Hi there,
I'm feeling a bit stuffed with a machine upon which I recently ran
`emerge -e world`. I'm surprised to think this is the cause, however
the next time I booted grub failed to load, and I did not even get
the usual menu asking me which kernel I want to load - all I get is
"GRUB" in white letters at the very top left of a black screen.
Ok, I thought, this should be as easy as booting from the LiveCD,
chrooting into the system and then running grub from in there. How
naive could I be?
livecd ~ # uname -a
Linux livecd 2.6.15-gentoo-r5 #1 SMP Thu Feb 16 15:28:08 UTC 2006
i686 Pentium II (Deschutes) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
livecd ~ # parted /dev/ida/disc0/disc p
Disk geometry for /dev/ida/disc0/disc: 0kB - 18GB
Disk label type: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
3 16kB 38MB 38MB primary fat16
1 38MB 100MB 63MB primary ext3 boot
2 100MB 1174MB 1074MB primary linux-swap
4 1174MB 18GB 17GB primary reiserfs
Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.
livecd ~ # mount -v /dev/ida/disc0/part4 /mnt/gentoo/
mount: you didn't specify a filesystem type for /dev/ida/disc0/part4
I will try type reiserfs
/dev/ida/disc0/part4 on /mnt/gentoo type reiserfs (rw)
livecd ~ # mount -v /dev/ida/disc0/part1 /mnt/gentoo/boot/
mount: you didn't specify a filesystem type for /dev/ida/disc0/part1
I will try type ext3
/dev/ida/disc0/part1 on /mnt/gentoo/boot type ext3 (rw)
livecd ~ # mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
livecd ~ # cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/
livecd ~ # chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
livecd / # env-update && source /etc/profile
>>> Regenerating /etc/ld.so.cache...
livecd / #
So mounting the RAID array from the LiveCD is the easy part. After
this, nothing goes as planned:
livecd / # grub
GNU GRUB version 0.96 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
Error 15: File not found
grub> root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is xfs, partition type 0x83
grub> quit
Y'see, XFS isn't the filesystem of any of the partitions on the
array, but that of the filesystem on the separate EIDE drive. And
it's no good installing GRUB on this, I've tried before. :(
livecd / # grep ida /etc/fstab
/dev/ida/c0d0p1 /boot ext2
noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/ida/c0d0p2 none swap
sw 0 0
/dev/ida/c0d0p4 / reiserfs
noatime 0 1
This is how the partitions are described in /etc/fstab, but...
livecd / # grub-install /dev/ida/c0d0
expr: non-numeric argument
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.
livecd / #
From the LiveCD (see first code sample) I was able to address the
drive as /dev/ida/disc0/disc, but not from inside the system - this
doesn't seem to be described in /dev:
livecd / # grub-install /dev/ida/c0d0/disk
/dev/ida/c0d0/disk: Not found or not a block device.
livecd / # grub-install /dev/ida/disc0/disc
/dev/ida/disc0/disc: Not found or not a block device.
livecd / # ls /dev/ida/disc0/disc
ls: /dev/ida/disc0/disc: No such file or directory
livecd / # ls /dev/ida/disc0/
ls: /dev/ida/disc0/: No such file or directory
livecd / # ls /dev/ida/
c0d0 c0d14p9 c0d6 c1d10p9 c1d2 c1d8
c2d12p9 c2d4
c0d0p1 c0d15 c0d6p1 c1d11 c1d2p1 c1d8p1
c2d13 c2d4p1
c0d0p10 c0d15p1 c0d6p10 c1d11p1 c1d2p10 c1d8p10
c2d13p1 c2d4p10
c0d0p11 c0d15p10 c0d6p11 c1d11p10 c1d2p11 c1d8p11
c2d13p10 c2d4p11
c0d0p12 c0d15p11 c0d6p12 c1d11p11 c1d2p12 c1d8p12
c2d13p11 c2d4p12
c0d0p13 c0d15p12 c0d6p13 c1d11p12 c1d2p13 c1d8p13
c2d13p12 c2d4p13
c0d0p14 c0d15p13 c0d6p14 c1d11p13 c1d2p14 c1d8p14
c2d13p13 c2d4p14
c0d0p15 c0d15p14 c0d6p15 c1d11p14 c1d2p15 c1d8p15
c2d13p14 c2d4p15
c0d0p2 c0d15p15 c0d6p2 c1d11p15 c1d2p2 c1d8p2
c2d13p15 c2d4p2
c0d0p3 c0d15p2 c0d6p3 c1d11p2 c1d2p3 c1d8p3
c2d13p2 c2d4p3
...
...
c0d14p7 c0d5p8 c1d10p7 c1d1p8 c1d7p8 c2d12p7
c2d3p8 c2d9p8
c0d14p8 c0d5p9 c1d10p8 c1d1p9 c1d7p9 c2d12p8
c2d3p9 c2d9p9
livecd / #
Since I don't have 14 disks on my system these entries are obviously
bogus.
So any suggestions where to go from here, please?
Installing GRUB *used* to work on this system, because I described it
in great detail when I wrote <http://gentoo-wiki.com/
HARDWARE_Compaq_Proliant_6500>. The only think I can think is that
this system was originally installed 18 months or 2 years ago, and
that since then the devfs / udev transmogrification has taken place.
I seem to recall following instructions at the time (when my new
kernel required me to upgrade) but I can't say I really understood
all that business. Is it possible that this is why the cpqarray is
not described correctly in the mounted, chrooted /dev ? Is there any
way to copy the /dev off the LiveCD onto the mounted, chrooted
system, and will this make any difference to GRUB?
I feel really frustrated by this, as I used to have quite a usable
system,
Cheers,
Stroller.
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