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subbob
October 6th, 2008, 03:18 AM
I have a desktop system with two existing partitions - Fedora & Windows XP.

Today I installed Ubuntu from CD. During installation I had to skip the grub install as it failed and could not write to the MBR.

My existing grub.conf (within Fedora) is listed below. I've tried adding a third menu item for Ubuntu, but keep getting partition errors.

During the installation, after skipping grub, I was informed I had to use "/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb9". My partitions are as listed below.

I can see the Ubuntu install with "mount /dev/hdb9 /mnt/test" - when I cd to /mnt/test the files are all there.

Any suggestions as to what I might have wrong?


fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 4865 39078081 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 38 305203+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 39 1950 15358140 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 1951 3225 10241437+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb4 3226 19457 130383540 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 3226 3862 5116671 83 Linux
/dev/hdb6 3863 4244 3068383+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb7 4245 4375 1052226 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb8 4376 19169 118832773+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb9 19170 19436 2144646 83 Linux
/dev/hdb10 19437 19457 168651 82 Linux swap


grub.conf

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb6
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=15
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
password --md5 $1$xx2PFKMO$D6VuAvz/JRCtgR5TdYMkO/
title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
title Ubuntu
root (hd1,8)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-server root=/dev/hdb9
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.24-19-server

linfidel
October 6th, 2008, 04:37 AM
I have a desktop system with two existing partitions - Fedora & Windows XP.

Today I installed Ubuntu from CD. During installation I had to skip the grub install as it failed and could not write to the MBR.

My existing grub.conf (within Fedora) is listed below. I've tried adding a third menu item for Ubuntu, but keep getting partition errors.

During the installation, after skipping grub, I was informed I had to use "/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb9". My partitions are as listed below.

I can see the Ubuntu install with "mount /dev/hdb9 /mnt/test" - when I cd to /mnt/test the files are all there.

Any suggestions as to what I might have wrong?


fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 4865 39078081 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 38 305203+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 39 1950 15358140 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 1951 3225 10241437+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb4 3226 19457 130383540 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 3226 3862 5116671 83 Linux
/dev/hdb6 3863 4244 3068383+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb7 4245 4375 1052226 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb8 4376 19169 118832773+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdb9 19170 19436 2144646 83 Linux
/dev/hdb10 19437 19457 168651 82 Linux swap
grub.conf

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb6
# initrd /initrd-version.img
. . .

It looks more or less OK to me, although you don't really want 2 linux swap drives - but I don't know what that would do, if anything.

Also, Ubuntu's kernel/initrd is usually in /boot, not the root. In fact, your grub.conf seems to indicate that it should be there, but still specifies the root directory. You might try going into the mounted Ubuntu partition, and cd to /boot to see if the kernels are there, and if so, change your grub.conf to kernel /boot/vmlinuz... and initrd /boot/initrd...

I'll admit that I'm a little confused by your setup.

subbob
October 6th, 2008, 04:48 AM
I'll admit that I'm a little confused by your setup.

:) So am I!

I will probably just go in and start from scratch, removing the Fedora first. It was an old install, I had a few things on there I wanted to keep, so thought I'd see if I could get it to work with three partitions.

Thanks for the suggestions. I didn't specify in my original message, but I had already tried with and without "/boot" prefix on those lines.