On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 15:06:31 +0100 Mick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I've already changed the BIOS boot order to look at /dev/hdd's MBR > > first but that didn't help. > > Right, have you checked your device.map to see if there's anything > untoward in there? >
(fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd0) /dev/hda (hd1) /dev/hdb (hd2) /dev/hdd Looks clean to me. > > Now the system boots correctly but it takes ages (>10sec) to come > > from "Grub loading Stage1.5" to "Grub loading, please wait..." > > Stage1.5 contains the filesystem driver which will allow GRUB to be > able to read the fs of hdd on which the /boot/grub/stage2 file is > stored. Since 10 seconds to read a relatively small file is rather > excessive, could it be a drive cable/ribbon fault? > And then the system works flawlessly? I don't think so. Badblocks doesn't report anything on /dev/hdd1 right now and I've checked the rest of the disk before I moved the system there. > > and then another 10sec or more to open the menu. > > Ditto. If it were that the GRUB code in the bootloader went into a > loop or something, scanning all drives, then by this step it would > not need to probe or access any other device. The fact that it takes > so long points towards a hardware rather than a configuration issue. > Other than that could it be a fs corruption problem? </clutching at > straws> e2fsck -f /dev/hdd1 shows no problem. dd can read the MBR of all disks easily. > > Unless better ideas are proposed you may want to remerge grub, then > re-install it manually in the first disk MBR using a grub > prompt > (as per the handbook) and point it's root to your hdd disk. Reemerged grub, installed it with grub-install into /dev/hdd and (just to be sure) /dev/hdd1, let the BIOS boot from /dev/hdd - didn't help. Then I've installed grub into hda's MBR. Then something odd happened: Stage1.5 loads quiet fast but then Grub hangs once again of ~20sec with: "Grub loading, please wait ..." Since that is the moment when Grub accesses /dev/hdd for the first time, I think it could really be a problem with the hard disk, however, one that doesn't affect anything else. Maybe an automatic SMART self-test at boot-up? I'll investigate and as a workaround I'll get an SD-card or cheap USB-stick for Grub, since - unfortunately - the kernel is too big to fit on a floppy.
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