Unable to boot Fedora 10

Hello,

I have a test PC running Fedora 10. Friday evening it was working fine, I have some perl scripts which are scheduled to run every morning.

But when I started work this morning, I found I cannot ping the machine. When I switched on the monitor, I saw the GRUB promt :(. I am not sure how it got stuck with the GRUB promt.

Now, I dont the the location of the kernel so that I can load it. "boot" command does not work because kernel is not loaded.

Can someone please help me with the questio:-
1) how can I find the absolute location of kernel so that I can load it with "kernel" command

Please let me know if any furthur description is required.

Thanks,
Siva

Try

grub> find /vmlinuz

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your reply.
Yes, I tried running

grub> find /vmlinuz
 
Error 15: File not found.
 
grub>

I also ran:-

grub> root (hd0,   <tab>

this showd me 7 partitions

I checked each partition for /boot/ , I found boot on (hd0,6) but then when I run:-

grub> root (hd0,6)
 
grub> kernel /boot/  <tab>
grub> kernel /boot/

I am thinking, this means there is nothing inside /boot/

Is there any other location where vmlinuz can be found ?

Thanks,
Siva

Typically it is placed in /boot.

Seven partitions on a hard disk is somewhat unusual for Fedora. May I ask why? Were you by any chance trying to install Solaris x86?

I suggest you boot from a Fedora 10 DVD and enter rescue mode to see what has happened to your root file system.

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your reply.

I am not exactly sure why there are seven partitions on the hard disk. The system earlier had windows XP professional installed on it. On my request, the internal IT team, installed Fedora 10 on it for my testing purposes.

Sure, I will try booting with rescue CD and let you know the results.

Thanks again,
Siva

I have a similar problem here,

I have Red Hat 9.0 , Ubuntu 10.04 LST and Fedora 14 on my 2nd HDD,
installed inthe order listed above.

After I installed Ubuntu Red Hat can't be accessed.
The I installed Fedora - which allows me access to Ububtu and my Xp on 1st HDD,
but I still can't access Red Hat.

All linux distros have their own /, /boot, /home, /usr
and share a common swap partition --- /dev/hdb6

After I boot into Ubuntu and upgrade - the grub was also updated overwriting
Fedoras Grub with Ubuntu Grub.

I am now presented with Ubuntus boot menu but can still get into Fedora and XP but no REd Hat.

Wehn I select REd Hat entry it says "file not found" and that "kernel has to be loaded first"...

I have tried various ways to boot RH
1st using menu entry from RH grub as it is and insert into Ubuntu's grub,
doesn't work
then modifying RH grub entry to make it look like how FEdora expects it in
Fedoras boot menu
and then moifying boot menu entry in Ubuntu for REd Hat to conform to Ubuntus style i.e Ubuntru requires UUID for root partition whic I obtained using blkid /dev/hdb7
but again it does't work.

My partitions on 2nd HDD is
1 primary NTFS and 1 extended contained 13 logical partitions
1 /(swap)
3 /boot
3 / (root)
3 /home
3 /usr

as I said I use same /swap for all 3 distros
and thier own boot, root, home. usr partitions

I provide the various grubs below

# grub.conf generated by anaconda in Red Hat 2.4.20-8
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,4)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb7
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd1,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

# grub.conf generated by anaconda running on Fedora 14 
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,13)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sdb15
# initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=2
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,13)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
 
title Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
 
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8) RH entry added later.. Fedora didn't pick it ... doesn't work!!
root (hd1,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=/dev/hdb7 hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
 
title Ubuntu 10.04 LST Linux 
2.6.32-25-generic 
root (hd1,9)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-25-generic root=UUID=b2db35fc-1a27-4ba5-9919-82ec6bcd4e09 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-25-generic
 
title Fedora (2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686)
root (hd1,13)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686 ro root=UUID=ab7f0357-c7fd-45d8-98e9-8f8bbf113ceb rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686.img
}

and finally Ubuntus Grub - only showing relevant menu items

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - I did !! and XP, Fedora and Ubuntu still Boots OK
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#
 
