[Before this install, I backed up /home to a LARGE USB drive]
I have just installed OpenSuSE 11.1 (64bit) on a two SATA drive system. I defined it as RAID1. I told the install to install with MBR. And I set up (2, 500GB drives) 4 partitions (sda/b same config):
258.86MB /boot
6.01GB --SWAPâ
69.99 GB /
389.5 GB /home
And then I did the RAID 1 stuff to create MD0, MD1, MD2, and MD3.
So, the 11.1 install finishes and it does the reboot, grabs GRUB from sdaâs MBR, and grub puts up the boot menu with a single entry, FLOPPY (HUH?).
Ok, so I reconfigured the disk drives so that only the /home partition is RAID1 (since sdb is a mirror image to sda, only sdb2&4 are âmountedâ). And did an install (not upgrade) of 11.1 (64bit) and when the new boot (reboot) happened, again, grub thinks that only a FLOPPY is being used.
Is there some problem with the 11.1 install, that it doesnât know how to correctly build grub AND doesnât know to install the RAID support modules? Or is there some special incantation on how to do this that is not obvious to a Linux novice?
Iâm not familiar with the characteristics of RAID and Grub. I am wondering what boot code is written in the âfloppyâ option you have. But you could use the suse dvd or live cd to try re-doing Grub
If you have a Linux Live CD, boot from it and log in. Then open a console window and enter su and you will be at the command prompt with root powers and ready to proceed. If on the other hand you have the openSUSE install DVD, boot from it and on the first menu of options select the Rescue System option. That will start an elementary Linux Live operating system and bring you to the login prompt. Enter the username root and you will be at the command prompt with root powers and ready to proceed. Whichever way you started (the openSUSE install DVD or a Linux Live CD) when you are at the root command prompt, first you find the partition containing openSUSEâs bootloader. Then you reinstall Grub with a pointer to that partition. First find the openSUSE installation:
You enter this ---------------- grub
Computer returns like this ---- grub>
You enter this ---------------- find /boot/grub/menu.lst
Computer returns like this ---- (hd0,5)
Here, (hd0,5) is Grubâs pointer to my openSUSE installation. Your pointer will be different from my example (hd0,5). Substitute your values for my example (hd0,5). Now that you have the pointer, proceed like this:
You enter this ---------------- root (hd0,5)
Computer returns like this ---- Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
You enter this ---------------- setup (hd0)
You see several lines like this â Checking if /boot/grub/stage1 exists ⌠yes Computer finally returns this-- SucceededâŚDone
I restarted the install (11.1 64bit DVD) and selected the repair option. It rebuilt the boot loader (GRUB) and then I was able to boot SuSE 11.1. However, it continued to list FLOPPY (which I removed).
I find it interesting that 10.3 did not make this mistake (again, a 64bit install DVD) when I had originally built the RAID1 install (which I then tried to upgrade to 11.1). However, the 10.3 install did not appear to include the raid modules, so it would fail in boot or grub would fail to find a hard drive.
Since I could use a different distro to boot through from a DVD, I have the suspicion that there is a problem with the OpenSuSE installer code for building the boot when a RAID install is being done.
