New Kernel Hangs-up Booting

[Mark Knecht]

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:03:09 -0600, Joseph Abrahams <abrahjm at auburn.edu> wrote:
> Okay, here's my grub.conf file.  Each entry looks the same (no hde
> anywhere), but only "Red Hat Linux-up (2.4.20-8)" is bootable.  I don't
> see where hde is coming from during the boot process.

I don't either, but probably it's finding your SATA controller and
then getting confused somehow about the SATA drive. Not sure.

> 
> #          root (hd0,0)
> #          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
> #          initrd /initrd-version.img
> #boot=/dev/hda1
> default=1
> timeout=10
> splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
> title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-31.9)
>         root (hd0,0)
>         kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-31.9 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi

The issue is the above line, I think. If I understand correctly you
are telling the system to boot from a disk with a label '/' which I
guess the system isn't finding. Additionally you are telling it that
you want to treat hdc as an ide-scsi device but I think that's
probably for a CDROM or something like that.

I would suggest trying the following:

title Test
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-31.9 ro root=/dev/hda1 hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-31.9.img

That may work. Or you may need /dev/hde1.

Sorry that I'm not 100% sure. I've dealt with this a number of times.
I'm pretty sure we're working in the right area but it will jsut take
a few trys to figure it out.

You may not know this but you can execute grub commands in a console.
(And it may not help you in exactly this situation, but it's
interesting to try..) Shell out to a console (Alt-Ctrl-F1) and log in
as root. Then type

grub

and wait for it to load. At that point you can type 

root (hd

and hit tab. It will tel you about the drives it finds. Let's say you
want to look at drive 0, so you go on typing

root (hd0,

and hit tab again. It will tell you about the partitions it sees.

Pretty much all of the commands in grub work this way. This could be
helpful. Choose your test setup but then edit the command lines before
booting it. This can help you find the drive and partition you are
looking for.

Hope this helps,
Mark

Good luck,
Mark