Wrong GRUB root in menu.lst after upgrade to 11.3

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,

Yesterday I’ve updated my system from 11.2 to 11.3, fllowing the guide at SDB:System upgrade - openSUSE . Everything went fine (except an error during the installation of batik) but after reboot I got a grub error:

(hd0,6) no such disk (or something similar)

and I couldn’t boot :frowning:

After a CD boot, because I didn’t want to try the OpenSUSE 11.2 entry, I saw that the entry for OpenSUSE 11.3 was wrong, see below the entries for 11.3 and 11.2:


# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun Jul 18 17:08:15 CEST 2010
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# Configure custom boot parameters for updated kernels in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader

default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd1,6)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 11.3 - 2.6.34-12
**    root (hd0,6)**
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAKS-00A7B0_WD-WMASY0475580-part7 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAKS-00A7B0_WD-WMASY0475580-part6 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x31a
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.34-12-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.12-0.2
  **  root (hd1,6)**
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAKS-00A7B0_WD-WMASY0475580-part7 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAKS-00A7B0_WD-WMASY0475580-part6 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x31a agp=off
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop

I changed it to

root (hd1,6)

and of course it worked and my updated system works fine :slight_smile:

Now I’m only wondering why this happened. What went wrong?

Thanks!

2

Do you have multiple hard drives by any chance ? If so, the ordering of drives by GRUB might not have been configured properly during the install…

There is an option while installing GRUB to choose the order of the hard drives if multiple drives are present…

3

Final solution to this.

1.-Download an .iso (I have used gnome-live)
2.-You will need a usb stick ( 1G will be fine)
3.-Create a “live usb” using netbootin ( UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads )
4.- here is the trick…
When usb is created, you will see something like 0x55274ed8 in the file /boot/grub/mbrid
This code is taked from your hard disk. When your usb is trying to boot will check if that code is the same with the disk booting (I mean, this time it should be your usb code). The problem here is the installer just copy the code from hard disk.
The solution is, insert your usb and run the command fdisk /dev/sdc (thats my usb stick, yours can be different), then “p” (print partition status of usb disk). Now check for “Disk identifier: 0x3b3436e1” (of course, your identifier is not the same). Press “q” to quit.
Now go to your usb and change the identifier using your usb identifier.
Save changes.
Reboot.

Smile ! You can boot your usb and of course, install from usb if you want
:slight_smile:

4

Thanks for your replies :slight_smile: Was away for a few days…

@ash25: Yes, I’ve several disks. Apparently something did go wrong, but it surprises me that this showed up only after the upgrade… During the installation of 11.2, I didin’t have any problems (and didn’t set any order of disks). I’d have expected that the ‘new’ 11.3 settings for GRUB would’ve been copied from the old 11.2 ones. But I guess I was wrong :slight_smile:

@vael: I don’t really understand your solution… I just solved it by changing the menu.lst and everything works now :slight_smile:

I guess it’s just some kind of GRUB thing I don’t quite understand, but never mind, I was just curious how this could’ve happened.