Slackware 12.1: GRUB Issues

[Jengajam2]

I did a successful install of Slackware, but I'm having trouble using Grub to boot it. The first time I installed it and tried getting Grub to boot it I got an "Error 17 Cannot Mount Selected Partition" and "File system Unknown" when trying to boot it. I thought it had to do with using the JFS file system, so I reinstalled it with an ext2 file system. But I still got the same error. The installation and boot worked on my laptop just fine, but not on my desktop. Gparted detected the partition just fine.

Here's my menu.lst

title Slackware Linux (Slackware 12.1.0) (on /dev/sda7)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-huge-2.6.24.5 root=/dev/sda7
savedefault
boot

Any help will be appreciated.

[caljohnsmith]

Usually getting a Grub error 17 when booting an OS entry in Grub's menu means that the (hdX,Y) is wrong. How about first posting:

sudo fdisk -lu
And please identify your Slackware partition. Also, for each of the drives fdisk lists, like sda, sdb, etc, please post the output of:

sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sda
So replace "sda" above with each of your drives. Note "-l" is a lowercase L, not a one. And finally, for each command above that returns "eb48", please post:

sudo xxd -s 1049 -l 2 -p /dev/sda
And replace sda with the drives that previously returned "eb48". That will greatly clarify what your setup is like.

[Jengajam2]

Usually getting a Grub error 17 when booting an OS entry in Grub's menu means that the (hdX,Y) is wrong. How about first posting:

sudo fdisk -lu
And please identify your Slackware partition. Also, for each of the drives fdisk lists, like sda, sdb, etc, please post the output of:

sudo xxd -l 2 -p /dev/sda
So replace "sda" above with each of your drives. Note "-l" is a lowercase L, not a one. And finally, for each command above that returns "eb48", please post:

sudo xxd -s 1049 -l 2 -p /dev/sda
And replace sda with the drives that previously returned "eb48". That will greatly clarify what your setup is like.
sudo fdisk -lu

disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcab10bee

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 307339514 153669726 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 307339515 470270744 81465615 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 470270745 488392064 9060660 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda5 463539573 470270744 3365586 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 307339641 425658239 59159299+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 430847298 463539509 16346106 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 425658303 430847234 2594466 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Partition /dev/sda7 is Slackware while /dev/sda8 is it's swap.


/dev/sda1: eb52
2:xxd: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
3: e9a7
5:0000
6:0000
7:0000
8:0000


and finally:
1:0066


NOTE: I may have found the problem, look at the attached picture.
I took space from my linux mint partition to make my slackware partitions, so now they're in /dev/sda2.

[caljohnsmith]

OK, if Slackware is on sda7, that would be (hd0,6) in Grub's Convoluted World, so I think all you would need to do is change all your Slackware Grub entries to use "root (hd0,6)" instead of the "root (hd0,0)" that you show in the first post. How about giving that a shot and let me know how it goes. :)

[Jengajam2]

OK, if Slackware is on sda7, that would be (hd0,6) in Grub's Convoluted World, so I think all you would need to do is change all your Slackware Grub entries to use "root (hd0,6)" instead of the "root (hd0,0)" that you show in the first post. How about giving that a shot and let me know how it goes. :)

Thank you, it boots up now.

[Vince4Amy]

Just out of interest did you not like lilo? I've found lilo to be easier and more reliable than GRUB. But that's my experience just curious to know yours.

[Jengajam2]

Just out of interest did you not like lilo? I've found lilo to be easier and more reliable than GRUB. But that's my experience just curious to know yours.

I just didn't install LILO because I already had GRUB installed. I've used LILO on my old computer for DEli Linux, no problems as far as I could tell.

[Vince4Amy]

Oh I understand fair enough.

[capn_hector]

another thing i noticed on your setup is your using 2 swap partitions, you only need 1, i dual boot ubuntu and slackware and both feed off the same swap, swap is hdd based ram (simplistic and not totaly correct but close enough) now if changing it is going to be a pain it does not hurt any thing but you could free up some space by just using 1 swap partition.