Hardy kernel won't boot

[jcphil]

I'm running Hardy Heron and it installed kernel 2.6.24-17. All of the pieces for that kernel seem to be there. Indeed, vmlinuz points to that kernel:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2008-05-26 08:06 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-generic
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 2008-05-26 08:06 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 2008-05-27 20:57 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-386
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 2008-05-27 20:57 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-17-386

All of the corresponding entries seem to be there in the boot directory:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 419412 2008-05-01 13:55 abi-2.6.24-17-386
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 422667 2008-05-01 13:59 abi-2.6.24-17-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80050 2008-05-01 13:55 config-2.6.24-17-386
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80071 2008-05-01 13:59 config-2.6.24-17-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7856274 2008-05-30 18:04 initrd.img-2.6.24-17-386
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7856460 2008-05-27 20:57 initrd.img-2.6.24-17-386.bak
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7882003 2008-05-26 08:06 initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7881991 2008-05-26 08:06 initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic.bak
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 883082 2008-05-01 13:55 System.map-2.6.24-17-386
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 905012 2008-05-01 13:59 System.map-2.6.24-17-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1846360 2008-05-01 13:55 vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-386
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1921944 2008-05-01 13:59 vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-generic

But if I select either the 386 or the generic version in Grub at boot time, I get:

Error 15: file not found

I don't understand what I'm missing. The only kernel I'm able to boot is 2.6.24-15.

[Qqmike]

Re: Hardy kernel won't boot

Look at your boot menu, the file /boot/grub/menu.lst, and make sure all the device references are correct. Those would be the statements
root (hdx,y)
where (hdx,y) is the device:
hard drive x
partition y
where x, y = 0, 1, 2, ...
i.e., counting starts at zero.
(the first hard drive is hd0, the first partition is 0)

Running
sudo fdisk -lu
often helps here.

And, of course, check the spelling and syntax of all kernel & initrd statements in menu.lst, but if you didn't type them or change them, they should be correct.

[jcphil]

Re: Hardy kernel won't boot

Thanks! That finally pointed to the problem. The volume being pointed to in menu.lst for the new kernel was hd0,0. The kernel that would boot pointed to hd0,2. So, I changed all Linux kernel references to point to hd0,2 and now any kernel will boot. I don't know why Grub would have pointed to that volume. That's never happened before.

[Qqmike]

Re: Hardy kernel won't boot

Good--glad you figured it out!

GRUB always does things right when you tell it to (as you have now done in your menu.lst, for example).

BUT, sometimes, during installation of K/Ubuntu, the * installer * fumbles the ball when lining up your drives and installing GRUB.

Again, good job!