Description of problem: After installing FC6 from the CD's, the machine won't boot from the harddisk. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always. I have found no work-around, and therefore the severity is set to High. I really need some kind of work-around, so that I at least can boot my system. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install FC6 from the CD's. Actual results: After rebooting, the machine halts with the message "GRUB Loading stage2.." Expected results: The machine should boot normally. Additional info: This problem has been seen before. However, the solutions presented in the other bug reports have not helped me. I've tried the following: 1. Boot from rescue CD 2. chroot /mnt/sysimage 3. grub-install /dev/sda However, after booting the machine now hangs at "GRUB Loading stage1.5." I then tried: 4. Boot from rescue CD 5. chroot /mnt/sysimage 6. /sbin/grub 7. root (hd0,0) 8. kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet 9. initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img but this gives "Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory". My machine details are as follows: Via EPIA EN12000E motherboard with a VIA VT8237R controller. 512 MB RAM A single 160 GB SATA disk (no raid). The partition info is as follows: sh-3.1#sfdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 19457 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0 Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 0+ 608 609- 4891761 83 Linux /dev/sda2 609 1217 609 4891792+ 83 Linux /dev/sda3 1218 1340 123 987997+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda4 1341 19456 18116 145516770 5 Extended /dev/sda5 1341+ 1949 609- 4891761 83 Linux /dev/sda6 1950+ 6205 4256- 34186288+ 83 Linux /dev/sda7 6206+ 19456 13251- 106438626 83 Linux sh-3.1#mount /dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,defaults) /dev/sda2 on /home type ext3 (rw,defaults) /dev/sda6 on /p2p type ext3 (rw,defaults) proc on /proc type proc (rw,defaults) /dev/sda7 on /share type ext3 (rw,defaults) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,defaults) /dev/sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,defaults) /dev/sda5 on /var type ext3 (rw,defaults) The GRUB configuration files are: sh-3.1#cat /boot/grub/grub.conf # grub.conf generated by anaconda # # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file # NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that # all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg. # root (hd0,0) # kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda1 # initrd /boot/initrd-version.img #boot=/dev/sda default=0 timeout=5 splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz hiddenmenu title Fedora Core (2.6.18-1.2798.fc6) root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img sh-3.1#cat /boot/grub/device.map # this device map was generated by anaconda (hd0) /dev/sda I've tried installing FC5 as well as FC3 onto the same system, but that didn't help. I've not yet tried FC2. Nor have I tried installing onto a PATA drive. Please let me know if there is something else I can try, or some information I can provide.
*** Bug 215227 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
After a fresh install of FC6 (and verifying that the boot stops after "Loading stage2.." I physically moved the SATA disk to a Dell dimenstion 9150 computer I recently bought. Here the system boots and loads the kernel, but fails to mount the root file system, presumably because of incorrect SATA drivers. The driver loading by the Fedora installation is sata_via. Then I replaced the SATA disk with a PATA disk in my original system and reinstalled FC6. This time the systems boots fine.
Going back to the SATA disk (where it stops at Loading stage2..), I tried going into rescue mode and then 1. chroot /mnt/sysimage 2. /sbin/grub 3. configfile /boot/grub/grub.conf This once again presents me with the "Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory". The I tried getting GRUBs memory information: grub> displaymem EISA Memory BIOS Interface is present Address Map BIOS Interface is present Lower memory: 640K, Upper memory (to first chipset hole): 3072K [Address Range Descriptor entries immediately follow (values are 64-bit)] Usable RAM: Base Address: 0x0 X 4GB + 0x0, Length: 0x0 X 4GB + 0xa0000 bytes Reserved: Base Address: 0x0 X 4GB + 0xa0000, Length: 0x0 X 4GB + 0x60000 bytes Usable RAM: Base Address: 0x0 X 4GB + 0x100000, Length: 0x0 X 4GB + 0x300000 bytes grub> Don't know if that is useful.
Workaround found! I followed the suggestion in <http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=108936> and changed the setting in the BIOS for SATA mode from RAID to IDE. This has solved my problem. However, I still believe there are several issues with GRUB/anaconda. Firstly, the error reporting is terrible. It was pure luck that brought me to the solution mentioned above. This has cost me (and other people) many hours of debugging. Presumably the anaconda installation could check for "incorrect" BIOS settings, or someone should write a note about it in the release notes. Secondly, what if I *did* need raid support? Surely, it is not acceptable to say that hardware raid is not supported.
Fedora apologizes that these issues have not been resolved yet. We're sorry it's taken so long for your bug to be properly triaged and acted on. We appreciate the time you took to report this issue and want to make sure no important bugs slip through the cracks. If you're currently running a version of Fedora Core between 1 and 6, please note that Fedora no longer maintains these releases. We strongly encourage you to upgrade to a current Fedora release. In order to refocus our efforts as a project we are flagging all of the open bugs for releases which are no longer maintained and closing them. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LifeCycle/EOL If this bug is still open against Fedora Core 1 through 6, thirty days from now, it will be closed 'WONTFIX'. If you can reporduce this bug in the latest Fedora version, please change to the respective version. If you are unable to do this, please add a comment to this bug requesting the change. Thanks for your help, and we apologize again that we haven't handled these issues to this point. The process we are following is outlined here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/F9CleanUp We will be following the process here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping to ensure this doesn't happen again. And if you'd like to join the bug triage team to help make things better, check out http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers
This bug is open for a Fedora version that is no longer maintained and will not be fixed by Fedora. Therefore we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen thus bug against that version. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.