Mageia forum

Primary IDE master = boot hard disk.
Secondary IDE master = dvd drive (to boot install media with)
Third IDE master/slave = non-linux partitions
Fourth IDE master = linux home

So I boot the Mageia 1 DVD and complete the install to sda. Upon reboot, I get

Grub Loading stage 1.5

Grub loading, please wait...
Error 15

I try several things with the rescue system and get nowhere. Eventually I find https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GrubHowto/BootFloppy and make a boot floppy. I figure drives are enumerating differently when the DVD drive is the boot device.

I boot the floppy. My /boot/grub/menu.lst file says:

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=<snipped> resume=UUID=<snipped> splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.img

This is both on the floppy and on the disk. I find out that when booting by floppy, grub seems to have (hd0) and (hd1) swapped because `cat (hd0,0)/<TAB> shows me files on /home instead of /boot, and because cat (hd1,0)/<TAB> shows me files on /boot. I change hd0 to hd1 in the above menu.lst entry and then the system starts the hard drive OS just fine as long as the floppy is booted. Its menu.lst contains:

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=<snipped> resume=UUID=<snipped> splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd1,0)/initrd.img

I edit the hd copy of menu.lst to match the floppy version. I still get:

Grub Loading stage 1.5

Grub loading, please wait...
Error 15

I know that the HD /boot is properly set up with linux and initrd.img pointing to legitimate files.
I know that the HD /boot/grub stage files are ok because they are where I got the files to make the boot floppy.

What I don't know is how to get the HD to boot so I don't have to use the boot floppy.

The DVD is where it is because this BIOS won't boot off of it if it is on the third or fourth IDE controllers.

Anyone have a clue how to help me figure this one out? What other information might help?

This is a Tyan 2840 Thunder K8S motherboard with an AMD Opteron Processor 142. It is an AMI BIOS. The complication of the install is more than likely related to the presence of a Promise Technology, Inc. 20269 (Ultra TX-133) IDE controller. It appears that it is enumerated first for some reason so that /dev/sda is on this controller instead of the mainboard primary controller. In this case, it was difficult to realize what was going on since the disks being used were both Maxtor drives not easily distinguished from each other from the perspective of the installer or booted system.

Grub on the other hand, saw the boot/root disk on controller three as (hd1), and the disk on the primary controller as hd(0). Two other disks on controller 4 were seen as (hd2) and (hd3).

I ended up getting rid of Error 15 by doing a grub setup on (hd1), but this did not fix the boot issues. Instead the system hung with the last message being Grub Loading stage 1.5.

With desperation approaching, I moved the DVD drive back over to controller 4, moved the controller 4 disks to controller 3, and the controller 3 disk to controller 2 to see if things would get better. In this case I still got the stage 1.5 issues, but the floppy still booted the system, so I was able to see that boot/root was on sdd rather than sda is it had been before. sdd! That means it was on controller 2. All this time the system had needed to boot off of controller 3 instead of the mainboard primary as I would have thought it should. At this point I swapped the boot/root drive on controller 2 with the home drive on controller 1 and reset the /boot/grub/menu.lst back to "normal" so everything referred to (hd0) instead of (hd1).

Bingo. The system boots from disk. The mainboard primary IDE controller is /dev/sdc and the mainboard secondary IDE controller is /dev/sdd. Go figure.

I have a vague memory that in ages past I have had to put some special magic in the menu.lst file for Promise controllers... It might have been possible to boot the drives on it if I remembered what it was, but I think after a day+ of troubleshooting this one, I'm going to just accept that it works as is.

Actually, it is an Ultra 133/TX2 Promise controller. Also, it is not possible to boot the DVD in this configuration (with it on the Promise Controller). The DVD drive is not selectable in the BIOS setup boot priority list, nor is is selectable in the F8 BIOS Boot Selection menu. Perhaps some more moving drives around is required. /:-/

Not that much work. Simply swapping the disk on controller 2 with the DVD on controller 4 still boots and now the DVD is bootable. What I needed to do during install was put boot/root and the bootloader on /dev/sdc instead of /sda and I probably would have not had any of this misery. How unfortunate that the disks were the same brand and size so that it was not obvious which was which during install!