Re: grub doesn't know ufs filesystem

Roberto Nunnari <roberto.nunnari@xxxxxxxx> · Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:12:28 +0100

Hi Micah and Harley,
Thanks for your answer.
Humm.. I don't have any other grub on my path, and running
which returns:
# which grub
/usr/local/sbin/grub
The ports were updated quite recently.. in occasion of
last update world.
I did some more testing.. the strange thing is that I use
the same grub boot floppy and the results are ok on the
newly installed freebsd boxes, while on the two that
are already installed the results are bad..

test 1:
=======
- made a grub floppy
- boot the existing FreeBSD boxes (2 boxes) from grub floppy
result --> grub doesn't know the ufs filesystem
test 2:
=======
- installed a brand new FreeBSD 5-3-RELEASE with default
  partitioning on the whole disk on a separate pc
- boot with grub floppy
result --> grub recognizes the ufs filesystem
test 3:
=======
- same as test2, but / root has now soft-updates option
- boot with grub floppy
result --> grub recognizes the ufs filesystem
test 4:
=======
- same as test2, but partitioning done with partition magic
  as was done on the computers of test1
- boot with grub floppy
result --> grub recognizes the ufs filesystem
All that seams to point out that there's something wrong
with the existing FreeBSD boxes.. but What? I must say
that both boxes had all filesystem dumped and restored
after repartitioning for permitting the use of dumping
software such as ghost (that didn't like the partitioning
done by freebsd during installation..)
Any more ideas?

Harley D. Eades III wrote:

On Wed, 2005-12-14 at 08:36 -0800, Micah wrote:
Roberto Nunnari wrote:
Hello list.
Please also reply to my mailbox, as I'm not on the list.
Thank you.
I have a old grub floppy that I use time to time to
boot/recover pc with different OS.. Today I wanted to
boot a freebsd 5.3-RELEASE-p23 box, but to my surprise
grub reported:
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
and thus cannot mount /boot/loader
So I thought I'd make a grub floppy with a recent version,
but even with version 0.97 things won't change..
# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/grub

# make install

# grub

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB

  lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the 
possible

  completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> root (hd0,0,a)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
grub> kernel /boot/loader
Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
grub> root (hd0, <TAB>
Possible partitions are:
  Partition num: 0, [BSD sub-partitions immediately follow]
    BSD Partition num: 'a',  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
    BSD Partition num: 'b',  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
    BSD Partition num: 'd',  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
    BSD Partition num: 'e',  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
    BSD Partition num: 'f',  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
grub> quit
# mount
/dev/ad0s1a on / (ufs, local, soft-updates)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
/dev/ad0s1e on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/ad0s1f on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/ad0s1d on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates)
linprocfs on /usr/compat/linux/proc (linprocfs, local)
devfs on /var/named/dev (devfs, local)
Any hint/thought/advice?
Best regards.

I just installed grub from ports and duplicated your test and it works 
fine.  I'd start by checking your installation and making sure you don't 
have any other grubs in your path.  Some of the grubs that ship with 
Linux distros do not support ufs.  Do a find/locate on grub to see what 
turns up.  Do a which grub, you should get /usr/local/sbin/grub.  If 
not, issue /usr/local/sbin/grub from a command prompt and duplicate your 
test.  If that's broken, make sure your ports tree is up to date, make 
sure /usr/ports/devel/autoconf259 /usr/ports/devel/automake19 
/usr/ports/devel/gmake are up to date (grub's build dependancies) then

deinstall, clean, and reintsall the grub port.

HTH,
Micah
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx"

I can second this, I use grub all the time, as well as test grub2 on
FreeBSD and both work great for me.
--Harley 
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

G: GCS-- d- a? C++++ B- E+++ W+++ N++ w--- X+++ b++ G e* r x+ z+++++

------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

--
              Roberto Nunnari -software engineer-
               mailto:roberto.nunnari@xxxxxxxx
 Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana
             Dipartimento Tecnologie Innovative
                  http://www.dti.supsi.ch
 SUPSI-DTI
 Via Cantonale                        tel: +41-91-6108561
 6928 Manno                 """       fax: +41-91-6108570
 Switzerland               (o o)
=======================oOO==(_)==OOo========================
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx"

Re: grub doesn't know ufs filesystem

Relevant Pages