Hello all, I am attempting to install CentOS 5.5 on a recently donated home server (was Windows). I've tried installing twice; first, separating /boot, swap, /, /var, /usr and /home into different partitions, the second time choosing default layout. Both times have resulted in "GRUB Hard Disk Error" upon boot.
About the hard disk, it is a Seagate SATA drive. I do not have another drive to configure RAID. The BIOS is set to: Onboard PATA/SATA Adapters = Both SATA mode = IDE Onboard PATA/SATA Cofiguration = Enhanced Mode (???)
Upon booting into rescue mode, the file systems mount successfully and I am able to read data from files. The current file structure is (default layout): /boot / swap
grub.conf: #boot=/dev/sda1 default=0 timeout=5 splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz hiddenmenu title CentOS (2.6.18-194.el5) root (hd1,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 initrd /initrd-2.6.18-194.el5.img title Other rootmoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1
This is brand new from the installation.
My questions are, what am I missing? Bad configuration? Should boot=/dev/sda1 really be commented out?
Some pointers for manually installing and configuring grub would be great, as I am lacking experience in that area.
Any idea as to what is going on would be great!
Thanks in advance, Rob
Update: on a hunch, I tried installing Ubuntu Server. Interestingly, the GRUB installation failed during setup, however the LILO installation completed successfully, the Ubuntu installation boots correctly.
For me, the whole reason to start using CentOS was to move away from Ubuntu. I could do 3 things: Try to install grub under Ubuntu and then use this http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/InstallFromGRUB as a guide, or
Something like this: The above except using LILO, or
Try to install the LILO boot loader after a CentOS installation; in rescue mode.
Better ideas or suggestions?
TIA
Rob
On Sun, 19 Sep 2010, Rob Del Vecchio wrote:
To: centos@centos.org From: Rob Del Vecchio rob.delvecchio@gmail.com Subject: Re: [CentOS] GRUB woes: GRUB Hard Disk Error
Update: on a hunch, I tried installing Ubuntu Server. Interestingly, the GRUB installation failed during setup, however the LILO installation completed successfully, the Ubuntu installation boots correctly.
For me, the whole reason to start using CentOS was to move away from Ubuntu. I could do 3 things: Try to install grub under Ubuntu and then use this http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/InstallFromGRUB as a guide, or
Something like this: The above except using LILO, or
Try to install the LILO boot loader after a CentOS installation; in rescue mode.
Better ideas or suggestions?
TIA
Rob
Well I'd wipe the drive clean using Gparted with a cross format. Do a minimal kickstart installation to install GRUB on the MBR.
Prior to that make sure the BIOS settings are OK for the SATA drive.
That shouldn't take to long.
HTH
Keith
Can't you put the SATA drive on native instead of IDE in your bios ? It decreases performance and could be problematic.
2010/9/19 Keith Roberts keith@karsites.net
On Sun, 19 Sep 2010, Rob Del Vecchio wrote:
To: centos@centos.org From: Rob Del Vecchio rob.delvecchio@gmail.com Subject: Re: [CentOS] GRUB woes: GRUB Hard Disk Error
Update: on a hunch, I tried installing Ubuntu Server. Interestingly, the GRUB installation failed during setup, however the LILO installation completed successfully, the Ubuntu installation boots correctly.
For me, the whole reason to start using CentOS was to move away from
Ubuntu.
I could do 3 things: Try to install grub under Ubuntu and then use this http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/InstallFromGRUB as a guide, or
Something like this: The above except using LILO, or
Try to install the LILO boot loader after a CentOS installation; in
rescue
mode.
Better ideas or suggestions?
TIA
Rob
Well I'd wipe the drive clean using Gparted with a cross format. Do a minimal kickstart installation to install GRUB on the MBR.
Prior to that make sure the BIOS settings are OK for the SATA drive.
That shouldn't take to long.
HTH
Keith _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Well I'd wipe the drive clean using Gparted with a cross format. Do a minimal kickstart installation to install GRUB on the MBR.
I've read a bit on kickstart installations, and now I get to delve deeper :) Thanks for the advice!
Can't you put the SATA drive on native instead of IDE in your bios ? It decreases performance and could be problematic.
Quite right, all of the information that I found on the grub error paired SATA and RAID. I chose this because I wanted to remove the variable of a RAID installation. In retrospect, that was an unfounded idea.
Thanks, Rob
Also please note that if that card has SATA 2.0 capacity, native mode is probably named "AHCI" on the bios.
2010/9/19 Rob Del Vecchio rob.delvecchio@gmail.com
Well I'd wipe the drive clean using Gparted with a cross format. Do a minimal kickstart installation to install GRUB on the MBR.
I've read a bit on kickstart installations, and now I get to delve deeper :) Thanks for the advice!
Can't you put the SATA drive on native instead of IDE in your bios ? It decreases performance and could be problematic.
Quite right, all of the information that I found on the grub error paired SATA and RAID. I chose this because I wanted to remove the variable of a RAID installation. In retrospect, that was an unfounded idea.
Thanks, Rob
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Used a kickstart script to install the system, got slightly different results. Upon boot, I see: L 99 99 99 ... 99
and so on. This could be due to a correctly configured BIOS (set to AHCI).
However, the installation boots when the installation disk finds an installed copy of CentOS on the hard drive? For the moment, I am carefully fiddling with grub.
Sorry, should have googled before mailing; looks like it can be fixed with grub-install. Hopefully smooth sailing from here.
Thanks for the help thus far, Rob
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Eric Viseur -
Keith Roberts -
Rob Del Vecchio