Grub 2 : inability to get functional installation

[Snowfire]

I have an AMD-based computer with two hard disks. The first disk contains Windows XP, Haiku, Syllable, and A2/Oberon in separate partitions. The second disk contains an additional NTFS partition, then Mint 12 LXDE on a higher partition. I have been using the Syllable version of Grub Legacy, which can boot all the systems on the first drive, but the computer's BIOS limitations prevent the direct addressing of higher partitions on the second drive. I can boot Mint from a Grub 2 crutch CD, after enabling a PATA patch which is supplied on the disk. But I cannot boot it from Grub Legacy, and all attempts to install Grub 2 on either hard drive have ended in abject failure: the system never even reaches the boot menu, giving a gobbledygook error and dumping out to the Grub rescue prompt. I have reverted to Grub legacy for now, but would like a more functional setup, not dependent on a crutch CD; and preferably one that would not need to sacrifice bootability of the Syllable partition (which presently boots from a patched version of Grub legacy--I have no idea if or how it could be natively booted from Grub2.)

[wayne128]

As you would stay with grub legacy, to boot to linux OS that had grub2 on its default boot loader, a few things you can do

1. use chainloading.
just install grub2 to its own root partition, making it chainloadable
then in your grub legacy's menu.lst
use this stanza

title linux os with grub2 on sdbX
root (hd0,X-1)
chainloading +1

"replace X-1 with actual number)

2. direct boot. however I do not face the bios limit as decribed by you, may be my hardware had different bios that might not limit to boot beyond 137G.

usually I would just copy out the grub.cfg of the grub2 Linux OS and simple copy its linx line and initrd line, change linux to kernel, and thus create a grub legacy stanza.

for example
this is the relevant portition of /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Code: Select all

menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 3.2.0-2-amd64 (on /dev/sda9)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
   insmod part_msdos
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd0,msdos9)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 1d5992df-53b2-49a7-a29e-4cd9a8338a7d
   linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-2-amd64 root=UUID=1d5992df-53b2-49a7-a29e-4cd9a8338a7d ro quiet
   initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-2-amd64
}

so I create grub legacy stanza:
title Debian at /dev/sda9
root (hd0,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-2-amd64 root=UUID=1d5992df-53b2-49a7-a29e-4cd9a8338a7d ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-2-amd64

3. use other boot loader to chainload or direct load...

[melbo]

I think there is a different grub update command for grub2.

[Snowfire]

The problem is that the statement "root (hd1,5)" returns error 18 with grub legacy--I tried that.
I also tried to install it at 1,0. Nothing doing---just got dumped into the grub rescue prompt. No menu. It's as if grub2 will only work from a CD, though that makes no sense to me.