[CentOS] My server won't boot (grub looping - stage2)

[Phil Schaffner]

On Thu, 2007-08-30 at 10:05 -0400, mbneto wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I can't boot.  It simply does not show me the menu of kernels to
> choose.
> 
> When the problem first manisfested itselfFirst I was getting that loop
> regarding the 'loading stage2'.
> 
> After I tried that grub-install I simply get an infinite loop of
> beeps! 

I have seen problems similar to this when BIOS and running system see
drives in a different order.  Try making a GRUB boot floppy or CD, boot
from it, and use the GRUB shell "find" command to see where it thinks
things are located.  See "info grub" for details.  For example, if you
have a /boot partition:

        grub> find /grub/stage2

If you do not have a /boot partition:

        grub> find /boot/grub/stage2

See if the above agrees with where your grub.conf file says the grub
directory should be on the running system.

Unless the problem is a hardware failure, you should be able to boot
from the grub shell by properly specifying root, kernel, and initrd
lines with command-line completion for the latter two to point to
desired vmlinuz-<version> and initrd-<version>.img files.  Again, will
need to include /boot on the path if you do not have a /boot partition,
exclude it if you do.  The BIOS and running system can usually be made
to agree on device ordering by setting BIOS device ordering to match
what the running system expects, and/or by changing the order things are
seen via /etc/modprobe.conf.  May also have to fix /boot/grub/device.map
to match.

Phil