grub>

Man Liz, you aren't having fun yet

Have you checked the CD to make sure it's good, or tried it on a different box to see if it boots differently? I haven't had the chance to play with SOHO yet, so I can't offer too many other suggestions

Jon

this is the installed version.
do you think that installing grub in root and sbm in mbr might work?

I'm sorry, I don't know what "SBM" means. Do you have anything else on these disks? 'Cause putting grub into /dev/hda should work just fine, unless GRUB itself is bonked. Does the Live CD version of SOHO work ok (or is that even a choice)?

I would think that "simpler is better", so developing a headless box shouldn't be that difficult

Do you get any other messages prior to the "grub>" prompt? Are there any diagnostics in dmesg?

Jon

> I'm sorry, I don't know what "SBM" means.
Smart Boot manager
> Do you have anything else on these disks?
No
> 'Cause putting grub into /dev/hda should work just fine, unless > GRUB itself is bonked.
I've reinstalled grub a few times
> Does the Live CD version of SOHO work ok
Yes, that's how I can boot otherwise
> (or is that even a choice)?
> Do you get any other messages prior to the "grub>" prompt?
Look like normal boot up things from the BIOS only
> Are there any diagnostics in dmesg?
no way of reading them when the 'puter won't boot ;-(

which looks useful.

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/grub/grub.htm

Hello Dr.

Read your post and am wondering what automation you require when booting your server . Several things come to mind to repair the MBR ,it appears to be a little fuzzed up.

The first thing is a little drastic but since its going to be a work server it might warrant some thought. OEM softare tools i find are very good at bringing difficult drives back in order by recertifing by lowlevel formatting and MBR restoration . Some will restore the MBR only other require writing zeros to the drive along with Mbr repair . As i said drastic but the job may need it to make it reliable . I have done it a few times and the drives seem to work fine if the recertification process doesnt find a problem . It takes quite a while and you loose your setup in some cases , kinda tough to swallow when a lot of time is invested. OTOH if every thing is fine after its done it means every thing is playing nice together and one shouldnt have to worry about it too mutch .

And as to your question about SBM on the MBR it should work fine from what ive read . Allso the down and dirty win98 ( fdisk /mbr) in dos works occasionally . Then the install disk should be able to reinstall grub.
The old Norton 8.0 for dos was good too for MBR repair along with
other older utilities . Dont know what you have at hand but thats a few to jog the memory . Hard drive utils are easy to download if you know the brand, most supply them in self defence .

On another note both motherboard candidates i had for SOHO have stopped working . The k6-2 bios went flaky & the slot one p2-500 is totally dead from laying in the closet , strange as it seems no clues right now .
Let me know how it goes .

jim

> Read your post and am wondering what automation you require when booting your server .

just that it will boot up without having to use a keyboard and press keys

Well, it's Monday. Have you gotten any further on this drlizau?

Jon

it's the work server, protected by a massive UPS, shouldn't actually stop unless human intervention, and I will look at it again next weekend
in the meantime i will learn how to use grub from the grub prompt on the (old) laptop

Ive noticed a couple of other things that seem to affect grub booting and mainly its bios strangeness. Im wondering if youve changed any hardware or had any setup issues with hardware on this server . Cleared the bios or changed any settings ? There strange little critters and if not just right , they and grub wont play nice together .

May not apply in this situation , just thought id pass it by you.

jim

it was running gigabyte raid (which i could run and not monitor) and i turned that off. suse 8.0 was its OS.
when this works ok, i'm going to use software raid, so i can have some indicator when a disc fails

But im thinkin i would try fdisk /mbr with a dos disk first . Some installs of lilo grub just seem to be more agressive from one distro to another . Allso chances of doing any serious damage to the drive are minimal . One i recall being near impossible to overwrite was solaris , had to write zeros to the drive to get rid of that bugger & a couple other linux flavors super stickie mbr installs .

Anyway i dont remember suse being that hard to overwrite . Resetting or otherwise playing with the bios i would put off as long as possible some can be a little troublesome .

Wondering if you have a spare drive to put in that box to test an install ? If all goes well it would eliminate some possibilities of bios issues . A good overall indicator of the state of hardware too . Maybe recertify a small one to controll the variables and that leaves the main unit till you have a definate idea what to fix . Bout the safest way i can figure and wouldnt take too long if the drive is preped beforehand . One of Mepis' great strengths a fully operational system in 15-20 minutes . No matter who you have to love that !

regards jim

Good suggestions Jim. Especially if you can get a spare, known good, drive to isolate the install to the other hardware. If the install works on a single drive, but doesn't work with multiple drives then it's the other drives/controllers.

I have installed/uninstalled/overwritten SUSE a number of times with no problems. It plays nice with the hard drives and knows when it's not wanted

Jon

hardware fault - dirt inside hard drive.
lots of stuff inside the box, and dirt had actually penetrated the disk.
new install on new drive and new problems (see next box)