grub hangs on reboot

[jkuo13]

Ok, I maintain a dual Opteron box at work running SUSE 9.1 (64-bit). SUSE is installed on hda2 with the swap partition on hda1. sda+sdb and sdc+sdd are raided if that makes a difference, but they're mounted as data directories or user home directories.

I perhaps stupidly decided to run the online update tool in YAST to get the most recent patches, etc. The updating appeared to have worked fine until I rebooted the machine. I get a message like "loading stage1.5" or something and it just hangs.

Here's what I've tried:

1. Booting from the install disc into rescue mode:

mount /dev/hda2 /mnt
chroot /mnt
grub-install /dev/hda

This gets me back into the OS, but upon next reboot, grub hangs again.

2. Boot from the install disc, choosing install and repair. Hoses the /etc/grub.conf file and still hangs on reboot.

3. Uninstalling grub, re-installing it, and running grub-install again. Same results as solution 1.

4. running from rescue mode after booting from the install disc:

mount /dev/hda2 /mnt
chroot /mnt
grub-install --recheck
grub-install /dev/hda2

reboots once, grub hangs again on reboot

5. again from rescue mode on the install disc:

mount /dev/hda2 /mnt
chroot /mnt
grub
root (hd0,1)
setup (hd0)

immediately hangs on reboot. less successful than just running grub-install.


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I'm completely stumped. I can boot once from grub, but the next reboot hangs on stage 1.5. Anyone seen this before or have any insights?

 

[jkuo13]

anyone?

 

[cprince]

I had this problem before, and it was because the grub.conf file points to the wrong boot partition. Check to see if you are booting into the correct partition with a valid kernel. Maybe something(like the update program??) changes grub.conf during the shutdown process and mess it up.