Mixing SATA and PATA HDDs and M3B2 issues.

[rc10b]

My desktop PC is set up with two SATA drives in the following configuration:

SATA-1

1st partition WinXP ntfs /dev/sda1
2nd partition Mageia2 / ext4 /dev/sda2
3rd partition Mageia2 swap swap /dev/sda3
4th partition Mageia2 /home ext4 /dev/sda4

SATA-2

1st partition Data ntfs /dev/sdb1
2nd partition Cauldron(1) / ext4 /dev/sdb2
3rd partition Cauldron(1) /home ext4 /dev/sdb3
4th partition Cauldron(2) / ext4 /dev/sdb4

SATA-1 is set in the bios to be the first boot disk and SATA-2 to be second.
Grub for Mageia2 is installed on the mbr of SATA-1 and I use the menu.lst in Mageia2
to boot into WinXP, Cauldron(1) or Cauldron(2).
Grubs for Cauldron(1) and Cauldron(2) are installed on their respective / partitions.

Now comes the issue.

I have now added a PATA disk, containing one ntfs partition, which I intended to use
purely as a data disk, so that I could free up the 1st partition on SATA-2. In the bios
I have set the PATA disk to be the third boot disk, so in theory it should never be
used to boot.

Now, when I boot into Mageia2 I see the same structure as above with the addition
of the PATA disk as /dev/sdc, which is as it should be. But if I boot into either
Cauldron (1) or (2), the PATA disk is shown as /dev/sda and SATA-1 disk is now /dev/sdb
and SATA-2 disk is now /dev/sdc. This did not, however, affect booting from the mbr of
SATA-1.

BUT, this causes grub (installed on the / partitions) to identify the disks as follows:
SATA-1 = (hd1) and SATA-2 = (hd2), and presumably (hd0) = PATA. The SATA disks should be
(hd0) and (hd1) respectively, confirmed by booting into Mageia2. (I have left out the
partition references to try to simplify things )

In itself this is not a problem until a new kernel gets installed in, for example
Cauldron(1), when the disk references in it's menu.lst get changed from (hd1) to (hd2)
and this results in me being unable to boot into Cauldron(1) because in the Mageia2
menu.lst it is still referring to Cauldron(1) being on (hd1) not (hd2).

I have edited the device.map to try and overcome this issue but with no success.
The basic question is, why does grub installed on / partitions see the the PATA disk
differently/incorrectly to grub installed on the mbr ?

Sorry for this long post but I have spent a long time and have tried numerous
configurations to try and solve this issue and can't understand what is going wrong.
I might even be convinced to move to grub2, if anyone can convince me that it would
overcome the issue.

27feb2013: Edited title to remove reference to grub(legacy)
Steve

[Lebarhon]

Hello,
Doing that, it seams you have more than 4 main partitions, 2 on each SATA and one on the PATA? That is impossible.

[rc10b]

Not sure what you mean by "main partitions".
The only limitation that I know of is a maximum of four primary partitions on one disk ? I have not exceeded this limitation.

Steve

[filip]

Now, when I boot into Mageia2 I see the same structure as above with the addition
of the PATA disk as /dev/sdc, which is as it should be. But if I boot into either
Cauldron (1) or (2), the PATA disk is shown as /dev/sda and SATA-1 disk is now /dev/sdb
and SATA-2 disk is now /dev/sdc. This did not, however, affect booting from the mbr of
SATA-1.

This should be a matter of kernel and modules not grub.

BUT, this causes grub (installed on the / partitions) to identify the disks as follows:
SATA-1 = (hd1) and SATA-2 = (hd2), and presumably (hd0) = PATA. The SATA disks should be
(hd0) and (hd1) respectively, confirmed by booting into Mageia2.

This is known fault of grub legacy and the only thing you can do at least AFAIK is to find some workarounds. To warn you a bit more: there might be such a difference also in native grub and grub-console.

Doing that, it seams you have more than 4 main partitions, 2 on each SATA and one on the PATA? That is impossible.

It is. It's not possible to have more than 4 primary partitions in one HD.

