[SOLVED] can't boot into PCLinux; hd designation was wrong; now multiboot...

[slipstream6]

Hello all,

I was about to give up for the time being, but since I got so many replies, I will give it another shot.  I will study all the posts tonight, but for now to answer Old-Polack:

HP workstation X4000 circa 2000-2001
My model variant has:
dual Xeon 2.4 MHZ 860 chipset 1024 Gb ECC RAM (incl. PCI 64-bit Hublink (P64H))
Phoenix Bios 4.0 Release 6.0 updated to latest revision dated 03-04-2003.
One AGP 8X slot with Quadro4 900 XGL Pro card (full slot)
two Adaptec Ultra 160 SCSI controllers, with the 2 SCSI HD you see in my fdisk as well as a 500G IDE drive and one IDE DVD drive and one CD drive.  The floppy drive is disabled on the bios.
There is NO raid set in bios SCSI Utilities, one is set as master ID #0 and the other as slave ID #1
 (I added USB 2.0 to PCI slot)
No external HDs are in use.

if anyone is curious about this ancient artifact, lol! here is a link:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&lang=en&cc=us&docIndexId=64180&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=76193#1

Years ago, a teacher of linux helped me install 2 linux OS and windows on my own computer, and explained to me how to deal with:  

Code: [Select]

grub error 18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle.

 

Older BIOSes use CHS rather than LBA to address the boot disk. The disk address of the kernel that is stored in the boot sector has only 10 bits for the cylinder number. Therefore the kernel and initrd, if used, must lie entirely below the 1024 cylinder boundary. Failure to observer this restriction gives rise to the error.
To prevent this occuring create a /boot partition of, say, 100MB at the start of the disk and store your Grub configurations, kernels and initrd images in it. You can then create your root partition where you like, even on a different disk.

see:   http://mankin.org.uk/howto/grubErrors.html

This workstation has a history for me, it was purchased second hand, I think in 2005-2006?  I now enjoy it as a hobby computer, and thanks to linux it's still useful.  I am mostly self-taught with linux and computers in general, and I can afford to experiment on this computer.  I try to select the more newbie-friendly distros generally, partially with a future goal in mind.  Choosing to multiboot like this is a little bit challenging, to say the least!  One day I might get another "hobby" computer with more modern specs  and by then I hope I will narrow my favorite distros too!

So got to go for now but will read all the posts and try to figure it out...

[Old-Polack]

Hello all,

I was about to give up for the time being, but since I got so many replies, I will give it another shot.  I will study all the posts tonight, but for now to answer Old-Polack:

HP workstation X4000
My model variant has:
dual Xeon 2.4 MHZ 860 chipset 1024 Gb ECC RAM (incl. PCI 64-bit Hublink (P64H))
Phoenix Bios 4.0 Release 6.0 updated to latest revision dated 03-04-2003.
One AGP 8X slot with Quadro4 900 XGL Pro card (full slot)
two Ultra 160 SCSI controllers,  (I added USB 2.0 to PCI slot)

if anyone is curious about this ancient artifact, lol! here is a link:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&lang=en&cc=us&docIndexId=64180&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=76193#1

Years ago, a teacher of linux helped me install 2 linux OS and windows on my own computer, and explained to me how to deal with: 

Code: [Select]

grub error 18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle.

 

Older BIOSes use CHS rather than LBA to address the boot disk. The disk address of the kernel that is stored in the boot sector has only 10 bits for the cylinder number. Therefore the kernel and initrd, if used, must lie entirely below the 1024 cylinder boundary. Failure to observer this restriction gives rise to the error.
To prevent this occuring create a /boot partition of, say, 100MB at the start of the disk and store your Grub configurations, kernels and initrd images in it. You can then create your root partition where you like, even on a different disk.

see:   http://mankin.org.uk/howto/grubErrors.html

This workstation

Now we have a starting point that we can relate to. I actually have a couple of machines that seem to predate yours, and the BIOS in them has a place where you can choose whether to use CHS or LBA to address the hard drives. Choosing CHS gave a drive size limit of 8 GB, while LBA gave a drive capacity limit of 127/136 GB. (Depending on how you define GB) An add in controller card, (purchased later) had its own built in BIOS, that allowed for LBA48 addressing, and on initial boot up, gave a message that it could control all the drives present, and asked if I would like to allow that option. I did, and drive limits sort of disappeared.

