rh9/w2k on lsiu160 "reloaded"

[elleon30033]

I seriously need some advice...okay? I will try to keep this simple.
I am running a lsi U160 card on an Asus pb2-d dual pentium II (400 mhz). There are two 9.1 gb 10k scsi drives connected to the scsi card on the same cable with termination. The fist drive has win2k loaded on it and has for several months. It continues to boot fine. Yesterday i loaded Redhat 9 on the second scsi drive and placed Grub on the first boot sector. When i rebooted it booted back into 2k, i was only able to boot rh9 using a floppy boot disk created during the install. I went into the scsi card bios to try to change the boot order but all the "boot" options for the devices are labled off and greyed out....in the card bios that is. So i changed the boot scan order from zero to 15 to 15 to zero and upon next boot, the lsi bios did show the redhat drive as the boot device but i got the dreaded "grub boot: error" message and then nada. When installing redhat it gave me to option to load grub in hda (i have to choose scsi or ide in the motherboard bios options and didn't think i can load grub to ide and then boot to scsi), hda was listed as having the MBR. I could have loaded it to sda but was afraid i would tank my w2k boot sector, so i loaded to the first partition of sdb. I wouldn't mind except the floppy boot doesn't give me the option to use dual processor functions of redhat. I'm ready to reload rh9, i just don't want to destroy my w2k boot and need to know how to properly get this setup to boot to both devices...please help...how can i change the boot order in the lsi bios, how can i load grub to boot properly with w2k, where should i put grub.......thanks for reading this....best wishes...hda redhat9...sda win2k.....sdb redhat9 hdc...storage

[BipolarBill]

Have you tried a 3rd-party bootloader?

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

[elleon30033]

thanks BPB, going to check that out now, any other thoughts?

[BipolarBill]

Nope - I believe that this is a much simpler problem than you would think.

[Peter M]

That's not how it works. Even with multiple drives, the system has ONE boot loader program on the 1st drive. (The 1st drive being whichever you sorted to the 1st position in the system BIOS. The SCSI BIOS lets you sort drives only on old systems where the system BIOS can't do that.)

This one bootloader must present you with a menu of which operating system installations it can load - on whichever drives these then might be.

GRUB can do that for you. Have the system start GRUB always and ever, and make your GRUB configuration such that you can choose to boot your Windows from its menu.

Most distributions auto-create a suitable GRUB configuration. Just don't tell it to install GRUB on the 2nd drive - it HAS to go onto the 1st.

[elleon30033]

Peter/BPB, i know you guys are probably tired of me but i really need you guys. Ok, lets see...Peter, the mbr which is where redhat had a check mark before i changed it to sdb is on hda...now hda is an ide drive with a copy of redhat already on it. It has a option to boot to dos which doesn't work (i'm assuming that refers to my w2k operating system and since the boot doesn't work i also assumed i couldn't have boot to ide in the motherboard bios and then after getting to hda and redhat, tell it to boot to a scsi drive....remember this is an old mobo p2b-d Asus. am i reading you right ? can i load a new copy of grub in the mbr on hda and then boot to scsi? please reply....i've got the installation disk in my hand lol...thanks guys:confused:

[BipolarBill]

Any decent bootloader will find Red Hat. The one I suggested can be loaded and unloaded easily. Otherwise, GRUB on the IDE drive is fine.

Since you cannot get to Win2K, I would suggest that you go ahead and repair that before the doo-doo you're already in gets any deeper.

[Peter M]

Telling BIOS what to boot from just makes it search for the bootloader there. For that bootloader then, all the BIOS supported drives are available - be they IDE, SCSI, USB or whatever else your system's and controller card's BIOSes support.

[elleon30033]

ok, got it. Bill i can still boot to 2k if i change the boot order from ide to scsi in the bios, i just can't boot to the second scsi disk and i can't boot to 2k from the redhat opsys on the first ide so at this very second everything can be accessed. I am about to try peter's suggestion and just reload the 2nd redhat on the second scsi drive but with Grub on the 1st ide....we'll see, i'll report back what happens...thanks guys....:t

[elleon30033]

ooook, here's my situation. I reloaded rh9 and told grub to load on the mbr on hda....now i can't get into my redhat on hda unless i use a boot disk and i still can't get into my redhat copy on sdb. I'm not freaking out or anything that is why i got the pII anyway. oh, windows 2k still boots fine. Now, my question is should i try to place grub on hda and if so how..or should i reload rh9 again but this time to hda, i don't know where grub is going, i can't find it anywhere, in /etc/grub.conf i get no directory or file found. any suggestions are welcomed and i do appreciate all the advice guys...thanks

[cment]

I can't get my XP to boot, but linux will and works fine. I need to get my XP back up so my wife won't kill me. I can't even boot win XP Cd and recover. If anything I need to know if I can take the boot for linux away with fdisk /mbr without screwing things up worse.

[elleon30033]

bpb can help you with that one. i don't think its a good idea to try to use fdisk to work on linux. what you might try is disconnecting the linux drive (pull the molex power connector and then try to boot from the xp cd and do a restrore but the restore is kinda tricky in that you don't say yes to the first instance about the recovery console...bill had a link that gave it to me step by step..he or someone else will be along to point you in the right direction.... but resist the urge to do anything until you are sure....i feel you pain.....good luck, now take a deep breadth.