[rc10b]

Some progress

Having written down the issue it became clear that I was in fact comparing a Mageia2 installation with two Cauldron(M3B2) installations. So I replaced my Cauldron(2) installation with a Mageia2 installation. The result is that this second M2 installation behaves the same as my first M2 installation, correctly identifying the IDE disk as /dev/sdc. The Cauldron(1) installation still identifies the IDE disk as /dev/sda. I have updated the kernel in the new M2 installation and it worked correctly. I have rebooted my second M2 installation a number of times now with the same results.

So, it would appear that something has changed in Cauldron(M3B2). I know that the grub in M2 is 0.97-32.mga1 and in Cauldron(M3B2) it's 0.97-38.mga3, which to my simple mind looks like it could be the culprit but there are so many different package versions in M3B2 that I'm probably being too simplistic.

I have opened a bug report for this issue and will see what happens.
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9187

Steve

[filip]

Maybe this or other topics on grub can help?

[rc10b]

Thanks for the link filip but that thread seems mainly concerned with grub2 and/or Ubuntu.

I have realised now that my issue is that CauldronM3B2 is not behaving the same as Mageia2 in terms of identifying my PATA disk. This has led to my boot process getting screwed when a new kernel was installed in the Cauldron install on my second SATA disk.

I have raised the bug report to see if this change can get rectified before the release of M3.

I will change my title (if I can) to "Mixing SATA and PATA HHDs and M3B2", removing the reference to grub(legacy).

Steve

[barjac]

Hi Steve,
I have replied to your bug report, thanks to filip contacting me directly, although I had already read this thread and cringed at the thought of trying to untangle the mess you are in.

[rc10b]

Hi Barry,

Thanks for taking the time to look at my problem.
I do intend to re-organise my SATA disks so that I can use the PATA disk as my common data disk for my WinXP and Mageia/Cauldron installations, so I may well take up your offer to help in the near future.

I do understand what is happening and can work around it by restoring the correct disk assignments after a kernel upgrade has changed them. But I don't want to have to do this every time there is a kernel change. What really perplexes me is why Mageia2 consistently recognises the PATA as sdc but M3B2 consistently shows it as sda. To me this indicates something has changed in M3B2.
Have you any thoughts about that ?

I have read a lot of threads/dev mailing lists about grub/grub2 and see that you have a lot of experience with grub2. For me this has become more of a learning exercise than a problem, are you willing to communicate using PM so as not to overburden this thread ?
If an answer is found, I would of course report back here.

Steve

[barjac]

Hi Barry,

Thanks for taking the time to look at my problem.
I do intend to re-organise my SATA disks so that I can use the PATA disk as my common data disk for my WinXP and Mageia/Cauldron installations, so I may well take up your offer to help in the near future.

OK no problem

I do understand what is happening and can work around it by restoring the correct disk assignments after a kernel upgrade has changed them. But I don't want to have to do this every time there is a kernel change. What really perplexes me is why Mageia2 consistently recognises the PATA as sdc but M3B2 consistently shows it as sda. To me this indicates something has changed in M3B2.
Have you any thoughts about that ?

Not really - it's probably something along the lines that Philippe was talking, but I really don't know and it has never concerned me since I moved my master bootloader to grub2

I have read a lot of threads/dev mailing lists about grub/grub2 and see that you have a lot of experience with grub2. For me this has become more of a learning exercise than a problem, are you willing to communicate using PM so as not to overburden this thread ?

Well my experience with grub/grub2 is just that. I am not a coder, but decided to learn about and use grub2 in Mandriva before Mageia, so it's all just practical experience picked up along the way.
Best to keep it in the open - that way everyone gets a chance to chip in and help/learn.

If an answer is found, I would of course report back here.

Steve

I really don't think it's worth spending too much time looking for an answer - device assignments are unreliable and change with the wind. Just avoid the problem entirely as I suggested in the bug
I have today started writing a short "howto" on setting up a master grub2 bootloader partition. I'll paste it somewhere when it's done and post a link.

[rc10b]

Not really - it's probably something along the lines that Philippe was talking, but I really don't know and it has never concerned me since I moved my master bootloader to grub2

OK, I'll see how the bug report progresses.

