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George
 Oct 23, 07 - 8:26 AM |
Dual Boot Problem: ancient HP Vectra VA6/200MT with Win98 & Ubuntu 5.1
The 5.1 Ubuntu installer recognized the SCSI card and drive, formatted and installed from CD. (It also saw the HDD with Win 98, but the onboard BIOS and boot program always take precedence (it has a complete config procedure). I installed GAG bootloader on a floppy, but it doesn't see the Ubuntu install.) During the install, I installed GRUB in the MBR (not knowing any better) and wasn't able to boot anything, got - Grub error 21 - (The following quotes are both from - [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub/+bug/8978]) ".. Grub Loading stage 1.5. Error 21 " Error 21 means : " 21 : Selected disk does not exist This error is returned if the device part of a device- or full file name refers to a disk or BIOS device that is not present or not recognized by the BIOS in the system.." I had to re-install Win98 to be able to boot into Win98. I was able to find this on Ubuntu's help forum: "But the reason the bug happens is because that people try to install ubuntu on an external drive, and then it steals the mbr from windows and never gives it back," That hypothesis is not consistent with several of the posts, especially when Windows is not involved. FWIW, I've installed Ubuntu 7.04 onto an external USB2 drive without a problem. The MBR on the internal drive was not modified. The issue appears to be conflicting notions of the hardware setup, in particular RAID devices, between BIOS and the Linux kernel, mosly likely because of a poor driver for Linux that comes with Ubuntu. For example, with the hardware RAID I was using, the BIOS presented the RAID device as the first drive to Grub, effectively hiding the two drives that made up the RAID. However, under Linux, the RAID device was the third drive (/dev/sdc) because the driver for the RAID card exposed the two drives in the RAID as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. When I reinstalled using CentOS, all was fine. In short, the problem was with the Linux driver that came with Ubuntu for my RAID card and CentOS had the right driver. Some suggestions: - use a RAID controller that Ubuntu supports or don't use a HW RAID controller - don't dual boot unless you have a backup of your Windows drive and can restore it - mention what version of Ubuntu and what drive controller you are using when you post. Regards, - Robert.." Apparently, Ubuntu has to share some of the blame (please see above). > > I got this answer today from the author of GAG (a sourceforge-available bootloader): > > ".. > > It seems that your SCSI card doesn't have its own BIOS. That means that > you can't boot from a disk installed there. > > But there is a solution: create a little partition in your IDE hard disk > (the one with Windows9  , of about 30-40 megs or so; reinstall Linux,> and select that partition as /boot. Of course, install GRUB there. This > way, the kernel will be installed there, where it will be accessible > from the BIOS and GRUB. Then, when the kernel boots, it will recognise > your SCSI disk and continue booting.." > I am trying to follow the instructions above, but both Grub and LILO refuse to install in any partition. I suspect they are "homing" in on the MBR on the IDE disk, the one connected to the mob without using a non-Bios adaptor card (such as the SCSI hdd I am using). > > Thanks > George (Canada) > |
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V. Subhash
Aug 23rd, 2008 - 9:27 AM |
Re: Dual Boot Problem: ancient HP Vectra VA6/200MT with Win98 & Ubuntu 5.1
I am sorry for the long delay in providing this reply. I got Internet access for my personal use only now. It does not matter if the SCSI device does not have a setup program (they have a bios all right). Just ensure that the SCSI controller is recognized by the OS. With RAID, support in Linux may vary and may or may not all old or new RAID controllers. It is best to have all your drives in standard PATA or SATA IDE controllers. Win 9x/Me have a bug with disks having non-Windows partitions, which can cause problems. Do not dual or multi-boot if you plan to retain these old Windows OSes. I will incorporate these and your comments in the article. |
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