[BipolarBill]

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Yes - disconnect the Linux drive unless it's another partition. Whatever you do, NEVER use FDISK to fix XP - boot from the CD, choose the Recovery Console and type FIXMBR and then FIXBOOT.

Elleon - would you please at least try BootItNG?

[elleon30033]

BPB, i have come full circle, i have a fully bootable copy of redhat 9 with smp support on hda or ide 0 again, and i can boot to the other copy of redhat with a floppy ....so lets score it a tie for today. As to your other question, i give you my word if i get a third party boot program it will be that one. You have always given me good solid advice and i know this is just one more instance of the same. thanks from Georgia. Now can anyone tell me if you can change the boot order within the lsi u160 scsi card bios? :cool:

[Peter M]

If your system BIOS doesn't let you change the order of individual drives, then you can use the SCSI BIOS. Choices are restricted, but you should at least be able to select the BOOT drive. It's buried deep in the "Device Selections" menu of the one SCSI channel you have.

[cment]

Yes - disconnect the Linux drive unless it's another partition. Whatever you do, NEVER use FDISK to fix XP - boot from the CD, choose the Recovery Console and type FIXMBR and then FIXBOOT.

Ok, did that BPB now it says cant find NTLDR after it runs through the bios start up and just stops. NOw I cant get it to boot anything. I can see all the drives and all the info is still there just can't get anything to load now. I know the guru's out there can help.

[elleon30033]

thanks peter, i found the part of the lsi bios with the individual drives listed but the column for boot is marked no and greyed out, even though i am indeed booting from id0 in that column. i'm thinking there must be something in the motherboard bios that is not set to allow the card to sense its bootable. I'm also thinking this was the problem with the redhat installs. I'm going to read the manual "again". If any ideas pop up in that fine mind of yours let me know.....I got suse linux yesterday....so now i know i'll be suicidal in a few days lol...oh the board is an Asus p2b-d dual 2x400mhz pII

[elleon30033]

Peter/Bill you guys are gonna wanna shoot me. God it was so simple and so obvious i didn't think about it till tonight. I went into the lsi scsi card bios and told it not to scan for id0/sda my first scsi drive. I rebooted and it immediately tried to boot to the second scsi. This opens all kinds of new possibilities ...i am assuming i can keep adding drives and disabling the scans on the ones i don't want to boot. As such, i'm gonna try to load redhat again, putting grub on the first partition of sdb, reboot, disable sda and hope i finally get a clean boot...its almost midnight here...hmmm should i do it now ...should i wait, either way wish me luck and thanks......man i feel dumb...reminds me of the time i did all that work on my switch pins on the mobo only to realize i had the power unplugged from the back of the psu (you know, always cut the power off and drain it, before you touch the board)....takecare guys and thanks again.....

[elleon30033]

that didn't get it either. i've done so reading and i've got a lot more to do. i'll let you guys know if i figure it out...

[BipolarBill]

We'll wait. You're doing fine. :)

[elleon30033]

Bill/Peter ....now i understand. I know you guys know this but i'm gonna explain just in case another lunatic like me wants to do this. I loaded redhat's bootloader (grub) on scsi disk id1/sdb, the second scsi disc. ok, the motherboard bios sees that as address 81h, no problem yet, but when i make the scsi drive bootable, no matter how i did it, the bios changes the address of the drive to 80h. So grub starts and then looks for the boot sector on address 81h, but that is now my 1st scsi drive with windows 2k on it so the boot fails........ahhhhh, so i have identified the problem and i see why peter wanted me to install to the mbr of hda but even then the address of sdb was 82h LMAO, jezzz....i'm learning more than i wanna know about booting into linux, i know a little about alot of the boot process except how to fix it....ok, let me go outside and scream ......:r ...suggestions welcomed

[BipolarBill]

I suggest that you start over. Wipe the SCSI drive, fix the MBR on Win2K and reinstall RH - to the second drive. Leave it raw - Linux likes raw drives. :)

[Peter M]

Once again: The system's ONLY (!) bootloader MUST be on drive 80h. When you start swapping drives using BIOS controls, the drive numbering changes, and at least one operating system will be confused.

Make up your mind about the drive ordering once and for all, and leave it alone from that point forward. Now install Windows to whichever drive you want. Then install Linux elsewhere - and put GRUB on the system's drive 80h. GRUB installer normally makes the correct suggestion; just follow it.

[elleon30033]

Thanks guys, i'll keep you posted on progress....

[elleon30033]

ok, after i realized that i couldn't update the second copy of redhat9 which started this thread through redhats updates without spending money, and after realizing i would really have interdependies between my linux systems and my windows if i loaded grub to the mbr, i just took the path of least resistance. I nuked the second copy on redhat on sdb and loaded suse9 on it instead with grub on a floppy ...so hda has redhat 9, hdc is storage, sda has win2k and sdb has suse9...if any one of them get fubar, the others will remain unaffected...whew, next time i'll know that grub absolutely has to go to the mbr to multiboot....thanks for your patience and assistance:t