, I can get more clue on track down the problem. The stage 1.5 files are optional and IMO do more harm than good. and you can't 'transfer' from floppy to harddisk. There is too many device specific info(sectors) in the stage1/stage2 file.

what is your partitions configuration, like which is the boot partition, which is root partition etc. or more specifically, which parititon /boot/* refers to ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fingers99

## ## End Default Options ##

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.20-xfs
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-xfs root=/dev/hda1 ro
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.20-xfs (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-xfs root=/dev/hda1 ro single
savedefault
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

Any ideas (even on what I may have done to deserve this) gratefully recieved.

:(

---

Try removing the lines 'savedefault' and 'boot' . I also use grub but I don't have those lines in my menu.lst. Refer to the sample menu.lst on the 'doc' folder of your grub source directory.