Let's stick with grub, though similar problems to what I describe
could also happen with lilo. Some possibilities are that something went
wrong with the grub installation, grub.conf is wrong, or the files to
which grub.conf refers have something wrong with them. So I'll give some
ideas on how to look for what went wrong.
After you've installed grub into the MBR one check that it really is
there is to do
dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 | grep GRUB
You should see
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
Binary file (standard input) matches
where the last line won't be there if it's not grub that's in the MBR. You
should also have a file /boot/grub/grub.conf. The grub.conf file should
include lines something like
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
In this example the kernel is the original insecure one, and "root
(hd0,0)" means /boot is in /dev/hda1. After booting, when I look at
/boot/vmlinuz.... I am looking at the same file as is referred to by
"/vmlinuz..." in grub.conf because /boot is its own partition, and is not
just a subdirectory of /. You may do things differently. What do you
have in grub.conf, in what partition is /boot, do the files
/boot/vmlinuz... and initrd... exist? What is the actual complaint your
computer makes when you try to boot without a boot disk? Note that even if
vmlinuz... is present, it could be corrupted. If that's what's
wrong, and even if it isn't, you'll want to install a more up-to-date
kernel, such as kernel-2.4.20-31.9.i686.rpm (assuming your computer has
just one cpu of a type such that i686 is appropriate -- Pentium II to 4
for example).
In my example I referred to the partition that serves as / by
"LABEL=/", but it is actually /dev/hda5, and I can verify /dev/hda5 has
the correct label with
tune2fs -l /dev/hda5|grep name
which shows
Filesystem volume name: /
If necessary you can do something similar.
On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, ipmsmbe wrote:
> i have set the boot sequence as following but the system still need the boot
> disk to start Linux. Why is this so?
>
> Boot sequence : HDD0, CD-ROM, FDD, others.
>
> Please revert.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "ipmsmbe" <ipmsmbe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Discussion of Red Hat Linux 9 (Shrike)" <shrike-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 12:12 PM
> Subject: Re: What's wrong with the loader?
>
>
> > THANK U FOR YOUR REPLY.
> >
> > I HV ONLY ONE HARD DISK AND THE FOLLOWING IS THE BOOT SEQUENCE IN MY BIOS:
> >
> > 1. HDD0
> > 2. CDROM
> > 3. FDD
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Steven J. Yellin" <yellin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: "Discussion of Red Hat Linux 9 (Shrike)" <shrike-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 12:03 PM
> > Subject: Re: What's wrong with the loader?
> >
> >
> > > When you boot, the bios decides whether you boot from disk, floppy,
> or
> > > CD, and if from disk, which one if there are multiple disks. So go to
> > > your bios setup and see if it boots from where you want it to boot.
> > >
> > > On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, ipmsmbe wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > > Been having this problem for quite some time.
> > > >
> > > > RH 9 doesn't seem to boot from the hard disk even when during
> > > > installation, it was set to load from the MBR. This happens with both
> > > > LILO and GRUB loaders.
> > > >
> > > > Could anyone pls assist?
> > > >
> > > > Your assistance is very much appreciated.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
> > > > Newbie mbe
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Steven Yellin
> > >
> > >
> > > --
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> > >
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> > >
> >
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>
>
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