Alternative booting

[David Krings]

Chris Jones wrote:
>> Any hints are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Well first maybe you could tell us exactly what goes wrong with grub...
> 
> In general its really very stable, so whatever issues you have might well be 
> fixable...

I posted this in a different thread the past days, but I agree with such 
a busy list it is easy to overlook.

The setup:
- Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe with nVidia 590 chipset
- nVidia RAID1 using two SATA drives
- Promise 133TX2 IDE controller with two HDDs
- XP on the first primary partition on the RAID array
- F7 on the second primary partition on the RAID array
- GRUB on the MBR on the RAID1 array (well, not anymore)

Problem:
Besides that F7 doesn't even install when the HDDs are present on the 
Promise (have to pull the cable) I downloaded apps and updates and that 
apparently breaks GRUB.
I get the grub> prompt and all proposals on how to fix it either didn't 
work or are definitely going to break my RAID array (such as booting 
with nodmraid option).

I can get GRUB to install and repeatedly boot fine as long as I don't 
change anything in the F7 install, such as adding updates.

I did try unplugging the HDDs on the Promise and repair/update the F7 
install, but since I never end up changing anything in regards to the 
kernel, the installer doesn't give me an option to have GRUB reinstalled.
I also do not know what dmraid ended up naming the RAID array, it was 
something starting with nvidia_ and some gibberish at the end. I did not 
note this as I didn't expect the problems to arise.

I could go ahead and yet again reinstall F7, but with the apps and 
updates that I do want I am looking again as running the box for 48 
hours downloading. I have DSL, but the Fedora repositories are either 
overloaded or not that fast to begin with (I'm spoiled by Ubuntu...which 
doesn't install at all...different story and different list).

Conclusion:
I have this new system for two weeks now and nothing caused any concern 
except for GRUB. It just doesn't work, or better to say, it doesn't work 
reliably. Therefore, I lost any trust in GRUB and look for an alternative.

Options:
I could install F7 on the PATA drives on the Promise, but I still want 
to boot off the RAID array, so that doesn't strike me of much help.

I could use a boot process that doesn't depend on the MBR, at least 
until Grub is fixed (I filed bug reports). Unfortunately, I cannot give 
much more info as I am not able to pinpoint which update or app I 
installed that caused GRUB to break. And no, with 167 updates right off 
the bat I will not try this out.
So anything that uses a floppy, a floppy/USB combo (the BIOS doesn't 
allow for USB boot....so much for 'Deluxe'), a boot from Windows, or 
whatever else may work out is fine with me for now.

I could run F7 in VMWare, but then I won't have access to some of the 
hardware that is supported by F7, but not by XP64.


That's all I got.

David