GRUB kills Windows - and other delights

[peter_pclos]

PCLinuxOS was originally installed on my desktop PC (AMD Thunderbird 1.5 GHz/Abit KT7A motherboard) on a second hard drive, the first hard drive already containing a dual boot Windows 98/SimplyMepis configuration.  Recently, because the arrival of a new widescreen monitor was too much for the very old Mepis OS, I installed a later Mepis version (8.0) over the top of the old one, keeping the old Mepis /home partition. 

The hard disk partitioning on desktop PC is now:

First (bootable) hard drive:
   Windows:
      hda1      Win98      5GB
      hda5      FAT         2GB
   SimplyMepis Linux:
      hda6      /root         5GB
      hda7      swap
      hda8      /home      20GB

Second hard drive:
   PCLinuxOS:
      hdb2      swap
      hdb5      /home      60GB
      hdb6      /root         12GB

This works, but with a number of differences from the performance prior to installing the latest Mepis upgrade:

GRUB:  When the PCLinuxOS drive was added, the GRUB GUI was pclos branded; now it's Mepis branded, which is a pity, because the first boot option in GRUB is my main OS, PCLinuxOS.  How can I re-impose the PCLinuxOS branding at this point in time?

PCLinuxOS:  This now boots up via a very elegant, but exceedingly slow-acting splash screen of the bull motif which takes 60 seconds or so to develop its full contrast, during which time there appears to be no hard disk activity whatever.  A similar situation happens at shut-down, although the fading out of the bull motif is quicker and the disk activity LED shows activity.  Is it possible to speed up the animation of the splash screen, particularly at boot-up?

Windows 98:  Although the Windows stanza in the GRUB menu.lst code is identical to how it was before the latest upgrade of Mepis, the attempt to boot Windows fails with an error message telling me that HIMEM.SYS is not found.  I can get at my user files on the Windows partition, and don't often need to boot into Windows nowadays, but the lack of Windows is irritating.  I hesitate to ask on a Linux forum, but does anybody have any painless solution to getting Windows up and running again?

For reference, the GRUB menu.lst code in the Mepis /boot/grub directory on the first disk is currently (including some redundant Mepis sections generated automatically by Mepis):

timeout 15
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1

gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title PCLinuxOS
root (hd1,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32.12-pclos1.bfs root=/dev/sdb6 keyb=uk splash=silent fstab=rw vga=788
initrd /boot/initrd.img
boot

title MEPIS at sda6, newest kernel
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 nomce quiet splash vga=788 resume=/dev/sda7
initrd /boot/initrd.img
boot

title MEPIS at sda6, previous kernel (if any)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz.old root=/dev/sda6 nomce quiet splash vga=788 resume=/dev/sda7
boot

title MEPIS at sda6, kernel 2.6.27-1-mepis-smp
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-1-mepis-smp root=/dev/sda6 nomce quiet splash vga=788 resume=/dev/sda7
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-1-mepis-smp
boot

title Windows 95/98/Me at hda1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin

[Was_Just19]

The PCLOS spash seems to be slow .......

with the PCLOS selection highlighted in the boot page, press F3 (I think) select Default and then along the bottom of the screen, delete "spalsh=silent"

That will boot PCLOS without the nice background and allow you to see what is happening normally behind it.

To get the PCLOS background on the Grub menu again, I would advise reinstalling the PCLOS Grub to the MBR of the boot disk.
There are several ways to do this, .....  from a live CD or from the installed PCLOS.

This might even fix the Win boot problem


regards.

[peter_pclos]

Thanks Just19.  I'll try deleting splash=silent at my next log on.

On the other points, I'm not really a systems person, so if you could advise me in greater detail how I go about re-installing the PCLOS GRUB to the MBR of the boot disk, I would be very grateful.

[Was_Just19]

Thanks Just19.  I'll try deleting splash=silent at my next log on.

On the other points, I'm not really a systems person, so if you could advise me in greater detail how I go about re-installing the PCLOS GRUB to the MBR of the boot disk, I would be very grateful.

You should have a menu entry for

redo-mbr  (or something similar)

I think this is supposed to do this.

It could also be done from a livecd, or

it could be done manually from a terminal using just a few commands.

regards.

[menotu]

You should have a menu entry for

Yup - if you go to the main KMenu and go to More Applications >> Configuration > Redo MBR

The option to do it is the same from an installed system or from the LiveCD (but meant to be a tad safer from a LiveCD)

From a LiveCD just boot into it and choose from the menu entry mentioned above.

Hope that helps a little.

[peter_pclos]

Again, thanks for the prompt reply.  Do you mean the 'Set up boot system' on the 'Boot/Configure boot steps' page in PCLINUXOS Control Center ?  If so, I'll give it a try.

btw, I took out 'splash=silent' and found the following lines in the screen text display:

Waiting for device sdb6 to appear      timeout 1 minute
Waiting for device sdb7 to appear      timeout 1 minute

at which point the process stopped for 60 seconds - accounting precisely for the delay in the boot-up procedure I had already observed.  I hope that going to a 'native' PCLOS boot will overcome this too.

[Was_Just19]

Again, thanks for the prompt reply.  Do you mean the 'Set up boot system' on the 'Boot/Configure boot steps' page in PCLINUXOS Control Center ?  If so, I'll give it a try.

btw, I took out 'splash=silent' and found the following lines in the screen text display:

Waiting for device sdb6 to appear      timeout 1 minute
Waiting for device sdb7 to appear      timeout 1 minute

at which point the process stopped for 60 seconds - accounting precisely for the delay in the boot-up procedure I had already observed.  I hope that going to a 'native' PCLOS boot will overcome this too.