Best to keep it in the open - that way everyone gets a chance to chip in and help/learn.

OK again.

I really don't think it's worth spending too much time looking for an answer - device assignments are unreliable and change with the wind. Just avoid the problem entirely as I suggested in the bug
I have today started writing a short "howto" on setting up a master grub2 bootloader partition. I'll paste it somewhere when it's done and post a link.

My working disk is SATA1 and I really don't want to risk messing it up, I've just just moved the WinXP and M2 installs from an old PC to this one and it took me quite a while to set it all up, mainly because of WinXP , and I don't want to have to do it again.
However I am willing to wipe my SATA2, temporarily disconnecting the SATA1 disk, but leave the PATA disk connected, to carry out your bootloader option, when your howto is ready. I will need to do a bit of housekeeping and backup before I can start.

One question, I have my WinXP on the first partition of SATA1. Do I understand that your proposed grub2 bootloader partition would have to be inserted before the WinXP partition when/if I decide to carry out the process on SATA1, sounds a bit risky to me

Steve

[barjac]

You don't need to wipe anything. It probably won't make any difference where you place the small master boot partition since your drives are all small.
I would suggest using your PATA drive for the master. You can shrink it slightly to fit the 50MB partition at the end, although gparted in Cauldron can shrink it and move it up to create the space at the start.
Putting it at the start makes it easy to remember where it is and also avoids any potential problems with some older bioses not being able to boot beyond a certain point on large drives.
I personally would not disconnect anything to do this, but obviously take care which drive you are working on Nothing should be touched on any other drive - only the one used as master.
It would be useful to see RESULTS.txt from http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinf ... les/latest to get a better idea of your setup as it is now. Maybe you could pastebin it? If you don't want it public (although I don't think it contains anything sensitive) you could PM me.

In the meantime why not try installing grub2 in Cauldron? (# urpmi grub2) It's painless and will NOT change your system boot in any way. There are simple instructions in /usr/share/doc/grub2/README.Mageia explaining how to test it by adding an entry to your existing Mageia /boot/grub/menu.lst.
To clarify, Grub2 is installed alongside grub legacy and does not conflict with it, so this may be done without risk. (N.B. Do not use mcc -> boot to switch over to grub2 as this will make a permanent changeover which is not what you want at this stage.)

[rc10b]

I've run the bootinfoscript and PM'd the RESULTS.txt file to you.
As an aside, scanning through it revealed why I was getting a slow boot into Cauldron3, which I've now fixed

I've taken up your suggestion and installed grub2 (I chose to also install the grub2-mageia-them) to Cauldron , added the item to my menu.lst, as per the instructions and used the new entry to successfully boot into Cauldron. Although, I must add that after selecting the menu item in the grub2 menu screen the process was not as "clean" as using grub(legacy), with scrolling text and a few flashes on and off but it got there in the end.

[barjac]

I've run the bootinfoscript and PM'd the RESULTS.txt file to you.
As an aside, scanning through it revealed why I was getting a slow boot into Cauldron3, which I've now fixed

Great!

I've taken up your suggestion and installed grub2 (I chose to also install the grub2-mageia-them) to Cauldron , added the item to my menu.lst, as per the instructions and used the new entry to successfully boot into Cauldron. Although, I must add that after selecting the menu item in the grub2 menu screen the process was not as "clean" as using grub(legacy), with scrolling text and a few flashes on and off but it got there in the end.

Yes, that's still being worked on, but as long as it gets there then it's fine.

OK next step is to make sure that all your root partitions have labels. This can be done from diskdrake.
For now give Mageia2 the label "mageia-2" and mageia3 the label "mageia-3".

Now put a copy of the Mageia2 legacy bootloader in it's root partition boot sector using the grub shell:-
Boot into mageia2 and...