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-25-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,10)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 913475a7-49a0-4dd2-b936-c8945ab7dffa
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.32-25-generic root=UUID=b2db35fc-1a27-4ba5-9919-82ec6bcd4e09 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-25-generic
}
 
menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)" {
insmod ntfs
set root='(hd0,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 74b0c590b0c5596e
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}
menuentry "Fedora (2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686) (on /dev/sdb15)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,14)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 83bb8be2-2fdb-4c5e-8ad7-82b887199e19
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686 ro root=UUID=ab7f0357-c7fd-45d8-98e9-8f8bbf113ceb rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686.img
}
menuentry "Fedora (2.6.35.6-45.fc14.i686) (on /dev/sdb15)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,14)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 83bb8be2-2fdb-4c5e-8ad7-82b887199e19
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-45.fc14.i686 ro root=UUID=ab7f0357-c7fd-45d8-98e9-8f8bbf113ceb rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.35.6-45.fc14.i686.img
}
menuentry "Red Hat 9.0 (on /dev/sdb15)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,14)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 83bb8be2-2fdb-4c5e-8ad7-82b887199e19
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686 ro root=UUID=ab7f0357-c7fd-45d8-98e9-8f8bbf113ceb rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686.img
}

any help will be much appreciated.......

I think while installing ubuntu you, somewhere, chose to upgrade grub and it wrote on your machines MBR directly through the installer.

Please post the output of the command df -m ; you may run this command from any of the systems (may be even ubuntu) and let me know which disk volume (shown in the command output) refers to the RedHat.

Praveen,
Have attached few diagnostic files below
that show which partitions I have and whats installed where,
including the grub files for Red Hat, Ubuntu and Fedora.

I ran the script from Ubuntu
vinorda@vinsUbuntu:~/Downloads$ sudo bash ./boot_info_script055.sh
results contained in RESULTS.txt file also attached.
I have edited the results bit to make things more clearer.
NB You can't see menu entry for RH in Ubuntu cause after I updated grub
in Ubuntu, it lost RH entry.

I also ran "update-grub" from Ubuntu -
It finds Red Hat 9 and Fedora but doesn't create boot menu entries for Red Hat - why?

vinorda@vinsUbuntu:~/Desktop$ update-grub
/usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig: You must run this as root
vinorda@vinsUbuntu:~/Desktop$ sudo update-grub
[sudo] password for vinorda:
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found background image: moreblue-orbit-grub.png
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-25-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-25-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin
Found Microsoft Windows XP Professional on /dev/sda1
Found Fedora release 14 (Laughlin) on /dev/sdb15
Found Red Hat Linux release 9 (Shrike) on /dev/sdb7
done
vinorda@vinsUbuntu:~/Desktop$

Also attached image of my partitions - captured from Partition magic. Actually I used XP Computer Management to create all partitions.

Have since updated Ubuntu grub menu entry for RH to correct /boot and / location.

menuentry "Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8) (on /dev/sdb5)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,4)'
linux /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=/dev/hdb7 hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
}
using exact same format as in RH grub.conf
still doesn't boot RH - grub says file not found.

I think problem is that Ubuntu and Fedora use grub2 where as RH uses old grub1.
I have to find way to updated RH grub to grub2 but not sure if I can do that if I can't boot into RH. I am able to mount RH partitions from Fedora and change RH /boot files - maybe thats one way I can upgrade RH grub from grub1 to grub2.
But not sure if that would help.

regards

Hi Vinorda,
I could see that your RedHat /boot is available under /dev/sdb5 (hoping its data has not been overwritten); Please try to mount the same as below:

mkdir /mnt/redhat;
mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb5 /mnt/redhat

You may use either Ubuntu or your Fedora-1 (preferably) to execute the above command.

Now copy that /mnt/redhat/grub/grub.conf and save the same somewhere as rehat9_grub.conf.

You now need to copy the same file from your fedora-10 (i.e. /boot/grub/grub.conf) and save that too somethis as fedora_grub.conf.

Now could you please post back here with there two files again?

The grub.conf for
RH, Ubuntu and Fedora are contained in the RESULTS.TXT file I sent earlier... about half way down..

BTW I used RH 9 installation CD to update boot loader on the mbr
(which in may case is on 1st HDD)...
now I can boot into Red Hat and my XP as before BUT can't boot into
Ubuntu and Fedora cause Red Hat menu doesn't contain these.

You see I had problems with Ubuntu and Fedora not being able to boot RH 9,
even after I edited Ubuntu and Fedora grub to create RH boot commands etc.
Now hopefully I can edit RH grub.conf to boot Buntu and Fedora.

But Buntu and Fedora use grub2. RH 9 uses grub0.97 (legacy).
So will take my chances.....

You shouldn't have run the RH9 installer. Rather I was planing to add RH-9 through fedora installation only. That's why I wanted the exact entries of RH-9 as per your system and that we could have got through mounting that volume only.

Atleast GRUB2 is anyways backward compatible with GRUB0.97; hence the approach I usually do (and was planning in your case) would have worked.