Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

[Thierry Pauwels]

Hi,

I have been working too long with edgy Kubuntu and now installed lucid Kubuntu on a second hard disk. But during the configuration phase of lucid (which can take several weeks to get everything running) I still need to run operational tasks on my old edgy. So, I need a dual boot. For the moment I can boot either edgy or lucid, but only if I plug in the appropriate disk as the master disk (means opening the box of my pc, which I prefer not to do...). So, I edited the file /boot/grub/menu.lst on the edgy disk, and added the lines:

title Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, kernel 2.6.32-22-generic
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
boot

I got an error "bad file or directory type", when trying to boot lucid from the edgy disk, apparently because lucid installed an ext4 file system, which is not recognised by edgy.

Then I tried:

title Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, kernel 2.6.32-22-generic
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

This gives me an error "Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format".
I read somewhere that in order to use a chainloader grub must be installed in the MBR. So, on the lucid disk I ran the command:

grub-install hd0

This command seemed to run without problem, but nothing changed afterwards. So I can still boot lucid, but only by plugging in the hard disk as the master, and not from grub on the edgy disk.
One might think of setting the lucid disk as the master and use grub on the lucid disk for the dual boot, but on http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Lucid, I read that there are problems in trying to do so.
Has anyone an idea on how to install a real dual boot on my edgy disk ?

[Snowhog]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

How to boot Grub 2 from Grub legacy (Karmic from Jaunty) should be helpful.

[Thierry Pauwels]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

How to boot Grub 2 from Grub legacy (Karmic from Jaunty) should be helpful.

Hmmm. I do not really see anything in that thread that I did not try yet. Moreover, the solution that does seem to work there (Jaunty and Karmic both have an ext4 file system), does not work for me, since on edgy I have an ext3 file system.

[claydoh]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

Have you tried booting with whichever drive, and simply run the command

sudo update-grub

this makes grub (whichever version) look for any linux kernel files on your hard drives and creates entries for them. I don't think it is dependent on whether or not grub is installed to an mbr or partition, so i don't think that should be an issue - iirc it should not matter if your primary OS uses grub (legacy) or grub2. At least you can see if it works without having to physically move your drives around

The only caveat is I am unsure as Edgy cannot read ext4 , you may have to try having your 10.04 as the first drive to try this.

[Thierry Pauwels]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

Have you tried booting with whichever drive, and simply run the command

sudo update-grub

this makes grub (whichever version) look for any linux kernel files on your hard drives and creates entries for them. I don't think it is dependent on whether or not grub is installed to an mbr or partition, so i don't think that should be an issue - iirc it should not matter if your primary OS uses grub (legacy) or grub2. At least you can see if it works without having to physically move your drives around

The only caveat is I am unsure as Edgy cannot read ext4 , you may have to try having your 10.04 as the first drive to try this.

In edgy it did not work, the only thing update-grub did was erasing the entries I had added manually in menu.lst for the lucid disk (and that update-grup should have added). (So do not recommend to do that to someone having a dual boot with Windows on the slave disk !).

In lucid, it did somewhat better. update-grub did create entries for the edgy disk, and when I tried to boot with the lucid disk as primary, he presented me the menu. I chose edgy, and I did seem to start the boot procedure: I got the edgy Kubuntu logo and the progress bar, but the whole thing hanged with the progress bar showing something like 3% complete of the boot procedure. I tried it twice to be sure (and waiting for more than 10 minutes, just to be sure he was not doing a check disk or so). So I can still boot edgy with the edgy disk as master and lucid with the lucid disk as master, but I still cannot boot from a slave disk.

[dibl]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

BIOS settings are important for booting. Are both disks SATA, or is one IDE? Look at the SATA mode. If it is AHCI, you might need to change it to "Legacy IDE" for one of the disks.

Also, some BIOSs look for the "boot" flag on the partition to be booted. Use GParted to check the root partitions for both Edgy and Lucid -- is the "boot" flag set on the partition?

[Thierry Pauwels]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

BIOS settings are important for booting. Are both disks SATA, or is one IDE? Look at the SATA mode. If it is AHCI, you might need to change it to "Legacy IDE" for one of the disks.

As far as I understand both disks are SATA: a red flat cable with a black plastic connector, very flat and about 1 cm wide (and a similar but a bit wider power supply cable). About that SATA mode and AHCI, I am afraid I need some more information about what you mean (I am not such a specialist...). Does the included picture tell you more ? Do not look at the lower of the three disks, because it is not connected. The upper one is lucid, the middle one is edgy.

Also, some BIOSs look for the "boot" flag on the partition to be booted. Use GParted to check the root partitions for both Edgy and Lucid -- is the "boot" flag set on the partition?

GParted, is that something I have to download and burn on a CD-ROM ? I remember having given a command that seemed to give the output you ask, but I do not remember which. Maybe fdisk ? It gave 3 lines for each disk (3 partitions), with an asterisk in the first line of each disk in the "boot" column, as far as I remember. I tried fdisk on edgy, but did not get such output. Maybe is was on lucid, but therefore I would have to exchange the disk connectors again and reboot (I try to minimise the number of such operations).

[Teunis]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

GParted is a program found in the repositories and once installed it can be helpful administering disks.
But because some operations require the disk to be unmounted it's often handier to use the GParted Live CD.

You get even more handy utilities included GParted when you have the Super Grub Live CD.

[Thierry Pauwels]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

gparted run on lucid (I cannot install anything anymore on edgy) gives:
/dev/sda1, ext4 file system, mounted on /, with boot flag (this is the lucid disk)
(mentions also /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda5 without boot flag)
/dev/sdb1, ext3 file system, mounted on /media/disk, with boot flag (this is the edgy disk)
(mentions also /dev/sdb2 and /dev/sdb5 without boot flag)
/dev/sdc1, ext3 file system, no boot flag (normal, this is an external usb hard disk for backup)

I also checked that booting edgy from the slave disk in recovery mode does not work. It stops just after:
sd 5:0:0:3 Attached scsi removable disk sdg

[Thierry Pauwels]

Re: Cannot make dual boot Edgy / Lucid

[
In lucid, it did somewhat better. update-grub did create entries for the edgy disk, and when I tried to boot with the lucid disk as primary, he presented me the menu. I chose edgy, and I did seem to start the boot procedure: I got the edgy Kubuntu logo and the progress bar, but the whole thing hanged with the progress bar showing something like 3% complete of the boot procedure. I tried it twice to be sure (and waiting for more than 10 minutes, just to be sure he was not doing a check disk or so). So I can still boot edgy with the edgy disk as master and lucid with the lucid disk as master, but I still cannot boot from a slave disk.

Someone told me the cause could be that the initrd file on lucid does not contain ext3 support. Could that be a cause that I cannot boot edgy starting with the lucid disk as primary ? And if yes, how can this be fixed ?