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$ su
# grub
grub> root (hd1,1)      (check that it's sdb2 from within mga2 if not change it)
grub> setup (hd1,1)
grub> quit
#

Now reboot into Mga3 and edit (as root) /boot/grub2/custom.cfg by adding the following:-

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# boot Mga2 using it's label via chainload into it's legacy grub
menuentry 'Mageia 2' {
search --no-floppy --label --set=root mageia-2
chainloader +1
}

# boot Mga3 using it's label and multiboot directly into it's grub2 core.img
menuentry 'Mageia 3 Cauldron' {
search --no-floppy --label --set=root mageia-3
multiboot /boot/grub2/i386-pc/core.img
}

then while still root run:-

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# update-grub

Now when you re-boot Cauldron and select the grub2 menu from your legacy menu, you will see those new entries at the bottom. They should boot either Mageia 2 or Cauldron, and notice that there are no device assignments anywhere

See how that goes.

[rc10b]

Now put a copy of the Mageia2 legacy bootloader in it's root partition boot sector using the grub shell:-
Boot into mageia2 and...

Code: Select all

$ su
# grub
grub> root (hd1,1)      (check that it's sdb2 from within mga2 if not change it)
grub> setup (hd1,1)
grub> quit
#

For clarificarion, Mageia2 would then have grub(legacy) on the mbr (hd1), my original choice, and now also on it's / partition (hd1,1) ?

[barjac]

Yes, that's not a problem - it can be in both places.
Just to explain where this is headed.
We are building up some menu entries in custom.cfg that will demonstrate how grub2 can boot (eventually) all your systems. You will eventually be replacing the bootloader in the MBR with the new "master-grub2" bootloader on the small partition, so all your systems need to be able to boot by chainload or similar chained method.
Using custom.cfg is a painless way to test that it all works, it's content will eventually be removed and placed in your new grub.cfg in the master-grub2 partition.
Out of interest I wonder if you installed os-prober when you installed grub2?
If not, you could try it. Just install it and re-boot into your grub2 menu. You should now have entries for all your systems which you can test. If it works then fine, now uninstall it and re-boot. You will be back as before without all the confusing extra entries. We don't want to boot any of them from mga3 as we want to use master-grub2 for that

[rc10b]

os-prober was already installed.
It must have been installed when I first installed M3B1 but I then uninstalled grub2 https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4085 but I didn't uninstall os-prober.

I can see entries for all my os's but I obviously didn't realise that it was due to os-prober

I have now uninstalled os-prober and have only the Cauldron entry as predicted.
Do you still want me to carry out the chainload and multiboot process that you described in your previous post ?

Edited: 03mar13 to include more information.

[barjac]

Oh yes - the os-prober thing was just an aside.

[rc10b]

OK, I now have the two additional entries, 'Mageia 2' and 'Mageia 3 Cauldron', in the grub2 menu on Cauldron. I can boot into both but obviously booting into the 'Mageia 3 Cauldron' menu item is recursive at the moment.

In preparation I have created a 50MB, ext4 partition at the start of my IDE drive, is that OK ?

[barjac]

OK, I now have the two additional entries, 'Mageia 2' and 'Mageia 3 Cauldron', in the grub2 menu on Cauldron. I can boot into both but obviously booting into the 'Mageia 3 Cauldron' menu item is recursive at the moment.
In preparation I have created a 50MB, ext4 partition at the start of my IDE drive, is that OK ?

Good that's excellent. Make sure it is labelled as "master-grub2" now before continuing.
Let's add XP to the menu.
1. Give the XP partition the label "win-xp"
2. Add the following to /boot/grub2/custom.cfg

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menuentry 'Microsoft Windows XP' --class windows --class os {
   insmod part_msdos
   insmod ntfs
   search --no-floppy --label --set=root win-xp
   drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
   chainloader +1
}

menuentry 'Return to Master Menu' {
search --no-floppy --label --set=root master-grub2
multiboot /boot/grub2/i386-pc/core.img
}


EDIT - forgot to add here - run update-grub

And from within mga3 install grub2 to your new partition :-

Code: Select all

su
mkdir /master-grub2
mount -L master-grub2 /master-grub2
grub2-install --root-directory=/master-grub2 $(df|grep "master-grub2"|cut -d' ' -f1|tr -d [:digit:])

Note the extra entry (Return to Master Menu) - this will allow you to test your master-grub2 partition - but it will just drop to a grub2 shell for now.
To be continued...

