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    #1

    Hardy is confusing hard drives

    I just installed Hardy over an existing 7.10 install. This
    is a computer with two hard drives. The master is an IDE
    drive and the slave is SCSI.
    Win XP is on the master (IDE), the linux install on the slave (SCSI).
    I had no problems with the previous 7.10 install. /home and /root
    were on seperate partitions.

    But the 8.04 was problematic: When I started installation:
    1)The ordering of the drives appeared to be reversed by
    the installer
    2)The installer did not recognize the existing /home partition.

    To make a long story short, I ended with a unbootable setup after
    the installation completed.
    error 17 cannot mount selected partition
    on all choices.
    After booting with the live CD and examining
    /boot/grub/menu.lst, I could see that there were a number of 'map' commands
    in the file, that I was not familiar with, and the device references were
    switched: I.E. (hd0,1) <==> (hd0,0)
    I have chosen to re-install 7.10,
    because this is my wife's computer - and with an unbootable system -
    I'm going to be sleeping on the couch 'til it is fixed.

    So I now have 3 questions:
    1)Is there a fix for this?
    2)Should I really care?
    3)Why install hardy when the previous version will
    continue to update?

    TIA
    Tim
    Tags: None
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    #2
    Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

    It's fixable.
    Dx: The installer got goofed up on your drives and messed up the boot menu (/boot/grub/menu.lst).
    Rx: You need to edit the boot menu (/boot/grub/menu.lst) so the OSs boot correctly.
    (At times, it is also necessary to manually re-install GRUB using root & setup commands—see the How-To referenced below, How To GRUB Methods – Toolkit).

    Here's a clip from a previous post yesterday for a guy with a similar problem; it applies to you:
    http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...3659#msg133659

    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.

    [End of clip]


    In your case, does the PC boot from the Kubuntu drive (i.e., first BIOS boot drive)?

    -- If so, then the Kubuntu drive is seen by BIOS & GRUB as hd0 and the XP drive is seen as being on drive hd1.
    And then you do need the map commands. See:
    How To GRUB Methods - Toolkit
    http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0
    --- Install Windows XP *after* Kubuntu, and install XP to a non-first hard drive: map command Reply #12

    -- If not, then you don't need the map commands, but you will still have to edit menu.lst so the two OSs boot.



    As for 7.10 vs 8.04 (or whatever), yeah, 7.10 is probably fine for most people.
    It's not urgent to upgrade anything, certainly not every 6 months just because.
    But let others pipe in here.

    It's not uncommon for the installer to mix these things up, especially when you have a mixture of IDE & SATA drives (as opposed to all SATA or all IDE drives).

    An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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      #3
      Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

      In your case, does the PC boot from the Kubuntu drive (i.e., first BIOS boot drive)?
      First drive is IDE - and is Windows XP
      As for 7.10 vs 8.04 (or whatever), yeah, 7.10 is probably fine for most people.
      It's not urgent to upgrade anything, certainly not every 6 months just because.
      But let others pipe in here.
      Question: For how long will 7.10 continue to update? Will it do so indefinitely?
      Thanks for the howtos and the other links. They will be very helpful.
      I have done _some_ editing of menu.lst - sure is a step-up from lilo!
      It's not uncommon for the installer to mix these things up, especially when you have a mixture of IDE & SATA drives (as opposed to all SATA or all IDE drives).
      Granted. However, since 7.10 didn't have a problem, this may qualify as a bug
      in 8.04. I make a living writing code for customers, if one of my upgrades
      failed to negotiate a system where a earlier version succeeded, it would be
      treated as a bug by both my customers and myself.
      Cheers
      Tim
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        #4
        Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

        About Kubuntu versions:

        Releases
        Ubuntu releases are supported for 18 months. Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop, and 5 years on the server.

        Schedule
        Ubuntu releases every six months, one month after each Gnome release
        Kubuntu wiki
        Kubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon Supported until 2009-04

        I'm using Kubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon with the KDE 3.5.8 because there was not a reason to do upgrade. I also have the Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron with the KDE 4.1 but it is only to fulfill my curiosity...
        Before you edit, BACKUP !