"What does that have to do with my machine?" you may ask. Check in your BIOS for a section that deals with hard drive addressing, and look for options, LBA, or Large Disk Addressing. Different BIOS use different terms, but most after 1997 do have such choices available. According to HP, that model came with a 36 GB hard drive, which would indicate that it had a BIOS capable of being set to LBA addressing. That alone should  allow booting from either of the two smaller hard drives, or any other drive up to at least 127 GB, without the need for boot partitions.

The 500 GB drive may or may not require a single boot partition, depending on what is available for BIOS upgrades.

I again digress here, to recount another personal experience with an earlier computer I purchased from Sony in 1997. It had a Phoenix BIOS with a 8 GB hard drive limit. I called Phoenix and asked about an upgrade to use larger hard drives. They informed me that their BIOS at that time supported 127/136 GB drives, was licensed to Sony, and the drive size restriction was artificially set, by Sony's crippling of the BIOS, by removing the LBA option from the selection list. As part of the licensing agreement, any BIOS upgrades had to come from Sony, as they (Phoenix) were prohibited from interfering with their licensee's wishes.

I contacted Sony about an upgrade, and was told there would be none that increased the hard drive limit. I was then told that if I wanted larger drives in my machine, I would have to buy a newer version Sony machine. My machine was, at that time, three months old. Not good PR on Sony's part. I've never bought another Sony product since.

The Sony motherboard was from Intel, so I searched for BIOS upgrades from them, and found one that allowed for LBA addressing, but it wouldn't install on the Sony motherboard due to firmware restrictions, where only official Sony BIOS upgrades were allowed. Short version of the story is that I learned to use a hex editor, compared the BIOS upgrade files from Intel and Sony, then edited the Intel BIOS upgrade to identify itself as an official Sony BIOS upgrade, after which it did upgrade the BIOS on the Sony motherboard, and I got the larger hard drive capacity I sought. There are ways, and then there are other ways. 

Back to your 500 GB drive. If there are no newer BIOS upgrades available for that machine, and you are not comfortable with forging one from someone else with a hex editor, there are add in RAID/Controller cards (as mentioned above) that have their own BIOS that will allow the full use of larger drives. I recently purchased such a card for my current machine that is all SATA. The card supplies four IDE controllers, which allows up to 8 IDE devices to be installed, and uses LBA48 addressing for full access to the largest IDE drives made. Said card cost me $34.97 including shipping, from Newegg, and may be even cheaper elsewhere.

Specifically, this card is from HighPoint and carries the name RocketRaid 454. It fits a standard PCI slot, and can be set to RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, or JBOD, if you don't want an actual RAID and just want to connect multiple independent hard drives. Before SATA became the standard for new hard drives, this was a very expensive card, mostly targeted at industry and gamers. Now it's become a clearance item. The box has a printed oval on the front that states, "Linux Supported!" Considering the copyright on the box is from 2003, that's impressive in itself. 

Last, there is the no cost, single boot partition, that holds all of your kernels and initrd images, for all of your installations, and a single grub installation to the MBR that controls the booting of all of them from a single menu.lst. Note that a boot partition is not necessarily a /boot partition. I have a boot partition on one of my internal hard drives, and on each of my external hard drives, in case I move one of them to another machine and want to boot one of the OS installed on that drive. I don't actually need them, but they are good insurance, as I can always boot from either the / partition of an installation, or from the boot partition. The boot partitions are completely autonomous, and do not get mounted to any single installation at run time. No matter which hard drive is designated as the boot drive, the kernels and initrd images for each installation can always be found on (hd0,0), the partitions to be mounted as / are all labeled, and the labels are used in the individual boot stanzas, which avoids the problems you are currently having.

[root@fatman ~]# grub                                                                                                                                                                        
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.


    GNU GRUB  version 0.97  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

 [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
   lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
   completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> find /grub/stage2       
find /grub/stage2
 (hd0,0)
 (hd1,0)                                                          <--- My three boot partitions
 (hd2,0)
grub> find /boot/grub/stage2
find /boot/grub/stage2
 (hd0,0)
 (hd0,6)
 (hd0,7)
 (hd0,8)
 (hd0,12)
 (hd0,13)
 (hd0,14)
 (hd0,16)
 (hd1,0)
 (hd1,7)
 (hd2,0)
 (hd2,2)                                                          <--- The installations that can be booted from the boot partition
 (hd2,4)
 (hd2,5)
 (hd2,6)
 (hd2,8)
 (hd2,9)
 (hd2,10)
 (hd2,14)
 (hd2,15)
grub> quit
quit
[root@fatman ~]#

Note that the boot partitions are also included in the second list, though there is no actual OS on any of them. This is caused by a link, named boot, that points to the partition itself, that aids in the setup of the partition. Each time I install an OS, before rebooting, I copy the new /boot directory to the boot partition. The link causes the system to say that /boot already exists and to ask if the link should be overwritten, or if the copied directory should be renamed. I rename the new copy of /boot to reflect the OS it came from. This keeps the individual kernels and initrd images for each installed OS separate from each other.

