Bug#581594: error 17 source

[jamesb]

Package: grub
Version: 0.97-47lenny2
Severity: critical

I'm setting this critical because this is a very common error i see reported.

I noticed I can generate this error (grub boots up and this error displays).

I also noticed that attempting to repair grub like the following may explain
something of either a "wish feature" or a "bug"..

my attempt to repair scenario: 
 -boot rescue cd, mount all necessary mountpoints (dev,proc,sys, and /mnt/rescue)

 -attempt to repair under chroot /mnt/rescue: 
   a method->  grub<enter>, root (hd0,XX), setup(hdX)
   anorther method-> grub-install /dev/sda
   
^^The purpose of me showing this, is to emphasize that there is a more profound issue.
Since the above 2 methods only (in my past 2 days of frustation ;) outputs that "/boot/grub/stage1"
cannot be found, and grub does not get fixed. So what is the real problem? Why 
can't grub get fixed with either of these two methods?

(another symptom: grub cannot "find" root, if one was to use "root (hdX,properY) in grub> prompt,
mind me saying the device map exists and fdisk -l lists the partition without problems, as well
as one is chrooted within /dev/sdaX )

solution:
--
 Allowed a live gparted cd, had the Partition table touched--(update partition table
entry values for my "/" partition)-- by resizing a bit on both ends of my ext3 partition-- (a simple linux system
1 ext3 and 1 swap).

,ran the rescue cd, issued exactly either of the two above methods. and grub was installed 100%..poof
error 17 is no more.

root of problem:
--
is it conventional for grub to work with partitions that don't land on 'cylinder' CHS values closely rounded
like Gparted? (gparted has a default checkbox on for rounding 'to cylinders', which I leave on as checked).
I noticed the root of my problem, at least for me, -> I used another Partition manager, that places in
closely resembled CHS values which confuses grub(and which may no land on specifically rounded 'cylinder' CHS values)
.. This other Partition manager must of actually been updating the whole partition table, despite me adding
 a new "partition" wishing not to touch any previous ones made.

If anyone wants to confirm this, they can..(ahem i use the free paragon partition manager, << not affiliated
with them whatsover and will very likely to stay away from this tool).. But other than gparted, and
this ugly partitioning tool, perhaps there are other linux tools users are using causing
this error 17.

If this helps, I've had this tested out earlier in the day..

scenario: (dosmbr of course on a cheap pentium 4)
/dev/sda5  "/"    (this is on a logical partition)
/dev/sda6 "swap"

added /dev/sda7 logical partition with "ugly" partition manager.
ugly partition manager must of touched the CHS LBA values on partition table..

"/dev/sda5/" totally usable as a mountpoint from a rescue cd. (when a /dev/sda7 is
added, i added a new partition "unformatted" and took nothing more than 15 seconds)

If someone is interested in comparing values, I can try to recreate this in a vm machine
and dd the before and after which grub then seems to choke up error 17..

I should also mention that I used this on my other debian system and have not been
able to find another report about this error under these known conditions..

I apologize that I currently do not have bugreport setup on that i386 box, and
thought it might be helpful to send it via my x64 debian setup.. since the grub on
amd64 i believe may very well exhibit the same behaviour..

I understand it may be completely irrelevant, (eg: bios settings- all my settings are set to 'auto' for hd,
, my harddrive is modern->it is a 320gig harddrive, 512byte/sector? etc etc), and probably sounds
 like a "feature request" but I saw how simple it is to break it with one partition manager
but took a while to find a way to overcome this error.. If this isn't a bug, then I would be
glad to post this or spread this somewhat to other people as a potential solution in their cases,
as it is something which has helped me.

Thank you for anyone looking into this whatsoever.. greatly appreciate your efforts 
in improving grub.. a kickass boot loader ;-)



*********************** END /boot/grub/menu.lst

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.3
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-amd64 (SMP w/3 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub depends on:
ii  grub-common             1.96+20080724-16 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 

grub recommends no packages.

Versions of packages grub suggests:
pn  grub-legacy-doc               <none>     (no description available)
pn  mdadm                         <none>     (no description available)
pn  multiboot-doc                 <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information