[gentoo-user] Grub Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

[gentoo-user] Grub Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

[Grant Edwards]

I just did an install onto a machine with a single internal IDE
hard drive.  hda1 is Win2K (NTFS), hda2 is swap, hda3 is Gentoo
root (ext3).

I was following the "quick install" doc, and everything went
fine until I got to the section on installing grub.  After
emerging grub, the "root" command failed:

  grub> root (hd0,2)

  Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

I tried hd0,hd1,hd2,hd3 with various paritions from 0 to 2 and
always got an Error 21.  The drive is recognized correctly by
the BIOS, and Win2K boots and runs fine.  I rebooted and
chroot'ed several times and always got Error 21.

So, I downloaded a Grub CD from http://www.supergrubdisk.org/.
The grub on the CD recognized the disk and all partitions
correctly and installed just fine using the normal procedure:

   root (hd0,2)
   setup (hd0)

I rebooted, and everything works great.

Any ideas on why grub couldn't see any hard drives when it was
run from the 2008.0 minimal install CD's chroot'ed environment?
I've done dozens of Gentoo installs, and I've never seen this
problem before.

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Grub Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

[Mick]

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On Saturday 17 January 2009, Grant Edwards wrote:
> I just did an install onto a machine with a single internal IDE
> hard drive.  hda1 is Win2K (NTFS), hda2 is swap, hda3 is Gentoo
> root (ext3).
>
> I was following the "quick install" doc, and everything went
> fine until I got to the section on installing grub.  After
> emerging grub, the "root" command failed:
>
>   grub> root (hd0,2)
>
>   Error 21: Selected disk does not exist
>
> I tried hd0,hd1,hd2,hd3 with various paritions from 0 to 2 and
> always got an Error 21.  The drive is recognized correctly by
> the BIOS, and Win2K boots and runs fine.  I rebooted and
> chroot'ed several times and always got Error 21.
>
> So, I downloaded a Grub CD from http://www.supergrubdisk.org/.
> The grub on the CD recognized the disk and all partitions
> correctly and installed just fine using the normal procedure:
>
>    root (hd0,2)
>    setup (hd0)
>
> I rebooted, and everything works great.
>
> Any ideas on why grub couldn't see any hard drives when it was
> run from the 2008.0 minimal install CD's chroot'ed environment?
> I've done dozens of Gentoo installs, and I've never seen this
> problem before.

Did you try tab completion at:

grub> root (     <--tab

Had you chrooted properly at the time and could you see the grub fs 
under /boot/grub ?.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Grub Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

[Nicolas Sebrecht]

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 05:31:22PM +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

> I was following the "quick install" doc, and everything went
> fine until I got to the section on installing grub.  After
> emerging grub, the "root" command failed:
> 
>   grub> root (hd0,2)
> 
>   Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

Did you try it on a chroot system ? If so, did you have access on /dev
/proc and /sys inside the chroot ?

-- 
Nicolas Sebrecht

[gentoo-user] Re: Grub Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-17, Nicolas Sebrecht <nicolas.s-dev@laposte.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 05:31:22PM +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> I was following the "quick install" doc, and everything went
>> fine until I got to the section on installing grub.  After
>> emerging grub, the "root" command failed:
>> 
>>   grub> root (hd0,2)
>> 
>>   Error 21: Selected disk does not exist
>
> Did you try it on a chroot system?

Yes, that was in the chroot'ed system.

> If so, did you have access on /dev /proc and /sys inside the
> chroot?

I thought so.  Everything else seemed to work.  I definitely
checked to make sure /proc was mounted -- I cut/pasted the
commands from the quick-install web page (changing sda to hda).

But, now that you mention it, something in /dev was wrong
because the first time I booted Gentoo off hda2, the "issue"
message that's displayed before the login prompt gave
instructions on how to fix /dev.  I never figured out what
exactly was wrong, but following the instructions fixed it.

It took me a while to get to that point since I tripped over
the grub bug that displays a blank menu and then corrupts the
console. Apparently there's something wrong with the
splash.xpm.gz file, and you have to comment out the splashcreen
line in menu.lst.

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Grub Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-01-17, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 17 January 2009, Grant Edwards wrote:

>>   grub> root (hd0,2)
>>
>>   Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

> Did you try tab completion at:
>
> grub> root (     <--tab

Nope, I didn't know about tab completion.  And now that I've
got grub installed and Gentoo is booted, it's working fine.  I
think something was broken in /dev

> Had you chrooted properly at the time and could you see the grub fs 
> under /boot/grub ?.

I cut/pasted the commands from the quick install guide to do
the chroot.  And I rebooted and chroot'ed twice just to make
sure.

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Grub Error 21: Selected disk does not exist

[Mick]

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On Saturday 17 January 2009, Grant Edwards wrote:

> But, now that you mention it, something in /dev was wrong
> because the first time I booted Gentoo off hda2, the "issue"
> message that's displayed before the login prompt gave
> instructions on how to fix /dev.  I never figured out what
> exactly was wrong, but following the instructions fixed it.
>
> It took me a while to get to that point since I tripped over
> the grub bug that displays a blank menu and then corrupts the
> console. Apparently there's something wrong with the
> splash.xpm.gz file, and you have to comment out the splashcreen
> line in menu.lst.

The path of the splash.xpm.gz has to be correct or you'll get problems booting 
up.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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