Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade, bonus ICH9R shenanigans [SOLVED]

[Objekt]

I've never yet had the "upgrade" option in Kubuntu actually work, and 8.10 to 9.04 was no exception. After letting the machine sit and download packages, install them, clean up, etc. for a couple of hours, it rebooted itself, but came to an abrupt halt at a GRUB prompt. Looks something like this:

grub>

I can't do anything but reboot.

SuperGRUB is also helpless; using any of its options which involve booting Linux just throws me back to the GRUB prompt again.

I can still boot Windows XP, or I wouldn't have any way to post this message, at least not on this machine.

Before I tried the "upgrade," I had a perfectly usable dual-boot setup with Windows XP and Kubuntu 8.10. I got a menu at boot time and everything. What's the fix?

[dibl]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade

The upgrade from KDE 3 to KDE 4 was pretty tough.

It's hard to tell for sure how complete your upgrade is, but one could suspect it was doing the final update-grub to make the new /boot/grub/menu.lst file, when it broke. If so, you might be able to finish it manually and get it to boot.

Here's Qqmike's guidance on how to work with Grub:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0

[Objekt]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade

Owing to the above-mentioned nonsense, I did a plain old install from a Kubuntu 9.04 desktop CD. You would think I hadn't. Though the Ubiquity installer recognized my NTFS partitions, I got no GRUB dual-boot menu, but went straight into Windows.

SuperGRUB has been of no avail. In fact, I can't get my fresh Kubuntu install to start at all. When I installed, I had it format ext3 partitions and everything, but no dice.

This is really disappointing. New versions are supposed to work *better*, not worse. At least I can still boot into Windows XP, or I wouldn't be posting.

Update to this strangeness: It may have been caused in part by my ICH9R firmware RAID controller. I run WinXP in RAID 1 using said chipset, and it apparently doesn't like any asymmetry in drive partitioning. I gave up trying to install Kubuntu 9.04 on to the RAID, and set up partitioning of the non-NTFS areas of the two disks differently.

I think the RAID controller, or some component of its supporting software in Windows, detected this, and didn't like it. Booting into the 9.04 Live CD environment, I found that the ext3 volumes I had created were gone. Poof! Looks like an ICH9R will eat your partition table/MBR if it detects differences.

[lmilano]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade

So there is an issue with grub, rather than the upgrade itself. Can you look at /boot/grub/menu.lst and post it here? Can you give more details? Like what do you see on boot up? Can you use the live CD and use the option to "boot from the harddrive" and try to fix it from there?

[Objekt]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade

Like I said, all that stuff is GONE. It went Poof! at some point, apparently at the behest of my ICH9R chipset and/or its associated software.

It seems one cannot install Kubuntu on to just one disk of an ICH9R firmware RAID, which is what I was trying to do. At the same time, I haven't figured out a way to get Kubuntu to install on both disks, with identical partition setups.

The Windows RAID software gets unhappy if it sees any differences in partitioning. I think that is why it ate my ext3 partitions, and why my RAID spent a couple of hours "rebuilding" itself this morning when I restarted Windows XP.

[dibl]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade

It may have been caused in part by my ICH9R firmware RAID controller. I run WinXP in RAID 1 using said chipset, and it apparently doesn't like any asymmetry in drive partitioning.

Huh.

This post was very badly titled. A more apt title would be "Yet another B.S. half-story blaming Kubuntu for all my problems and omitting the critical non-supported hardware feature that is the real cause of the problem."

Really.

Google dmraid and mdadmin, learn about RAID in Linux. Kubuntu has nothing whatever to do with this problem.

[Objekt]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade (sorta fixed)

I got it fixed! Well, not the upgrade, but I do have Kubuntu 9.04 booting normally now.

During my latest reinstall, I partitioned the free space on both HDDs symmetrically. That is, I made the same number of partitions, with exactly the same sizes, and in the same relative positions, for Kubuntu to install itself on, using the "manual" option in the installer. I've done this before so I could have /home on its own partition, / on another, etc. and it works well.

I only specified mount points for the partitions on one HDD, leaving the others as "dummy" partitions that would not be used, because I didn't know what would happen if I gave 2 mount points for / on two different HDDs. True, this wastes some disk space, but I have two 1 TB drives in the RAID so that's hardly an issue (yet!).

When I restarted, Kubuntu still didn't boot. I didn't see so much as a GRUB error. It just went straight to Windows. Again, Super GRUB was no help, nor was messing about with GRUB from the command line in a live CD environment.

Then I had an idea: what if I remove the HDD with the "dummy" ext3 partitions & just attempt to boot off just the one drive? I knew it definitely had the boot files on it, despite the "File not found" errors I was getting when I attempted to boot using Super GRUB.

It worked! Upon restart, I went straight to the usual GRUB boot menu, with the usual choices.

Then I shut everything down and reinstalled the 2nd HDD. Now, I still get the GRUB menu on startup, & can dual-boot normally. I have no idea why that worked, but it did.

Lessons learned:

1) If you are using a firmware-based RAID (aka "fake RAID"), such as the Intel ICH9R, you will not have a normal install & boot experience!

2) The ICH9R sees the RAID as in need of a rebuild if the partition tables for the two HDDs are different. It will then erase any partitions that are dissimilar during the "rebuild" process the next time you run Windows. Poof, goodbye to your Kubuntu install.

3) You need to leave a space between the command and parameter when using GRUB commands such as "geometry." For instance, it's

grub>geometry (hd0)

not

grub>geometry(hd0)

[lmilano]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade

Huh.

This post was very badly titled.

Yep. Objekt, could you please rename it to something related to the issue so other people can benefit from your experience? (Think of something googling for "Kubuntu Raid Boot Problem" or something). Thanks for the report!

Ah, it's also good to add [SOLVED] to the title so people know they'll find a solution an more likely end up here.

[Objekt]

Re: Yet another failed 8.10 -> 9.04 upgrade

The title is still accurate. After the 8.10->9.04 upgrade, I was getting thrown straight to a GRUB prompt, instead of booting. That's not how it's supposed to work.

It's possible I could have fixed things from there, but owing to my prior experience with the "upgrade" feature, I opted for a complete reinstall. The reinstall was more entertaining than planned, in part because of the ICH9R shenanigans.