I then edit the master /grub/menu.lst that resides on the boot partition, copying the first stanza of the individual installation's menu.lst, then editing it so that it searches for the kernel and initrd image on (hd0,0)/<installation-name>/<whatever>.

A typical stanza would look like this;

title 64-RC BP
kernel (hd0,0)/64RC/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=64-RC root=LABEL=64RC nokmsboot acpi=on resume=LABEL=swap2000 splash=verbose vga=791
initrd (hd0,0)/64RC/initrd.img

...or this;

title KDE test2000 BP
kernel (hd0,0)/test2000/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=KDE_test2000_BP root=LABEL=test2000 acpi=on resume=LABEL=swap2000 splash=verbose vga=791
initrd (hd0,0)/test2000/initrd.img

There are no long, confusing UUID= numbers, only easy to recognize LABEL= names. To paraphrase, "One boot partition, to rule them all."

Now, about those partitions on your drives... I have a few more than you, and other than the single boot partition at the beginning of each of the three drives mentioned above, they are either OS / partitions, or data partitions, with the exception of having one /home partition, for this 64 bit test installation, which I usually don't separate from the / partition. All the personal data that is usually collected in /home/<user> in my case goes to data partitions mounted on /home/polack/Documents, and /home/polack/Documents2. I can mount those partitions in the same place on each installation so my personal data is always available from whichever OS I choose to boot.

Music and videos are also stored on separate data partitions, and likewise always mounted in the same place on each installation, using the same /etc/fstab for each installation. The only edit is for the proper LABEL=<whatever> for the individual / partition being mounted for each OS. All my data, of every type, is always in the same relative place no matter which OS I'm currently running, because I took the time to organize it properly, like the partitions themselves.

[root@fatman ~]# fdisk -l

Code: [Select]

Disk /dev/sdb: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2db1883a

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              63      208844      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2          208845    12225464     6008310   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3        12225465    72244304    30009420   83  Linux
/dev/sdb4        72244305  1465144064   696449880    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5        72244368   272253554   100004593+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb6       272253618   670713749   199230066   83  Linux
/dev/sdb7       670713813   731278799    30282493+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb8       731278863   811378889    40050013+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb9       811378953  1045767239   117194143+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb10     1045767303  1280155589   117194143+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb11     1280155653  1465144064    92494206   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x18eee7ae

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048     2099199     1048576   83  Linux
/dev/sdc2         2099200    18876415     8388608   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc3        18876416    81790975    31457280   83  Linux
/dev/sdc4        81790976  3907029167  1912619096    5  Extended
/dev/sdc5        81793024   176164863    47185920   83  Linux
/dev/sdc6       176166912   281024511    52428800   83  Linux
/dev/sdc7       281026560   385884159    52428800   83  Linux
/dev/sdc8       385886208   805316607   209715200   83  Linux
/dev/sdc9       805318656   857747455    26214400   83  Linux
/dev/sdc10      857749504   910178303    26214400   83  Linux
/dev/sdc11      910180352   962609151    26214400   83  Linux
/dev/sdc12      962611200  1172326399   104857600   83  Linux
/dev/sdc13     1172328448  1382043647   104857600   83  Linux
/dev/sdc14     1382045696  1803573247   210763776   83  Linux
/dev/sdc15     1803575296  1897947135    47185920   83  Linux
/dev/sdc16     1897949184  1939892223    20971520   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdd: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbbcb054b

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdd1            2048     4196351     2097152   83  Linux
/dev/sdd2         4196352  2101348351  1048576000   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000d21c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63      626534      313236   83  Linux
/dev/sda2          626535    16820054     8096760   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3        16820055   114495254    48837600   83  Linux
/dev/sda4       114495255  1953520064   919512405    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       114495318   329332499   107418591   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       329332563   534434354   102550896   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       534434418   596943269    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       596943333   659452184    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda9       659452248   721961099    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda10      721961163   784470014    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda11      784470078   994198589   104864256   83  Linux
/dev/sda12      994198653  1623368249   314584798+  83  Linux
/dev/sda13     1623368313  1685893229    31262458+  83  Linux
/dev/sda14     1685893293  1749366044    31736376   83  Linux
/dev/sda15     1749366108  1816485614    33559753+  83  Linux
/dev/sda16     1816487663  1889887982    36700160   83  Linux
/dev/sda17     1889892080  1953520064    31813992+  83  Linux


[slipstream6]

Hello again!

