My 2TB Hard Drive Wont Boot in Ubuntu 10.04

[alexandr frei]

Hai,

I am Alexander from Indonesia.
I've been stressed out 4 days before to now, because my boss give me 2x2TB Harddrive and ask me to RAID 1 in Ubuntu 10.04.

I created :
150 MB for reserved BIOS Grub boot OFF
15GB swap area boot OFF
/ 2TB boot on

The Installation went well, until I rebooted the system after installed. My IBM x3400 Server cannot boot from the Ubuntu i've just installed.

Please help me.

[darkod]

Is this hardware raid or software raid?

Also, why don't you use the latest 12.04 LTS version? The 10.04 LTS will be out of support in less than a year.

[alexandr frei]

i already used 12.04 LTS ubuntu server,
but same result, still cannot boot after fresh install.

I tried software Raid in ubuntu.

my Harddrive is IBM Internal Harddrive

[darkod]

OK, so this is a server version? You didn't specify that also.

When it asked you where to install the bootloader, did you select the disk MBR (like /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc) or the raid array device? You might be missing the bootloader on the correct place. That would definitely prevent it booting.

You can also try running the boot-repair utility which in most cases can fix bootloader issues. Or just use that utility to create the boot info results and post the link it provides, so we can see more details.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

[alexandr frei]

OK, so this is a server version? You didn't specify that also.

When it asked you where to install the bootloader, did you select the disk MBR (like /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc) or the raid array device? You might be missing the bootloader on the correct place. That would definitely prevent it booting.

You can also try running the boot-repair utility which in most cases can fix bootloader issues. Or just use that utility to create the boot info results and post the link it provides, so we can see more details.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

i didnt set RAID directly,
i attached 1 Harddrive 2TB for the first time, because the last time I set software RAID with the both 2TB hard drive didn'n boot also.

How can I set boot loader on /dev/sda ?
I remembered when at finishing the installation of ubuntu server, it asked me to install MBR and i chose yes.

I will try the bootrepair also tommorow. I will update the answer soon, thanks

[darkod]

When was the last time you tried the raid, recently or long time ago?

If you tried long time ago, I think you should try again now. Trying with only one disk will not do much good since you need it to work with raid, not with a single disk.

Try the boot-repair and lets see. I will also do a test in virtual box for this setup and I might find something.

[oldfred]

If you have only one drive, you should not turn RAID on. And if you did it may have written meta-data onto drive that interferes with the install as it will then only install in RAID mode.

If you are sure you do not want RAID, the alternative installer is not a liveCD, so you will also need a liveCD to run these commands:
Presence1960 on remove old raid setting from HD
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1325650
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sdb
Also check BIOS for raid settings
More discusion:
http://wwww.ubuntuforums.org/showthr...38#post9274738

The newer version of Ubuntu automatically converts to gpt with drives somewhat over 1TB, I do not think the old version did that, but if you tried 12.04 first, you may have converted to gpt?

With very large hard drives and a default install, grub had a bug, where it just seems to get lost when some files may be near the beginning of the drive and others near the end. Often a smaller system partition of 25GB or separate /boot and make the rest of the drive /home or a data partition(s) then works well.

Do you want new gpt or MBR. With 2TB you can use either. Only drives over 2TB have to be gpt. But with gpt and booting from BIOS have to have a separate 1MB bios_grub partition.

From Boot-Repair post the link it creates when you run the Boot-Info from advanced options.

[alexandr frei]

If you have only one drive, you should not turn RAID on. And if you did it may have written meta-data onto drive that interferes with the install as it will then only install in RAID mode.

If you are sure you do not want RAID, the alternative installer is not a liveCD, so you will also need a liveCD to run these commands:
Presence1960 on remove old raid setting from HD
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1325650
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sdb
Also check BIOS for raid settings
More discusion:
http://wwww.ubuntuforums.org/showthr...38#post9274738

The newer version of Ubuntu automatically converts to gpt with drives somewhat over 1TB, I do not think the old version did that, but if you tried 12.04 first, you may have converted to gpt?

With very large hard drives and a default install, grub had a bug, where it just seems to get lost when some files may be near the beginning of the drive and others near the end. Often a smaller system partition of 25GB or separate /boot and make the rest of the drive /home or a data partition(s) then works well.

Do you want new gpt or MBR. With 2TB you can use either. Only drives over 2TB have to be gpt. But with gpt and booting from BIOS have to have a separate 1MB bios_grub partition.

From Boot-Repair post the link it creates when you run the Boot-Info from advanced options.

I know RAID need 2 or more harddrive.
I just want to test where the problem was. Because last time (3 days ago) i tested installing ubuntu server 10.04 with 2x2TB Harddrive attached, won't boot after fresh install.

So I tried with 1 harddrive first with the capacity 2TB, reinstalled ubuntu server 10.04 again and same problem happened . Still cannot boot.

I really dont understand gpt and MBR, where can i see if i use gpt or MBR?

so what should i do next?
what about my partition before?

I created :
150 MB for reserved BIOS Grub boot OFF
15GB swap area boot OFF
/ 2TB ext4, boot ON

i haven't tested the boot-repair, because now i am not in my office. 3 hours from now i will be there at my office.

[darkod]

One easy way to check for gpt or msdos (mbr) partition table, is with parted. In terminal, from live mode or from an installed system, run:
sudo parted /dev/sda print

That will print data about disk /dev/sda. You can also do it for /dev/sdb, etc.

In the details, towards the top part, it will say if the partition table is gpt or msdos.

If you use gpt the disk will need to have a small partition without any filesystem and with the bios_grub flag set, so that grub2 can install properly. Maybe this is stopping it install correctly. With msdos table you don't need this partition.

[alexandr frei]

One easy way to check for gpt or msdos (mbr) partition table, is with parted. In terminal, from live mode or from an installed system, run:
sudo parted /dev/sda print

That will print data about disk /dev/sda. You can also do it for /dev/sdb, etc.

In the details, towards the top part, it will say if the partition table is gpt or msdos.

If you use gpt the disk will need to have a small partition without any filesystem and with the bios_grub flag set, so that grub2 can install properly. Maybe this is stopping it install correctly. With msdos table you don't need this partition.

i arrived at my office now, and will try all of your and oldfred suggestion,
i will update soon