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View Full Version : [ubuntu] [SOLVED] Hardy installation - Bad Grub, Bad MBR and Wrong Hard Drive



slayer^_^
April 26th, 2008, 08:47 AM
hi, i've got a problem with hardy heron installation, i know you can help me:

here is my partition table :

1st hard drive - sata

etx3 Linux partition
swap partition
ext3 Archive partition

2nd hard drive - ide
ntfs weendoos partition
ext3 archive partition


1) grub is mad, it gives me error 17 (can't mount the partition) because (i dunno why) it tries to boot hard drive (0,0) - but changing it to (1,0) i fix the problem.

2) Grub doesn't allow anymore me to choose to boot the weendoos partition

2) i've got that second hard drive, now hardy can see its partitions during the install process and gparted sees it still, however the installed hardy sees the hard drive as an unmountable scsi device... gparted sees its partitions but can't make any operation on...

3) on that second hard drive


what's happening? help me!

(p.s. installed 3 times , every time the same problems... the second hard drive recognized as scsi even if i updated from gutsy, my cd rom and my hardy cd are working fine... i didn't experience these problems with hardy beta)

output of sudo fdisk -l


Disco /dev/sda: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 byte
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cilindri of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x90399039

Dispositivo Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1804 14490598+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 1805 14946 105563115 f W95 Esteso (LBA)
/dev/sda5 1805 14946 105563083+ 83 Linux

Disco /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 byte
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cilindri of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd624f0be

Dispositivo Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 2791 22418612 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 2792 3041 2008092 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 3042 30401 219769168 83 Linux


if I type in the console


stormrider@stormrider-desktop:~$ sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sda5 /media/download

it reports:


mount: the special device /dev/sda5 does not exist

output of /etc/fstab:


# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# -- This file has been automaticly generated by ntfs-config --
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=203e112a-7913-4500-b84f-bb60ba20d555 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# Entry for /dev/sdb3 :
UUID=74b2f489-c6be-4b25-9305-976bf92e34cb /media/archivio ext3 relatime 0 2
/media/download ext3 relatime 0 2 0
/media/windows ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb2 :
UUID=32371871-cb17-45fd-b949-f5604c47f79d none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0


NOTABLY adding the "all_generic_ide" option to /boot/grub/menu.lst makes hardy recognize the partitions on the ide drive , but i experience slow system and complete lockups

argh, someone help me !

-----------
SOLUTION
-----------

Today we discovered on launchpad the final solution:

the ide cable!

the new modules absolutely require a 80-wire ide cable (the one with coloured pins), everyone of us who experienced this bug had 40-wire ide-cables...

...and of course a good cable plugging (blue plug on motherboard, gray on slave and black on master) and a correct setting of the jumpers of the hard disks (disk set as master if it is connected to the black plug of the cable, ecc ecc).

A manually setting of the dma speed and pio mode in the motherboard bios is also a good idea.

Best regards.

Pumalite
April 26th, 2008, 01:49 PM
If you are able to boot a Live CD, post:
sudo fdisk -l

slayer^_^
April 26th, 2008, 02:01 PM
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd624f0be

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2791 22418612 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 2792 3041 2008092 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 3042 30401 219769168 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x90399039

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1804 14490598+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 1805 14946 105563115 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 1805 14946 105563083+ 83 Linux

this was generated by the hardy live cd - which doesn't see the partitions on the IDE drive although...

it sees a SCSI drive that is unable to mount

please note that this output gives inverted sda\sdb partitions because i set my IDE drive as slave on the first IDE channel (before it was master on the second)

thank you for your patience and time, pumalite :)

Pumalite
April 26th, 2008, 02:08 PM
This is your pr4oblem. Take a look:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=567907

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=593615&page=2

I'd make sure SATA is the first drive. Intall both OS's in that drive and keep the other one for storage or separate /home.

slayer^_^
April 26th, 2008, 02:13 PM
ok, but gutsy recognized my ide partitions as hdx and gutsy worked fine with it...

how can i be sure that my ide partitions would work, even if only archive-used under hardy?

what makes me perplexed is that the boot-command all_generic_ide makes hardy recognize those IDE partitions (even if this leads to system lock-ups and loss of performance)

maybe the solution is going back to gutsy?

Pumalite
April 26th, 2008, 02:16 PM
I love Hardy, but my philosophy has always been: if you like an OS and it works well for you; then, stick to it.

slayer^_^
April 26th, 2008, 02:19 PM
sorry, i don't get it...

you mean that installing both OSes in the SATA drive would let Hardy recognize the IDE drive as ide or just let me use those partitions?

Pumalite
April 26th, 2008, 02:24 PM
That I cannot promise you. That's to be seen after the installation.

slayer^_^
April 26th, 2008, 02:34 PM
mmm ok... i've googled a lot and i've found many issues about the fact that the ide=sata option leads many users not to be able to install hardy because they got ide cd-rom devices (that's why the canonical guidelines suggest to apply the all_generic_ide boto option to be able to install hardy).

what makes me think is that, after every fresh install, the GRUB pointed the ubuntu partition to the wrong hard drive; after i changed the ide hard drive from master to slave the hd order changed again (to the order that was correct according to the grub as set after the fresh install..).

The problem is not GRUB itself, yet the fact that i am not able to use the IDE drive...

Hardy live cd doesn't see that ide drive, but during the installation i can see teh partitions... the problem is the same...

I will try a last hardy installation, then I'll go back to Gutsy 'til this bug is fixed, even if I am very sorry, after a such long wait...

Many thanx again for your help :)

slayer^_^
May 13th, 2008, 08:48 PM
my solution is here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/213639

Pumalite
May 13th, 2008, 09:50 PM
Glad you got it working!

slayer^_^
June 5th, 2008, 09:55 PM
i saw you're tuned in many posts with errors like this. Well, today we discovered on launchpad the final solution:

the ide cable!

the new modules absolutely require a 80-wire ide cable (the one with coloured pins), everyone of us who experienced this bug had 40-wire ide-cables...

...and of course a good cable plugging (blue plug on motherboard, gray on slave and black on master) and a correct setting of the jumpers of the hard disks (disk set as master if it is connected to the black plug of the cable, ecc ecc).

A manually setting of the dma speed and pio mode in the motherboard bios is also a good idea.

Best regards.

Pumalite
June 5th, 2008, 10:24 PM
An inquisitive mind is great to have.

harleythunder
June 6th, 2008, 04:38 PM
I encountered what seems to be a similar problem with a new machine I built this past week; two new SATA drives for Ubuntu & Windows dual-boot with an IDE drive (from an older machine) to use for downloads, backup of /home, etc.

My MSI P7N Diamond motherboard and Ubuntu 'insist' on making the IDE drive primary even though I installed Windows first on the first SATA disk. The initial install of Ubuntu went OK and I could dual boot. But upon an Ubuntu system update, Ubuntu tried to make the IDE drive the active boot drive but there's no grub there...and in the process the upgrade corrupted the SATA MBR such that I had to reinstall both Windows and Ubuntu.

The only solution I was able to settle on was to remove the IDE drive from the system.

Anyone know how to tell their system to ignore the IDE drive at boot time and during Ubuntu system updates? I found nothing in the BIOS config.

Pumalite
June 6th, 2008, 04:52 PM
This is good reading:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-644661.html