Booting sparkly new F12 install, error 13 from grub.

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 10 December 2009, Bill Davidsen wrote:
>Tom H wrote:
>>> Resend as there has been no reply, with added info.
>>>
>>> I finally said to hell with it and let F12 install itself on /dev/sdb
>>> with all its defaults.
>>>
>>> I was surprised on the reboot when my usual grub menu from
>>> /dev/sda was all that showed up, no mention of an F12 install at all.
>>>
>>> Added: I had it install everything in the options list, but gave it only
>>> /dev/sdb to play with in the available disks menu's, & use the defaults
>>> on /dev/sdb, so it made a  100 meg /boot, using ext4, and a logical
>>> volume out of the rest of the drive.  I have NDI how to query the
>>> filesystem used there, other than trying to mount /dev/sdb1 as ext3
>>> fails.
>>>
>>> So, since I had blown away a centos install to put F12 on /dev/sdb, I
>>> carved up a fresh grub stanza that reads like this and added it to
>>> /dev/sda1/grub/grub.conf:
>>>
>>> # grub.conf generated by anaconda
>>> #
>>> # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this
>>> file # NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
>>> #          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
>>> #          root (hd0,0)
>>> #          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sdb3
>>> #          initrd /initrd-version.img
>>> #boot=/dev/sda
>>> default=19
>>> fallback=1
>>> timeout=15
>>> splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> #21 new stanza
>>> title   Fedora 12 (2.6.31.6-162.fc12.x86_64 from dev/sdb)
>>>        root (hd1,0)
>>>        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31.6-162.fc12.x86_64 ro
>>> root=/dev/mapper/vg_coyote- lv_root  LANG=en_US.UTF-8
>>> SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
>>>        initrd /initramfs-2.6.31.6-162.fc12.x86_64.img
>>>
>>> which is in fact pasted from the /dev/sdb1/grub/grub.conf except for the
>>> initial "root (hd1,0)" statement.
>>>
>>> So it looks as if I might have to 'chainloader +1 ' it instead, so how
>>> do I do that?  I've never done that before.
>>>
>>> Also, that /dev/sdb1 partition only mounts as ext4 if that is important.
>>>
>>> Added: I experimentally added a 'chainloader+1' as the next line after
>>> the root (hd1,0) in the /dev/sda1/grub/grub.conf, but all that seemed to
>>> do was add another 10 second delay before I get the error 13 message.  I
>>> would have thought from what little I know about grub, that this should
>>> force a reload, effectively a grub restart, from the mbr of /dev/sdb. 
>>> Is there something I need to change in the /dev/sdb1/grub/grub.conf
>>> also?
>>
>> Chainloading will not work because F12 defaults to grub1, which cannot
>> boot from an ext4 /boot.
>
>You are almost right. The F12 version of grub1 will boot from ext4, Gene's
>problem is that his installed graub is F11,

actually, its the F10 grub.

>which will not. I couldn't
> reproduce this because I always set my /boot to ext2, which always works
> fine.
>
>Fastest solution seems to lie in backup, change to ext3, restore, and use
> of either map or chain should work fine.

That is doable.  Would the bios drive order translation account for the 
slowness of the F12 system?  It is intolerably slow when multitasking, often 
taking 30 seconds to a minute to close a window if the package manager is 
also running.  Launching another app from the menu, which takes 5 seconds to 
display, often exceeds the busy cursor timeout, so one is surprised when that 
apps window is suddenly drawn 2 or 3 minutes later.

OTOH, since its a new install, I could just as easily do a reinstall.  What 
sort of a voodoo spell to I have to use to get a /boot partition of say 400 
megabytes?  The default is only 100, and that will never fly here for more 
than a week.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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