NF4 and GRUB 0.97 not working - err 16, 18, 25

[Jan Wagner]

Hi,

got an odd problem, GRUB 0.95 and 0.97 mysteriously refuse to boot beyond
stage 1.5 on an nForce4 chipsetted mobo (Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe).

I've tried several parallel ATA disks (40GB, 120GB, 250GB), and also
using a /boot partition at the start of the disk instead of just a single
/ plus swap, but to no avail.

When I move the exactly same test disks created on the A8N-SLI PC to
different PCs (tried 2), they boot just perfect on those, with GRUB menu
and all.

Even when installing Fedora Core 5 or Debian 3.1 on the A8N-SLI PC, the
entire setup process completes fine, but upon reboot grub gives
alternatively errors 16, 18 or 25.

Wiping the beginning of the disk with dd if=/dev/zero for a few blocks,
then reinstalling e.g. FC5, the problem still persists.

So on the A8N-SLI Deluxe apparently no matter what, GRUB gets stuck on
stage 1.5, no menu.

Any ideas?

I already did update-grub, grub-install /dev/hda --recheck, after
booting with a recovery CD and chrooting to /dev/hda. Grub appears to
install itself just fine, but booting still gives those errors.

Any thoughts on what to try next?

Some grub info (though I'm not sure if this is GRUB config issue since the
same disk will boot to grub menu properly on a different PC...):

--
/boot/grub$ cat device.map
(fd0)   /dev/fd0
(hd0)   /dev/hda
(hd1)   /dev/sda
(hd2)   /dev/sdb
(hd3)   /dev/sdc
(hd4)   /dev/sdd
--
/boot/grub$ cat menu.lst
(snipped the comments)
default 0
timeout 15
color cyan/blue white/blue
# kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro bigphysarea=16000 ide=nodma
# groot=(hd0,0)
# alternative=false
# lockalternative=false
# altoptions=
# howmany=all
# memtest86=true

title   Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.17.4gofrito1
root(hd0,0)
kernel  /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17.4gofrito1 root=/dev/hda1 ro
bigphysarea=16000 ide=nodma
initrd  /boot/initrd.img-2.6.17.4gofrito1
savedefault
boot

title   Debian GNU/Linux, kernel memtest86
root(hd0,0)
kernel  /boot/memtest86.bin
boot
-
/boot/grub$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 40.9 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *   1182414651248+  83  Linux
/dev/hda218252189 2931862+  82  Linux swap /
Solaris
/dev/hda32190498222434772+  83  Linux
-

thanks,
 - Jan


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Re: NF4 and GRUB 0.97 not working - err 16, 18, 25

[Jan Wagner]

On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > When I move the exactly same test disks created on the A8N-SLI PC to
> > different PCs (tried 2), they boot just perfect on those, with GRUB menu
> > and all.
> >
> > Even when installing Fedora Core 5 or Debian 3.1 on the A8N-SLI PC, the
> > entire setup process completes fine, but upon reboot grub gives
> > alternatively errors 16, 18 or 25.
> >
> > Wiping the beginning of the disk with dd if=/dev/zero for a few blocks,
> > then reinstalling e.g. FC5, the problem still persists.
> >
> > So on the A8N-SLI Deluxe apparently no matter what, GRUB gets stuck on
> > stage 1.5, no menu.
> >
> > Any ideas?
> >
> > I already did update-grub, grub-install /dev/hda --recheck, after
> > booting with a recovery CD and chrooting to /dev/hda. Grub appears to
> > install itself just fine, but booting still gives those errors.
> >
> > Any thoughts on what to try next?
> >
>
> I've got the same motherbord and I don't have problems with it. I have
> only SATA disks however. Are you sure the BIOS actually boots hda and
> not sda? And that the above mapping is correct? It might be possible
> that sda is hd0 and hda is hd4. An easy way to find is to remove the
> SATA disks and see whether it works.

Tried that - with no SATA disks plugged in, ran Knoppix from CD, chrooted
the PATA system disk and did a 'grub-install /dev/hda --recheck', then
tried rebooting, still with no SATA, and mapping seems correct, but it
does not work.

Again errors 16 or 18, randomly, at every boot attempt. And again, the
same disk boots just fine in another PC.

Another strange thing is that I've one old 40GB PATA that was the old
system disk of this NF4, and LILO had been upgraded to GRUB,
and with this disk and its GRUB (0.95) booting works - not sure why since
GRUB device.map, /+swap partition layout, are identical to my new
nonworking grub disks.

Maybe grub install over lilo behaves differently than grub install onto a
disk with initially no bootloader ??

(I might give QEMU a go, maybe there is some way to debug GRUB from
inside there...?)

 - Jan



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