Kernel says "File not found" at boot

[Qqmike]

Re: Kernel says "File not found" at boot

Hmmm.
If BIOS is set to boot from hdb = hd1, then there should be a boot flag set on the Kubuntu partition sdb1 (indicated by the asterisk * the same as it is on sda1).
Also, IF this Kubuntu is on sdb1, and IF BIOS boots from sdb, THEN, that drive and partition--at boot time--is seen as hd0 and (hd0,0). The boot drive is always seen as drive hd0 when the PC actually boots from that drive at this time.

I mean, to cut to the quick, I'm wondering what would happen if you performed an experiment:
change each (hd1,0) to (hd0,0)?!
Worst case, it won't work and you have to change it back (perhaps from the Live CD to access menu.lst in root mode).

[JohanLingen]

Re: Kernel says "File not found" at boot

Qqmike: this is a direct hit. Thank you!

No Live CD's, we can change the GRUB lines at start-up, without any permanent changes

So know I know how to get it working, but it still puzzles me why -16 works at (hd1,0) and the next kernels work with (hd0,0). That doesn't make sense does it? There must be more people out there suffering from this problem. Could it be that GRUB first saw (hd0,0) as the master device and as of kernel 2.6.24-17 this behaviour changed and GRUB sees (hd0,0) as the first boot device/disk (though of course usually the first boot disk ís the master device)? And if this is the case, is this desirable or should it be filed as a bug?

Johan

[Qqmike]

Re: Kernel says "File not found" at boot

First off, good work JohanLingen! You've been right on top of this and very keen in your pursuit.

As for the conjectures about Why, I don't know. My guess about what happened is this: The “Adept updater” is the one who got confused about where the controlling GRUB was (and the partitions). GRUB always gets things right >> when it is told the correct picture << . But the Kubuntu Live CD installer and the Adept updater can set things wrong. As you know, I've seen it worse, where the initrd file didn't come through fully upon updating or was damaged. As for a “bug,” I'm not the expert, but Yes – I'd say the developers should know about this. You might search the bug reports first to see if anything the same or similar has been filed.

Again, good job on your end. I can understand how you might be a bit punchy anticipating your next kernel update ...


EDIT: btw, you might keep an eye open for others having this problem and refer them here or jump in with a suggested solution. Some folks might not even know or suspect such a thing has happened, only that they got Error 15 after an update, using two drives, Master & Slave..

[Qqmike]

Re: Kernel says &quot;File not found&quot; at boot

Just reviewing things here ...
...going back to dibl's ideas, Reply #1.
The "groot=" tells the updater where the main GRUB files are.
Thinking through all this, perhaps the original installer got the "groot=" statement wrong to begin with. If so, you can see how this problem might occur. I really don't know. Maybe there's other possibilities. I sort of butted in to dibl back there and just thought we should recognize that his original intuition might have been right-on. Something about your mixed IDE drives did confuse the installer and/or the updater, though. GRUB, as you've seen, will do whatever anyone tells it to do, right or wrong.
--just an fyi, fwiw
--Mike

[JohanLingen]

Re: Kernel says &quot;File not found&quot; at boot

Thank you for your persistent support :-)

I think I remember what I've done in the past:

I installed Kubuntu on my hdb. Then installed it on hda, but because this was the latest installation, it also set the BIOS to use the MBR in hda. I have some problems with this disk (I expect it to die soon) and I want to detach it sometimes to save power (and reduce noise). In short, I didn't want my computer to depend on hda to boot. Thus I decided that the GRUB menu should be deliverd by hdb. I didn't know how exactly to achieve this, so I changed my disk boot order and voilá, it worked!

GRUB seems more tolerant with this approach using kernel -16 (will start from both (hd0,0) AND (hd0,1)) then using -17+ (only starts from (hd0,0)).


And indeed, dible was right, thank you dibl! I just didn't know groot was wrong because it always worked :-)

[dibl]

Re: Kernel says &quot;File not found&quot; at boot

Yay, I got to be right! (Tell my wife .....)

The enumeration of drive-like devices was pretty simple and obvious as long as there were only hard disk drives -- even the emergence of the SCSI bus and SCSI drives didn't cause a lot of problems. But, with the advent of the USB bus, and all the kinds of devices that can be plugged into it, including hard drives, memory sticks, Compact Flash, and SD cards, the *nix developers have had their hands full trying to keep up. I also follow the development of sidux, and the poster "slh" on this forum is actually a kernel developer and so I take his observations more seriously than most:

http://sidux.com/index.php?name=PNph...ghlight=#85668

On my desktop system, I have one IDE drive and 4 SATA drives connected, and there is simply no reliable way to predict how any given Linux installer is going to number my drives -- setting up the /boot/grub/menu.lst is always an exercise in experimenting with (hdn) where "n" is the mystery location where Grub went.

[Qqmike]

Re: Kernel says &quot;File not found&quot; at boot

Interesting posts from both of you.
slh link: ditto => interesting.
And so, JohanLingen, in the shuffle you describe, the "chroot=" got caught, and then this happened.

@JohanLingen
re your hda disk:
If you want to remove it, you can re-install GRUB to the MBR of sdb disk using the root-setup-quit methods of
How To GRUB Methods - Toolkit
grub> http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0
You can do it anytime, now or after removing the drive (using a Live CD if necessary).
grub> root (hdx,y)
grub> setup (hdz)
grub> quit
where:
(hdx,y) is the "good" Kubuntu partition containing GRUB files you wish to use;
(hdz) = the MBR of the drive z where you want GRUB installed to;
To see how GRUB is numbering the drive(s) (so you can find x,y, and z), again use
grub > geometry (hd<press the TAB key>
and/or
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

I do it all the time. In fact, even though GRUB is installed to the MBR of a drive, you can also install GRUB to any other MBR. That way, if the main drive fails, you can enter BIOS setup and tell it to boot from another drive and GRUB is already there, ready to go. Or, you can chainload to any drive that has GRUB in its MBR (see the how-to).

By way of summary,
you can install GRUB to a MBR or to any MBR or to all MBR(s) (as we know,; and see above);
and/or even to the boot sector of the Kubuntu partition:
grub> root (hdx,y)
grub> setup (hdx,y)
grub> quit

=> There is no harm done in doing this (i.e., in installing GRUB everywhere); in fact, it can help you boot into your system (using the methods explained in the how-to) if you have a boot problem.


Mike