Bug#264506: GRUB: I had the very same problem

[Antonio Galea]

Hello,
after quite a few hours of struggle I've managed to get grub working on a
Proliant ML360. I really can't say _why_ it worked (grin), but I write this
email anyway, hoping you can get some clues from my effort.

The whole trouble seems to be the caused by the disk subsystem: a Compaq
SmartArray 5i, handled by HP's own opensource driver cciss.
This is probably irrelevant as far as grub is concerned: I used a sarge
20040807 snapshot with kernel 2.6; the driver version is 2.6.2.

On first attempt at installing a boot loader [on the MBR, bootable partition
was (hd0,1)], both GRUB and LILO installers failed without many explanations
(grub error was the one you were referring to at thread beginning).

After some fiddling, I tried repartitioning the disc to make the bootable
partition on /dev/cciss/c0d0p1 [i.e., (hd0,0)]: this was enough to let me
install LILO: no clue as to why, but it did work properly from within
debian-installer.

Since I got LILO working, I rebooted and installed grub with dpkg, then
launched update-grub to createxd a menu.lst. I then rebooted with a grub
floppy, and done a setup from there with "root (hd0,0)\n setup (hd0)".
Setup ends with this error: 

 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2
/boot/grub/menu.lst"... failed

Error 22: No such partition

but the final result is a(n almost) bootable system. Again, no clue as to what
the above mentioned error points to.

I said almost bootable: the kernel loads correctly, so that grub's part is ok,
but it fails to mount the root partition.

Fiddling with the initrd image I found out that for some reason the cciss
driver initially loads /dev/cciss with a different device structure: so in
order to boot properly, menu.lst should contain devices of the form
/dev/cciss/host0/target0/part1 instead of the short form /dev/cciss/c0d0p1 used
in the fully booted system. Modifying this by hand gave me the correct boot
sequence - but this should really be handled inside initrd scripts, or at the
very least by the update-grub utility.

I will keep the server in-house for a few more days: it really worries me to
install this machine in its final location until I'm sure it will reboot
properly next time I upgrade it :-}

BTW, this was my first Debian install: well, I'm really impressed by the GREAT
work you have done! Just drop me a note if there's anything I can do to help:
I'm more than willing to make more tests under the guidance of someone more
knoledgeable than me.

Cheers,

Ant9000

    
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Dr. Antonio Galea       N e t   W i s e                 http://www.netwise.it
Sviluppo tecnico     Tecnologie per il Web    Tel 0461.421016 Fax 0461.426021
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Allen's Axiom: when all else fails, read the instructions.
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