        Why there are dead links ?
        1. Thread: Please explain how to access old kubuntu forum posts
        2. Thread: Lost Information
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          #5
          Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

          Tim, so if your PC boots (in BIOS) from the XP drive, then XP is on the hd0 drive and Kubuntu is on the hd1 drive.
          At Konsole
          sudo fdisk -lu
          will show you what partitions each OS is on,
          so then editing menu.lst (inserting the proper (hdx,y)'s) should fix this.
          ...as I'm sure you know, but I include this comment to be complete

          Yes, that update you endured was a bit buggy.
          I installed 8.04 to a flash drive (as a live OS) and encountered a documented bug.
          There's nothing wrong with using 7.10 in my opinion.


          An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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            #6
            Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

            I would add that one can also edit grub from the command line at boot time.
            But I could have run fdisk prior, as it might have given me some clues on
            how or whether to edit the map commands.
            This is kind of "non corpus postmortem" as I've re-installed 7.04. I'll keep an
            eye out for the next release to see if it handles the mixed drives better.

            My thanks for all of the input.
            cheers
            tim
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              #7
              Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

              " I would add that one can also edit grub from the command line at boot time."

              True, but the edit is temporary--only good for that booting session.
              When doing it that way--say to experiment to find the right (hdx,y)'s--you can use the geometry command to explore your hard drives:
              grub> geometry (hd0)
              grub> geometry (hd1)
              etc
              or, use TAB completion and let GRUB tell you how many HDDs it sees:
              Type exactly this:
              grub> geometry (hd<Press TAB key now>
              and then test each one in a geometry statement.

              The K/Ubuntu installers are not famous for getting drives right when there is a mixture of IDE and SATA drives.
              Many of us here always keep a separate /home partition and then install new versions fresh from scratch. That also avoids many other "new-version update" issues.
              In fact, do any partitioning or partition editing beforehand as a separate step using GParted Live CD (i.e., do not use the partitioner included on the CD installer).

              Partitioning—how to, Rog131:
              http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3090704.0


              An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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                #8
                Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

                yes, I always keep a separate home partition.
                tj
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                  #9
                  Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

                  This difficulty with mixed IDE and SATA drives is in the installer and not in the OS itself, and has been present since 6.06 to my personal knowledge, and maybe before that. I spent 3 days attempting to install Kubuntu on the first partition of a SATA drive, and to make that drive the bootable drive, when there was a pre-existing Win XP installed on an IDE drive on the same computer. As of Edgy (6.10), it can't be done, unless you disconnect the IDE drive first. This could be a phenomenon of my Intel motherboards and BIOS, but I've read enough similar posts to suspect it is fairly widespread. I think it has to do with how BIOS sees the IDE bus as a "priority" over the SATA bus, and how the installer gets its clues from BIOS, but I'm not enough of an engineer to understand the technicalities of it.

                  The workaround is to either (a) disconnect the IDE drive while installing on the SATA drive, or (b) don't have an OS on the IDE drive. I've adopted (b) as my configuration -- my IDE drive is just for data storage and is not bootable.
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                    #10
                    Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

                    Note that In my initial posting that I indicated that I didn't have any
                    problem with 7.10 ..... they must have changed code with 8.04.
                    My brother has been playing with several different linuxes to make
                    a fully portable linux OS on a usb external drive. He's got quite lot
                    of stories to tell and last I heard from him, wasn't there yet.
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                      #11
                      Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

                      Build a LIVE Kubuntu Flash Drive, How-To
                      http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...089474.new#new
                      Step-by-step

                      -- with Persistence -- using GRUB all the way (i.e., no Syslinux): Reply #7
                      (same goes for external USB drive)
                      An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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                        #12
                        Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

                        Thanks. I'll forward that to my brother. Maybe that will get him off of
                        mint and suse! Just kidding.... 8)
                        tj
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                          #13
                          Re: Hardy is confusing hard drives

                          Here's one more I did on building GRUB-bootable flash drives (and several topics in the posts that follow; e.g., Puppy on flash drive; Kubuntu on external USB; and more):

                          How To Make GRUB Thumb Drive
                          http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081748.0
                          An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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