[arch-releng] Grub and ext4, error 2

[Jordy van Wolferen]

On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 13:42 -0600, Aaron Griffin wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Jordy van Wolferen <jordz at archlinux.us> wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Alexander De Sousa <aphanic at archlinux.us>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Sorry for replying this late, but I couldn't access inet this morning.
> >>
> >> I've performed more fresh installs and all tests passed for an ext4 boot
> >> partition. Everything seems to be ok.
> >> On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Jordy van Wolferen <jordz at archlinux.us>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Gerhard Brauer <gerbra at archlinux.de>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Am Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:14:11 +0100
> >>>> schrieb Jordy van Wolferen <jordz at archlinux.us>:
> >>>>
> >>>> > On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Aaron Griffin
> >>>> > <aaronmgriffin at gmail.com>wrote:
> >>>> >
> >>>> > > On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Jordy van Wolferen
> >>>> > > <jordz at archlinux.us> wrote:
> >>>> > > > On Mon, 2009-01-26 at 16:51 -0600, Aaron Griffin wrote:
> >>>> > > >> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Jordy van Wolferen
> >>>> > > >> <jordz at archlinux.us>
> >>>> > > wrote:
> >>>> > > >>
> >>>> > > >> To be clear: this is not an error booting the ISO, but an error
> >>>> > > >> booting the installed system?
> >>>> > > >>
> >>>> > > >> Grub error #2: http://www.uruk.org/orig-grub/errors.html#stage1_5
> >>>> > > >> "The selected disk doesn't exist"
> >>>> > > >>
> >>>> > > >> I imagine this is ext4 related. You are using grub and not
> >>>> > > >> grub-gfx, correct?
> >>>> > > >>
> >>>> > > >> Gerhard, any insight here? I, myself, haven't installed an ext4
> >>>> > > >> system, so I am not sure about this.
> >>>>
> >>>> No, i have seen no problems on my test installations when using the
> >>>> current versions (grub from core and grub-gfx from community). Both are
> >>>> on the same patch-level (bigger inode size patch and ext4 support
> >>>> patch).
> >>>>
> >>>> > I just tried doing the same ftp install with ext3 and I still got the
> >>>> > same error. Also the same error with a ext4 core install. So it must
> >>>> > be something from my side.
> >>>>
> >>>> Stage 1.5 (resp. Stage 2 error 2): Aaron posted a link on error codes
> >>>> where this error code is "Selected disk doesn't exist", on gnu.org
> >>>> grub site it says: "2 : Bad file or directory type".
> >>>> Have you ever had installed Arch and Grub on this system? So that you
> >>>> can say: this error is only on a new installation with the new isos?
> >>>>
> >>>> > I tried to change the root setting in grub and the kernel
> >>>> > root=/dev/sda1 parameter, instead of the UUID, but I still got the
> >>>> > same problem.
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe you could show us your disk(s) layout (fdisk -l) and grub's
> >>>> menu.lst (and the content of /boot/grub/device.map.
> >>>>
> >>>> Gerhard
> >>>
> >>> I installed Arch a couple of times on it before. I remember that I needed
> >>> to change root (hd0,0) to (hd1,0) or the other way around. Or that it can't
> >>> load the kernel, but than you can edit the grub entries or ofcourse remove
> >>> the other harddisk. But now it doesn't work and I never have seen the grub
> >>> error 2. Grub from Arch was running fine a few days ago.
> >>>
> >>> I tried disabling IDE in the bios after an installation, without success.
> >>> I'm going to try to do that before the installation. It has something to do
> >>> that I have both IDE and SATA .
> >>>
> >>> I found some info here:
> >>> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7137
> >>> I'm going to try that. What just hit me, is that I flashed my bios about
> >>> half a year ago, but after that it kept booting fine? Must be that now is
> >>> the first time I tried installing grub with the new bios. I don't think
> >>> there is something wrong with the new ISOs.
> >>
> >
> > I noticed today that my MBR doesn't get a fresh new grub install. I did a
> > "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1" and it stays empty, grub never
> > kicks in. That maybe explain the grub 2 error. I also saw in the install cd
> > that grub gave me an error message that it can't read the stage1 file. I
> > tried installing grub manually but I got the same problem.
> 
> 
> Weird. We used to use a different grub command in install the
> bootloader, but we changed it due to issues with ext4. It is possible
> that the original command was done in such a way because of failures
> like this.
> 
> Here's the change:
> http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=installer.git;a=commitdiff;h=4565577dbd2182dd49612f1e0b68288f5573bf7b
> 
> Could you check if the old way works for you?

The old method works for me, now I can install grub! Only the bad thing
is, I'm still getting error 2. I installed ubuntu for testing grub on
the other IDE drive and I can bootup Arch from there. The grub from
ubuntu is installed in /dev/sda.

Now I got
/dev/sda2 ubuntu
(the rest on this disk is unformatted)

/dev/sdb1 /boot (ext2)
/dev/sdb2 swap
/dev/sdb3 / (ext4)
/dev/sdb4 /home (ext4)

I installed grub (from Arch) on /dev/sdb and /dev/sdb1 (for booting from
the ubuntu grub).

Grub config I made in Ubuntu:

root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb3 ro 
initrd /kernel26.img

Thats the same as the Arch one (only with UUID). 
Now I'm really wondering where something is wrong..