Bug 6962

Summary:	Rescue DVD cannot restore the boot menu
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Franz Holzinger <flink>
Component:	Installer	Assignee:	Mageia Bug Squad <bugsquad>
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID	QA Contact:
Severity:	major
Priority:	Normal	CC:	davidwhodgins, ftg
Version:	2
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:		CVE:
Status comment:

Description Franz Holzinger 2012-08-06 10:19:53 CEST

Description of problem:
I have experienced the failure with a not working boot menu in Mageia 2. This happened after I have removed the /dev/sda5 partition which has caused a renumbering of the partitions.
Then I tried to use the emergency mode of the Mageia DVD to restore the boot menu. And even this failed.

error message:
"configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst 
Error 15: File not found".


No matter which entry I select from the textual boot menu, it always ends up in this error message. Why can't this simply be skipped?

So I have been forced to make an update installation.

Comment 1 Franz Holzinger 2012-08-06 12:31:53 CEST

I have removed the partition deva5 using harddrake. I have tried to change the partition into ext4, however harddrake wrote is as ext2, but it did show it as ext4. harddrake failed to format it.

The bootmanager restorage programm hangs here:

grub > root (hd 0,5)
Filesystem type unknown 
partition type 0x82

Setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 (hd0)

Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition

grub > quit


The Bootmanager restorage should not quit here when it is unable to mount a partition because it has not been formatted.

Comment 2 Dave Hodgins 2012-08-10 00:41:56 CEST

When a logical partition before the partition containing /boot
is deleted, causing the partitions to be renumbered, the file
/boot/grub/install.sh must be manually edited to correct
the partition number, and then run, to reinstall grub.

While I understand that it is frustrating that the system
does not automatically do this, it currently is not expected
to, so I'm closing this bug as invalid.

While it may seem that it should be simple, for the system
to automatically do this, it becomes much more complicated
if multiple partitions are being deleted/created, or in a
multiboot system, hence it's left to the system administrator
to handle.

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
CC: (none) => davidwhodgins
Resolution: (none) => INVALID

Comment 3 Franz Holzinger 2012-08-10 07:06:50 CEST

But why can't the rescue DVD offer an option to repair the Bootmanager in the case when a partition has been removed? This can be a normal case that a user removes one of his harddisks.

Comment 4 Frank Griffin 2012-08-10 12:35:52 CEST

Actually, the Partition Manager commercial product used to (and maybe still does) attempt corrections like this, although my last experience with it was back in the lilo days of mandriva.

The proper place for this,I think, is diskdrake, not the rescue disk.  As Dave says, once you've removed multiple partitions,it's much more difficult (but not impossible) tosort things out.  But if diskdrake removes a partiton, it's just a matter of chroot'ing to the following partitions, editing fstab (to handle any non-UUID entries), modifying lilo.conf/menu.lst/install.sh and rerunning lilo or grub.

CC: (none) => ftg

Comment 5 Frank Griffin 2012-08-10 12:38:16 CEST

INVALID seems out of place here, maybe either WONTFIX or ENHANCEMENT.