Grub problem? OpenSuse 11.0 on S5000XVN dual Xeon Quadricore

[plage]

Hi,

I have been trying to install OpenSuse 11.0 on an Intel S5000XVN motherboard with 6 SATAs disks using ACHI mode (not the BIOS RAID mode).

Since OpenSuse installation identified the 6 HDs, I am not using BIOS RAID, and there is no RAID-BIOS driver for OpenSuse 11, I proceeed without any third-party driver.

Besides having to use edd=off on the instalation linux boot, everything seems fine during installation that completes and the system is then booted from the running kernel.

However, if the machine is actually booted, the "black screen" appears: no grub message, nothing... It seems that there is a problem with grub installation. The option to repair the installation did not work but I could boot in rescue mode. However, I could not do much as I am a newbie in OpenSuse.

I am still trying to figure out the problem and making some installation tests, but does anyone has some hint that can help me?

By the way, OpenSuse 10.3 or CentOS 5.2 installations could not start on this system (at least, without a third-party driver).

Thanks.

[caf4926]

ACHI
I had to look it up
Advanced Host Controller Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You are new to linux, but this goes over my head.

Grub is generally installed to the MBR of one drive (or OTHER in your case). That drive needs to be first boot device in BIOS. During install you should have set mount pints for other drives/partitions/OS's.
You didn't say if anything else was installed here?

[plage]

No, I am not new to Linux. I have been using it for almost 12 years, but I am new user of the OpenSuse distribution. However, I have never had problems with grub before and I do not know this piece of software in details.

It seems that there is a bug in grub installation because, in my last attempt I watched the output in terminal 1 during the installation and I could see a error message from perl complaining about an valuie ina parameter. However, I could not read it in details because the system was rebooting.

I tried to use a extra PATA HD with a standard pattern for the partitions (besides the 6 SATA drives) and it does not work either.

I managed to run the repair tool this time. One odd thing is that the system could not understand the software RAID5 for /home and RAID0 for /scratch I have built in the installation. Another bug in the repair tool or got problem with the ACHI driver?

Using the repair tool, I am goign to try to replace grub by Lilo and see what will happen.

Thanks for the reply. It seems that the old users did not bother to answer.

[goonieg]

Wondering if you ever resolved your issue.

I have the exact same problem, however, if I go into the BIOS, and go to the boot manager and manually select booting from the harddrive, the GRUB appears, and openSUSE will boot.

Steve

[caf4926]

Sounds to me like you are describing changing the HD boot order in BIOS?

Grub will only appear if you make the drive with Grub on the first boot device.

[plage]

I have found out the problem origin but not a convenient solution.

The problem that the parameter edd=off indicates that the linux kernel could not get from the BIOS which one is the boot HD. Since there are 6 of them, GRUB does not know where to boot from.

This only happens in the BIOS AHCI mode. I changed it to the compatibility mode (PATA/SATA) and I could install with edd active and everything went smooth. The only problem is that only 4 HDs are recognized by the BIOS and linux. So I lost the usage of 2 HDs.

Therefore, it seems to be a BIOS bug or a linux kernel bug or lack of hardware support. The BIOS was the newest available in Intel page the time of the first post.

As soon as I get some spare time, I will reinstall this machine trying one of these options:
- load the RAID BIOS drivers and work with RAID by BIOS instead of software RAID by linux,
- install the boot partition on a pair of pen drives in RAID1, as all USB mass storage can be booted first of everything by this BIOS.

Any suggestions?

[goonieg]

plage:
I thought that would be my next try, but unfortunately, I actually have 5 drives total connected , and as soon as I disable ahci, my DVD is gone. I suppose linux is already installed, so I could see if it boots. As for Trying to use the onboard raid bios, well that is what I initially tried. In my experience, grub complains when attempting to install on the RAID, and hence I still can't boot (the best thing I find about the opensuse install is that grub is installed at the END, and so you have to wait for the install to complete, before you can figure out if you can boot it). I also noticed that opensuse only saw (in my 4 drive configuration) 1/4 of the total drive space in Raid 10, instead of 1/2, but it did see all the drive space in Raid 0 mode.

I also noticed weird drive ordering (when installing without a raid defined, or in AHCI mode with PATA active, where SATA0 seemed to correspond with /dev/sdd, and SATA1 /dev/sda etc etc...

I'll play around some more, and let you know what I find I guess, although I'm getting ready to give up, and request a different motherboard.

grrr...(that is my frustrated growl, although it probably sounds more like a little kitten




caf4926:
I wasn't changing the boot order in the BIOS, they just happen to have their boot manager there, where you can specify what device to boot from immediately. (on most machines/laptops, this is the same then pressing esc, or f12 (or whatever), and have the machine bypass trying the boot order sequentially, and just asking which device you want to boot from).

[plage]

goonieg:

The BIOS RAID only works correctly with the software driver that comes with this motherboard. Presently, they only have suport for Suse 10.2. I would have to downgrade the OS then .

Since I am stuck with this motherboard, I will probably install using /boot in two fast pen-drives in RAID1 and with the 6 HDs using AHCI. I hope this works .

caf4926:

The BIOS of this motherboard only specifies the boot device as "hard disk". If it were only one, it seems that it would be possible to boot using this option.

[caf4926]

Your quote

installation identified the 6 HDs, I am not using BIOS RAID

6 HD's

so which HD did you install grub too?

what is on the HD's

Later you said:

GRUB does not know where to boot from.

It can only do what you tell it and of course it can only do that if it has boot priority from the MBR of the first HD in the BIOS boot setup.

Can you do a
fdisk -l
maybe from a live cd if you don't have a working linux OS

[plage]

caf4926:

Under AHCI, only with the option edd=off the installation starts. Does it install GRUB? I set it to install in the MBR of the first HD, but I do not know if it has actually been installed and in which HD.

I have found out that the option edd=off implies that the linux will not try to guess the HD order from the BIOS. So there is no point in searching BIOS HD order.

No other linux distribution seems to start installation (or boot live) with this BIOS using AHCI.

By the way, the system after installation is fully operational as long as you do not reboot. As I said, I will give this machine another try when I have time. If anyone has some hints of how to install GRUB by hand and/or in all disks at the same time, I would appreciate.