[rc10b]

That went well, all my os's can now be booted from the grub2 menu
Awaiting the next instalment with baited breadth, anticipating that it will be the big changeover

[barjac]

That went well, all my os's can now be booted from the grub2 menu
Awaiting the next instalment with baited breadth, anticipating that it will be the big changeover

Yes - nearly there

OK, we are still missing some essential stuff needed in master-grub2.

Boot into Mga3 and mount master-grub2 (unless you have it in fstab)

Code: Select all

su
mount -L master-grub2 /master-grub2

then:

Code: Select all

cp -r /boot/grub2/fonts /master-grub2/boot/grub2/
touch /master-grub2/boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Now copy/paste this into /master-grub2/boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Code: Select all

# Delay in seconds before booting default option
set timeout=10

# Default option to boot counting from 0.
set default="0"

insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2

if loadfont unicode; then
  insmod all_video
  set gfxmode=1024x768
  insmod png
  insmod gfxterm
  terminal_output gfxterm
  insmod gfxmenu
fi

loadfont /boot/grub2/themes/maggy/DejaVuSans-Bold-14.pf2
loadfont /boot/grub2/themes/maggy/DejaVuSans-Bold-18.pf2
loadfont /boot/grub2/themes/maggy/DejaVuSans-Bold-24.pf2
set theme=/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/theme.txt
export theme

################################################
#Add menu items here
################################################

Now cut all the boot entries from /boot/grub2/custom.cfg except the "Return to Master Menu" entry, and paste them all into /master-grub2/boot/grub2/grub.cfg in the obvious place.

EDIT forgot say here to run update-grub after cutting those entries :\

I'm sure you are ahead of me here but thanks for playing along

Well - moment of truth I guess.

I'm assuming that you have a bios option on F11/F12 that allows you to boot a particular drive?
If so reboot and try selecting the IDE drive. Otherwise change the boot drive in bios and reboot.

I hope I forgot nothing

EDITED grub.cfg above to simplify it.

[rc10b]

Having carried out those instructions I can boot into the new grub2 menu list that is created by grub.cfg on the master-grub2 partition.
However I get mixed results when selecting those menu options:

Mageia 2, I get the following error:
grub loading stage 2
(hd0,1)/boot/gfxmenu: File not found

WinXP: Boots, no problems, ironic eh

Cauldron M3:
boots into the menu created in custom.cfg previously (I can tell because it shows the menu item for "Return to Master Menu") and I can then successfully boot into cauldron from there.

[barjac]

Yes - that's because it's still using legacy and the drive assignments have changed as seen by BIOS since you are now booting from a different drive. Same old problem.
So now it's time to install grub2 in Mageia 2 right ?
I will PM you with a link to my personal repo where I have built Mageia2 versions of grub2.

In the meantime you are probably a little disappointed with the theme-less master menu, so lets give it a theme.
In Mageia 3 do this (mount master-grub2 first if it's not already mounted in the usual place) :-

Code: Select all

su
cp -rf /boot/grub2/themes /master-grub2/boot/grub2/
rm -f /master-grub2/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/*.png
cp /usr/share/mga/backgrounds/Mageia-Default-1280x1024.png /master-grub2/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/
sed -i 's/Mageia Grub2 Boot Menu/Master Boot Menu/' /master-grub2/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/theme.txt
sed -i 's/title-color: \"#69F8FF\"/title-color: \"#FF0000"/' /master-grub2/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/theme.txt

Now copy the following just before the menu entries in /master-grub2/boot/grub2/grub.cfg :-

Code: Select all

loadfont ($root)/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/DejaVuSans-Bold-14.pf2
loadfont ($root)/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/DejaVuSans-Bold-18.pf2
loadfont ($root)/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/DejaVuSans-Bold-24.pf2
set theme=($root)/boot/grub2/themes/maggy/theme.txt
export theme

See how that goes

[rc10b]

I've been having fun I've set up a 4th os for multibooting into core.img and added it to the master-grub2 menu list.
Was the theme change applied to the master-grub2 screen or to the individual grub2 menu screens of the os's being booted. If the former I'm nor sure I saw any difference ?

Are there any more steps or can I ask a few more questions now ?