Grub Hard disk error

[dod]

It's thursday Kaitan

What is this? Machine locked up, wouldn't reboot properly and now I get this???

When I boot to dos it tells me no file found, is that because dos can't "see" linux files? It can see the files on the second partition.

Or have I done something stupid?

[Kaitain]

Er... what? Can you tell me what the exact error is?

No, DOS/Windows simply don't understand Linux partitions, so you won't be able to correct faults in Linux using Windows.

You may have to do a bit of console work to sort this out... the SuSE install disc will allow you to boot to console (I think it's one of the boot options). Do that, then shout at me again

[dod]

The exact error is the title of the thread. It would post, id all the drives etc and at the point of booting, you know where it looks for floppy/cd/hdd it just stopped with "Grub hard disk error"

However, I've managed to get passed that again. I used fdisk mbr, recreated the partition and did a clean install. I'm posting from Linux right now. Simply formatting and trying to reinstall didn't fix it.

BUT!!!, I've got issues here and I'm not sure what they are at all. Everything seems stable but the diagnostic display on this board should be FF when everything is done. At the moment it posts, cycles through to FF but when SUSE loads up the led goes to 00, 80 and at the moment is stuck at A4.

Edit: I misread what the LED was reading due to a cable partially obscuring it.

[Kaitain]

Ah, nuke'n'pave works

In future, what you can do is boot using the SuSE boot disc. I can't remember the exact option, but ask for a console only boot from the CD. You need to know the structure of the drive your linux is on for the next bit:

Linux has its own equivalent of scandisk...

If your partitions are ext2 or ext3 then the program you need is called e2fsck
Type "info e2fsck" for full instructions on how to use it

If your partitions are reiserfs, then the program is called reiserfsck
Type "info reiserfsck" for full instructions.

Do this now and note down in that notebook you should be keeping ( ) which instructions you'll run in the event of future HD corruption. For ext2 or ext3 I'd use e2fsck -fp /dev/<partitions>. For reiserfs, I'd use reiserfsck --fix-fixable --yes

NB: check what formats you're using. SuSE normally defaults to reiserfs, but has been known on some peoples' systems to use ext2. If your hard discs are in ext2 format then I would strongly recommend you do your third reinstall in as many days to ensure that you're using a journalised filesystem like ext3 or reiserfs.

Reason: ext2 is a bit like FAT32 - it's fine, it holds your files, it sets some attributes. But it has no idea what data has been read, what's been written and what's been cached. ext3 and reiserfs, like NTFS, keep track of what the data's doing. It's not infallible (as you'll have discovered if you were using a journalised fs) but it saves a lot of hassle in the event of a bad shut down.

I'm not sure why the motherboard's flashing up diagnostic codes: I know Random Nonsense had similar issues with his EPoX motherboard and SuSE 7.3

[dod]

But if I use a notebook the chair wobbles

Okay, okay, I'll use one from now on.

Thanks for the help and info Kaitan Appreciate it

BTW Like the new avatar? I thought it was highly appropriate just now

[Daniel ~]

I saw it, but just noticed the seeing-eye dog...nice touch! ":O}

[Kaitain]

Originally Posted by dod

BTW Like the new avatar? I thought it was highly appropriate just now

Yeah, I like that avatar The guide dog's a great touch!

... wait a minute - does that make me the dog?