Those delays can be eliminated I believe; they are likely due to an incorrect entry in fstab or elsewhere referring to those partition; maybe the UUID number is incorrect or the filesystem needs to be checked on those partitions.  Best to leave those for a little while.

As posted above the item to use is in the Menu and not in the PCC.

regards.

[peter_pclos]

O.K.  I went in through More Applications >> Configuration > Redo MBR

Now we're at:

GRUB GUI is PCLOS branded - DONE

WIN 98 now loads up properly - DONE

BUT:

Delay on PCLOS boot still persists, the problem now being indicated by the line:

Waiting for device sda7 to appear  (timeout 1 minute)

This is the swap partition for Mepis, which is specifically identified as sda7 in the formatting page of PCLinuxOS Control Center.   By this stage the boot process has already looked for AND FOUND sda6, which is the /root partition of the Mepis instal, without any delay.  Any suggestions as to how to get out of this glitch would be gratefully received!  I suppose if all else fails I can simply reinstate the splash graphic and spend a minute admiring the artwork!

[Was_Just19]

O.K.  I went in through More Applications >> Configuration > Redo MBR

Now we're at:

GRUB GUI is PCLOS branded - DONE

WIN 98 now loads up properly - DONE

BUT:

Delay on PCLOS boot still persists, the problem now being indicated by the line:

Waiting for device sda7 to appear  (timeout 1 minute)

This is the swap partition for Mepis, which is specifically identified as sda7 in the formatting page of PCLinuxOS Control Center.   By this stage the boot process has already looked for AND FOUND sda6, which is the /root partition of the Mepis instal, without any delay.  Any suggestions as to how to get out of this glitch would be gratefully received!  I suppose if all else fails I can simply reinstate the splash graphic and spend a minute admiring the artwork!

As I said previously the delays could be worked out separately.

Please list the contents of your PCLOS

/boot/grub/menu.lst        file.

regards.

[peter_pclos]

Here is the full listing of menu.lst (the commented-out Mepis stanza is the one which PCLOS already knew about, and refers to the old Mepis install):

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd1,5)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=d1bedbd1-0773-4e7c-98d2-4dd18c638650  resume=UUID=a18bd45e-accf-4318-bf67-ee93050fe8e8
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=d1bedbd1-0773-4e7c-98d2-4dd18c638650  failsafe
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.img

# title MEPIS
# kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1-586tsc root=/dev/hda6 ro nomce quiet vga=791
# initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-1-586tsc

title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the PCLINUXOS standard grub entries
title      Other operating systems:


# This entry automatically added by the PCLinuxOS redo-mbr for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda6.
title      MEPIS at sda6, newest kernel (on /dev/sda6)
root      (hd0,5)
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 nomce quiet splash vga=788 resume=/dev/sda7
initrd      /boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

Can you tell from this what's going on?

[Was_Just19]

Code:

title PCLinux Test
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=d1bedbd1-0773-4e7c-98d2-4dd18c638650  resume=/dev/sda7
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.img

Try adding the above stanza to the menu.lst file and select to boot from it.

I have changed the call for the resume feature, which uses the Swap partition, to its /dev/ notation as you indicated that /dev/sda7 is the Swap partition.

It is likely that when you installed Mepis, after PCLOS, that the UUID of the Swap partition changed and it is this that is delaying the booting at present.

If that works OK, then the correct UUID could replace the /dev/sda7  if you wish .....  or it can be left as is.

Anyway please give it a try to see if that is the problem.

regards.

[johnmart]

Sorry to butt in: 
I had the issue with ** Waiting for device sda7 to appear  (timeout 1 minute) ** recently, except mine was sda6 as well, making a 2 minute delay.
I found a solution here: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,79699.0.html
I made a note of exactly how I did it but can't locate it. 
But as I recall, it involved creating labels for / & swap, then generating a new mkinitrd. In your case it would be the corresponding partition to sda7.
Your total fix may involve more than this, but I was able to swat that dratted 2 minute delay from o-p & kjpetrie's advice.
Hope that helps.

[peter_pclos]

I've now had time to try the PCLinux test stanza, but I still get the sda7 delay.  Incidentally, from a cold boot I get sdb6 delay as well, but this evaporates after a re-start.

I've also had a look at the link in the last message posted by johnmart.  That's going to take a bit of digesting, so I may go quiet for a bit until I've been able to read it thoroughly and try the suggested solution.

Thanks to all for the help so far.

[Was_Just19]

I've now had time to try the PCLinux test stanza, but I still get the sda7 delay.  Incidentally, from a cold boot I get sdb6 delay as well, but this evaporates after a re-start.

I've also had a look at the link in the last message posted by johnmart.  That's going to take a bit of digesting, so I may go quiet for a bit until I've been able to read it thoroughly and try the suggested solution.

Thanks to all for the help so far.

If you post the contents of your   /etc/fstab   file from the PCLOS install that might indicate a simple fix being available.

In the meantime, I would use a liveCD of PCLOS, and run a filesystem check on both those partitions ........  the liveCD is needed because the partitions need to be unmounted/not in use  to check and possibly repair the filesystem.

The command is

fsck

You can use the "-n" option to see if any changes are required, without making those changes.

If you find changes/corrections are needed then that is likely the cause of the delay.

regards.

[melodie]

Hi,

The delay is due to initrd registering where on the hard drive the install is done. (Which is not a very useful information imho, as in other distros we don't find that kind of tweak).

As I found it a bit complicated to recreate a initrd, when I met with this issue I simply installed a newer kernel, or other version kernel (bfs for non bfs, or newer one if there is one), rebooted to it, and it was fixed. If I wanted exactly the one kernel I had preceedingly, well I reinstalled it once it's initrd had been deleted.