9.6 Troubleshooting
This section lists some of the problems frequently encountered when booting with
GRUB and a short description of possible solutions. Some of the problems are covered
in articles in the Support Database at http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:
Support_database. Use the search dialog to search for keywords like GRUB, boot
and boot loader.
GRUB and XFS
XFS leaves no room for stage1 in the partition boot block. Therefore, do not
specify an XFS partition as the location of the boot loader. This problem can be
solved by creating a separate boot partition that is not formatted with XFS.
GRUB Reports GRUB Geom Error
GRUB checks the geometry of connected hard disks when the system is booted.
Sometimes, the BIOS returns inconsistent information and GRUB reports a GRUB
Geom Error. In this case, update the BIOS.
GRUB also returns this error message if Linux was installed on an additional hard
disk that is not registered in the BIOS. stage1 of the boot loader is found and
loaded correctly, but stage2 is not found. This problem can be remedied by regis-
tering the new hard disk in the BIOS.
System Containing Several Hard Disks Does Not Boot
During the installation, YaST may have incorrectly determined the boot sequence
of the hard disks. For example, GRUB may regard the PATA (IDE) disk as hd0
and the SCSI disk as hd1, although the boot sequence in the BIOS is reversed
(SCSI before PATA).
In this case, correct the hard disks during the boot process with the help of the
GRUB command line. After the system has booted, edit device.map to apply
the new mapping permanently. Then check the GRUB device names in the les
/boot/grub/menu.lst and /boot/grub/device.map and reinstall the
boot loader with the following command:
grub --batch < /etc/grub.conf
The Boot Loader GRUB 175