Thanks for all the info and thanks Old-Polack for the practical "boot" options ; I had suspected when you posted earlier, that there might be some other ways of dealing with boot issues, and I had wondered how one didn't get the different kernels and init files mixed up but  aha!:

...This is caused by a link, named boot, that points to the partition itself, that aids in the setup of the partition. Each time I install an OS, before rebooting, I copy the new /boot directory to the boot partition. The link causes the system to say that /boot already exists and to ask if the link should be overwritten, or if the copied directory should be renamed. I rename the new copy of /boot to reflect the OS it came from. This keeps the individual kernels and initrd images for each installed OS separate from each other.

So this is one more use for symbolic links I suppose and being able to keep each OS boot separate yet all in one place sounds really good!  

Somehow the above method brought back memories of when I had stuck with grub legacy as my master bootloader in my IDE HD mbr and I was able to easily chainload to all my OS without too much trouble...It seemed simpler but I had less distros as well...

I will have to discuss with my friend (who can offer me SCSI drives rather then sending them to the recycler) if he would also have any working SCSI controller card with its own bios as you mentionned, since his company is getting rid of alot of servers continually though most have swap-out drives - so I'm not sure if the controllers will be compatible.

I have a burning suspicion that there was an issue with Phoenix bios and  HP not allowing more reasonable drive addressing as well but I will have to at least review my bios options as well as my controller.
Unfortunately, I realise that I'm completely burnt out tonight, so I will have to review everyones post properly, and correct my grub files tommorow night (fix the resume UUID) and take a look at my bios.

Quick comment:  The crazy patchwork of partitions occured partially because I didnt install all distros at once and I ended up deleting some partions which messed up the numbering order; well the day will come when I will just start fresh after backing up all my data and using one of Old-Polack solutions for booting...

Well to all, I bid you a goodnight!

[slipstream6]

Hello again!

After futile attempts at booting, I decided to re-install the sytem and at least simplify the partionning on that HD.  I had one partition only for PclinuxOS including boot instead of the 3 and left everything else intact.  I installed grub to / and then when I booted into my grub 2 file, I succeeded in chainloading this time with (hd1,6).  Once in PClinuxOS own grub, I still had to modify the menu list (it somehow still showed (hd0,5) to (hd1,5))and voilả!  I can finally enjoy  PClinuxOs!

Already fixed Nvidia-settings to my liking and updated, also re-tested booting again and I'm back here!

- I will copy some notes for when I change my drives (for now the 34 G SCSI is still hanging in there) and see what I can simplify and organise better (esp. the idea of a separate boot drive).
Well, thanks everyone for the help!

[Old-Polack]

Hello again!

After futile attempts at booting, I decided to re-install the sytem and at least simplify the partionning on that HD.  I had one partition only for PclinuxOS including boot instead of the 3 and left everything else intact.  I installed grub to / and then when I booted into my grub 2 file, I succeeded in chainloading this time with (hd1,6).  Once in PClinuxOS own grub, I still had to modify the menu list (it somehow still showed (hd0,5) to (hd1,5))and voilả!  I can finally enjoy  PClinuxOs!

Already fixed Nvidia-settings to my liking and updated, also re-tested booting again and I'm back here!

- I will copy some notes for when I change my drives (for now the 34 G SCSI is still hanging in there) and see what I can simplify and organise better (esp. the idea of a separate boot drive).
Well, thanks everyone for the help!

Not to overstate the obvious, it should be the first partition on the 500 GB drive, about 500 MB to 1 GB in size, followed immediately by your swap partition. Both should be primary partitions. After that you can have a / partition, also a primary partition. The fourth primary partition should be the extended partition, starting immediately after the end of the third primary, and extending to the end or the drive. That will leave only logical partitions possible for the rest, and that will prevent about 90+% of partition order problems in the future.