After install of RH9, it will not reboot

[reidnc6]

I installed RH9 on a Dell PowerEdge 400SC; however, after the installation it will not boot off the hard drive. It gets past the SCSI controller check (it shows both drives/luns) and then just displays a "j". Very strange. I reinstalled a few times, but received the same results. The installation itself appears to go without a hitch.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[mdwatts]

How are the HD's and partitions setup?

You could try passing some of these options to the kernel when booting.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/install-guide/ch-bootopts.html

[reidnc6]

Thanks for your input.
I have 2 SCSI drives: Seagate Cheetah 36 gb @ lun id 0, Seagate Cheetah 73 gb @ lun id 1. The / partition is located on the 73 gb drive. The boot sequence is 1-floppy, 2-cdrom, 3-harddrive.
I'll check out the doc you posted.

[mdwatts]

On which drive and where did you install the Linux bootloader?

Can you boot into your system using a bootdisk or installation cd in rescue mode? If you can, please post your bootloader config (/etc/lilo.conf OR /boot/grub/grub.conf) and also /etc/fstab.

[reidnc6]

grub.conf follows (I had to type this in, so if it seems formatted strange, that is why):
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

fstab follows:
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
LABEL=/www /www ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0

I do not have the lilo.conf file you mention.
Thanks for your help. About 6 months ago I installed rh8 with no issues. It must be the scsi drives on this machine or something. It's driving me crazy. Gotta love Linux! :)

[reidnc6]

BTW, I was able to boot the computer using the "linux rescue" command and the install cd.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by reidnc6

I have 2 SCSI drives: Seagate Cheetah 36 gb @ lun id 0, Seagate Cheetah 73 gb @ lun id 1. The / partition is located on the 73 gb drive. The boot sequence is 1-floppy, 2-cdrom, 3-harddrive.

#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

fstab follows:
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
LABEL=/www /www ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/sdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0


So Linux is installed on the second scsi drive (sdb)?

Is /boot the first primary partition (sda1) on the second scsi drive?

If so, change

root (hd0,0)

to

root (sd1,0)

If that doesn't work, please post the contents of device.map in your /boot or /boot/grub directory.

If the above works, you would also need to change

splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

to

splashimage=(sd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

If those don't work, you can try (hd1,0) instead.

hd0 - is the first HD
hd1 - is the second HD

,0 - is the first partition
,1 - is the second partition

[reidnc6]

follow up...
/boot is on the first drive.

/ is on the second drive.

I'll try what you suggest and post my results. Thanks again!

[reidnc6]

This is very discouraging. Reinstalling rh9 has become a parttime job for me.
I reinstalled rh9 again. This time, I put all of these partitions on hba0 id0:
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2 /boot
/dev/sda3 /www
/dev/sda4 extended
/dev/sda5 /usr
/dev/sda6 /
/dev/sda7 /home
/dev/sda8 /tmp
/dev/sda9 /var
/dev/sda10 /opt/oracle

on hba0 id1:
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdb1 /ora01
/dev/sdb2 swap

I booted and received the same thing. A single "j". Nothing else. I booted off the cdrom drive and ran the "linux rescue". Then I edited the grub.conf file as you mentioned above. In this case, I used sda6 since that is where the "/" partition is.
I really don't know what to do at this point and am left feeling very lost is this sea of websites which do not have the solution to my problem. This seems like a simple problem. I just don't understand how the install can see both drives and format the partitions on the drives and then after reboot it cannot see them at all.

[mdwatts]

Did you have a look at the contents of device.map to see if hd0/hd1 are correct or if they are sd0/sd1?

Try

boot=/dev/sda2
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=/dev/sda6
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

Since you installed the Linux bootloader in /boot, have you set sda2 (/boot) as the active partition?

[reidnc6]

After booting using linux rescue. The /mnt/sysimage/boot/grub/device.map is:

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda

Does rh9 usually require this sort of manipulation just to boot? The install seemed to go off without a hitch.

[reidnc6]

I changed the grub.conf to what you suggested. I receive the same result at boot: a single "j" after the SCSI controller check (which says it was a successful check). Here is what I get when I attempt to boot from the harddrive.

~bunch of drive info here~
LSI Logic Corp. MPT boot ROM successfully installed!
j

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by reidnc6
I changed the grub.conf to what you suggested. I receive the same result at boot: a single "j" after the SCSI controller check (which says it was a successful check). Here is what I get when I attempt to boot from the harddrive.

~bunch of drive info here~
LSI Logic Corp. MPT boot ROM successfully installed!
j

So it doesn't even get to the point of loading the Linux bootloader (Grub)?

First of all, add hd1 to device.map

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb

Did you set sda2 as the active partition?

I never have any boot problems myself and I have 4 distros installed so far on my new HD (since last week) and one is on a IDE Raid Controller. I install the distros and add them to my Grub config. Works everytime.

[DMR]

What is the exact make/model of SCSI controller in that machine?

[reidnc6]

I booted using "linux rescue". I appended the device.map with (hd1) /dev/sdb . I receive the same error.

The SCSI controller is an LSI Logic Ultra 320 16 bit wide. The product model is 21320.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[hard candy]

here's a link to the installation instructions:
Dell poweredge installation (http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/software/oslin9x/90_update/en/info/X1554a0.pdf)
Apparently there is a utility partition which may be causing the problem. Look on page 13 in the notice at the bottom.

[reidnc6]

Problem solved!! This was a hardware problem and not an issue with Red Hat 9. Even though Red Hat installed fine on the two drives I have, it wouldn't boot off the drives. I changed the drive order in the daisy chain to make the larger (73gb) first and the smaller (36gb) second. I was then able to boot up the system and the Red Hat install was there with all of the partitions I had created. BTW, the drive doc doesn't indicate that drive size is a factor to consider when determining drive order. Maybe this is a standard principle with SCSI drives, I just didn't know. I guess it's the same as with memory: put the largest component first.
Thanks for your help.

[DMR]

Originally posted by reidnc6
Maybe this is a standard principle with SCSI drives, I just didn't know. I guess it's the same as with memory: put the largest component first.No, SCSI doesn't care about the actual size of the devices vs. their positions on the bus, but in moving the drives around you probably fixed something like a poorly-seated cable or a termination issue (only the device in the last physical position on the bus should be terminated).

[reidnc6]

Just for the sake of testing, I installed RH9 again. When I tried to boot up, it stopped just as before. However, this time, it just displayed "GRUB", instead of the "j". I shutdown the machine and swapped the drive order in the daisy chain. I was then able to reboot. Very strange. It's almost as if RH9 thought /dev/sda was /dev/sdb and vice versa. Does anyone have an explaination for this behavior?

[DMR]

Originally posted by reidnc6
It's almost as if RH9 thought /dev/sda was /dev/sdb and vice versa. Does anyone have an explaination for this behavior? Possibly, yes- look at your /boot/grub/device.map file to see how grub detected your drives. Grub's detection/interpretation of your drive ordering can differ from that of your BIOS, especially when using ATA accellerator or SCSI controllers cards.