machine stops at GRUB screen during boot process
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From: J G Miller on 29 Apr 2010 15:24 On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:32:00 +0000, Rahul wrote: > I finally have the server correctly booting up. But I can only do this > if my external RAID array is disconnected. If I connect it the grub > order seems to get messed up again. As has already been explained, it is not the grub order which is messed up but the order of the disk devices which changes for some reason when you connect your external RAID array. So have you tried reinstalling GRUB *when* your external raid array is connected?
From: Rahul on 29 Apr 2010 15:36 TomT <TomT(a)UnrealBox.invalid> wrote in news:1tljt5tmq4v4qpk16e1rn36f2jo54rv3fj(a)4ax.com: > Agreed yet again. I hope Rahul understands your instructions. > > TomT > I got the machine running again. Sort of a hack though for now. If it helps anyone someday: 1. Removed the external RAID array. 2. Boot machine. Now it sees only sda and can boot from /dev/sda1. 3. Now connect the external RAID array. It still is not seen in /dev 4. rmmod aic79xx 5. modproble aic79xx Now I can see the external RAID array as /dev/sdb1 which is easily mounted to /home Of course, in a sense this is a hack since I can't get the system to boot with all drives connected. But that's a problem I can try and solve now. -- Rahul
From: Rahul on 29 Apr 2010 15:42 unruh <unruh(a)wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote in news:slrnhtjj6d.jvi.unruh(a)wormhole.physics.ubc.ca: Thanks unruh! My immediate problem is now solved. But for completeness my explaiantion below: > It is still not clear to me what your setup is. Sorry my bad. I'll explain. >At one point you seemed > to say that there were three "disks" and internal raid array, and > external raid array, and an extra disk containing the /boot partition. 3 physical drives in the machine. Connected to a Megatrend RAID card. This has a RAID5 which exports as a single logical drive. On this two partitions: First partition is /boot. This has the /boot LABEL set via e2label. Second partition is under LVM. VolGroup00-LogVol00 is / and VolGroup00- LogVol01 is /swap Now external RAID array made by Infotrend. Has 8 pysical drives. Again a RAID5 exported as a single logical volume. Is connected to a scsi riser on the motherboard of the machine. This volume has a single partition which is /home > It is also unclear to me at which point grub is dying on you. Black screen. "GRUB" in top left corner. A flashing cursor. But can't type any commands. No "C" to get into grub etc. Only can do a Ctrl+Alt+Del > Does the > operating system chooser splash screen come up, No >grup starts doing stuff, No -- Rahul
From: Robert Heller on 29 Apr 2010 16:50 At Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:36:22 +0000 (UTC) Rahul <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote: > > TomT <TomT(a)UnrealBox.invalid> wrote in > news:1tljt5tmq4v4qpk16e1rn36f2jo54rv3fj(a)4ax.com: > > > Agreed yet again. I hope Rahul understands your instructions. > > > > TomT > > > > I got the machine running again. Sort of a hack though for now. If it helps > anyone someday: > > 1. Removed the external RAID array. > 2. Boot machine. Now it sees only sda and can boot from /dev/sda1. > 3. Now connect the external RAID array. It still is not seen in /dev > 4. rmmod aic79xx > 5. modproble aic79xx > > Now I can see the external RAID array as /dev/sdb1 which is easily mounted > to /home > > Of course, in a sense this is a hack since I can't get the system to boot > with all drives connected. But that's a problem I can try and solve now. There are two options: 1) If the Adaptec card is a PCI card you can swap it with the MegaRAID card. This will swap the order that the devices are seen. If this is not possible either because if the Adaptec chip is actually on the motherboard or if there is some physical reason the cards cannot be swapped (type of PCI card (aic79xx is for the 64-bit PCI cards), physical constraints of the case, etc.), then you have another option: 2) When the system starts to boot up, you can type ^A when the Adaptec SCSI BIOS anounces itself. You can then configure the SCSI BIOS not to get loaded (eg you can disable it). If it is disabled, the motherboard BIOS won't see it or any disks attached to it and grub won't seem them either. Note: disabling the Adaptec SCSI BIOS won't 'hide' the disk(s) from the kernel -- it will find them just fine, once it loads the driver (aic79xx). All the disabling the Adaptec SCSI BIOS does is hide it from the motherboard's BIOS and any software that uses the motherboard's BIOS (eg grub or any other boot loader). Once the kernel starts, the kernel will (at some point) load the aic79xx driver (probably from the initrd), which will probe the PCI bus and see the external RAID card. So long as the /boot is mounted using a LABEL= option in /etc/fstab (the root file system is mounted from a LVM volume), the system will boot properly and mount its disks. You can also include file systems from the external RAID, also using a LVM volume and/or using LABEL= in /etc/fstab, and this will work also. -- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows heller(a)deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
From: Rahul on 29 Apr 2010 17:42
Robert Heller <heller(a)deepsoft.com> wrote in news:RMednVLRfbO-bETWnZ2dnUVZ_r6dnZ2d(a)posted.localnet: Thanks Robert! > There are two options: > > If this is not possible either because if the Adaptec chip is actually > on the motherboard or if there is some physical reason the cards > cannot be swapped (type of PCI card (aic79xx is for the 64-bit PCI > cards), physical constraints of the case, etc.), then you have another > option: You predicted correctly. A straight swap seems impossible. The internal MegaRAID drives seem to be connected to a PCI card (I see LSI logic printed on the card) The external array on the other hand is connected directly to a riser on the Motherboard. This seems to be a SCSI riser. (There's a short cable in there that connects the internal SCSI riser to a plate on the backplane.) > 2) When the system starts to boot up, you can type ^A when the Adaptec > SCSI BIOS anounces itself. You can then configure the SCSI BIOS not > to get loaded (eg you can disable it). I'll try that now! That seems like the way to go. Will report success or not in case that helps anyone! I didn't realize that disabling the Adaptec BIOS didn't affect the recognition by later stages. There was some other things that puzzled me. Just in case you knew the answers: A) My grub file syntax seems slightly different from what's documented on the grubwebpage. e.g my Grub: default=0 GNU Grub: default 0 my Grub: splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz GNU Grub: undocumented. Is this some kind of tweak that Red Hat is doing? It seems to work nevertheless. B) What's the difference between: grub-install /dev/sda and grub-install /dev/sda1 I understand that the former installs GRUB on the MBR and the other on the partition but when does one do one over the other? -- Rahul |