Thanks for responding - see below On Wednesday 05 October 2005 19:00, Peter Sjoberg wrote: > On Wed, 2005-10-05 at 17:59 -0400, Alex @ Avantel Systems wrote: > > On Wednesday 05 October 2005 17:31, you wrote: > > > On Wed, Oct 05, 2005 at 12:13:47AM -0400, Alex @ Avantel Systems wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > At that point the system complains that no operating system was > > > > found. I'm assuming that the disks are not found because if I use > > > > linux rescue, the disks can't be found and the installer can't find > > > > any trace of the bootloader. > > > > > > "No operating system found" usually means that the BIOS can't find a > > > bootable OS. GRUB hasn't even entered the picture at this point. Are > > > you sure your BIOS can boot off this drive? > > > > Yes - I had it working with RH7.2 and was able to do that with a default > > install. > > > > Isn't there a step in between - initrd - which loads the drivers needed > > to access the disk? If the correct drivers aren't available the disks > > can't be seen. > > Simplified you can say that > Bios scans disks > Bios decided what disk to boot from > Bios loads the MBR from the disk > CPU jumps to the bootstrap loader in the MBR where it finds GRUB > grub starts it's stuff and boots os > > Since it worked before the scan disk part should be ok > If the Bios can't find a valid MBR on the disk it normally stops with > "no os found" (and the original IBM PC did jump to ROM BASIC). > If the MBR is ok then grub starts but if Grub can't find the menu it > will stop at a prompt, not a "OS not found" message. The message I get is ; Operating System not found > If you are using LILO it will start printing out L I L O and if it > fails it stops, a little like an error code. If it just prints LI (the > most common problem) it can't find the kernel, probably because you > moved the file on the disk. I'm using grub > > Exactly what message do you see ? The message may vary depending on the > bios flavour and another possibility is that you somehow use an old MS > disk where the MBR still is intact. If that's the case it will go on to > the MBR but when it fails to find MSDOS.SYS it prints out something like > "no os found". Hmmm -that's close to what I get - how would I confirm that the old MBR is still intact (more below) > > Assuming it was a problem for grub to write down the MBR in the right > place you can fix that from rescue but exactly how depends a little on > why it failed. > > What dos /boot/grub/device.map look like ? > Should at least contain > > (hd0) /dev/sda Yes, that and the equivalent for the floppy > > If so you should be able to do something like > > grub --device-map=/boot/grub/device.map --batch <<EOF > install (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 p > (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst quit > EOF OK did that and success was claimed but I'm not convinced . . . been there before with raid problems. > > to write a good MBR. > > > The default install couldn't see the disks either - I had to load the > > modules manually and then the install was able to complete OK. > > > > Assuming that some specific modules are needed to see the disks, how do I > > fix that? I'm assuming I need a different set of drivers in initrd but > > how do I get there from here? > > mkinitrd /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r) > You may have to add "--with=the_module_you_loaded" to get it right Tried that too, also with; "--with=aic7xxx" and also tried "--preload=aic7xxx" with and without "--onit-raid-modules" Also tried using a boot floppy by copying stage 1&2 . That just gave me the grub prompt. I feel like I'm really close to solving this yet I'm just as far as when I started - can't boot. Any Ideas? TIA Alex ==== > > > Alex > > ==== > > > > > I don't really know what to suggest though. One workaround if you have > > > a floppy drive is to always use a boot disk, but since the Fedora disks > > > don't detect your disks automatically, you'll probably need to create > > > one by hand. If you're familiar with compiling kernels, 'make zdisk' > > > is one way to go. > > > > > > Good luck! > > > Jody > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > Techwiz, Peter Sjoberg PGP key (12F506C8) on keyserver & homepage > Key fingerprint = 3DC2 CEBA 1590 B41A 3780 955A DB42 02BB 12F5 06C8 > mailto:peters AT techwiz.ca http://www.techwiz.ca/~peters -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Avantel Systems, and is believed to be clean.