Asset ID:	1-72-1004965.1
Update Date:	2008-12-30
Keywords:

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Solution Type  Problem Resolution Sure

Solution  1004965.1 :   Sun Fire [TM]: Loading grub (GRand Unified Bootloader) on a secondary drive  


PreviouslyPublishedAs
206961

Symptoms
Making a secondary drive bootable requires the use of grub-install, whether it is for a mirrored drive, or just preparing a drive to be used as a primary drive on another system.

When running the utility as outlined in the documentation for grub-install, an error is encountered when trying to install grub on a second drive on a system:

   # grub-install /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.

Resolution
Grub (Grand Unified Bootloader) is a multiboot boot loader, which is the first software program that runs when a computer starts. It is responsible for loading and transferring control to the operating system kernel software. The kernel, in turn, initializes the rest of the operating system.
Grub is installed in the MBR (master boot record) of a physical drive.

Running the command, 'grub-install <device_name>', assumes that the grub images used are in the root directory, which may not always be true.

Typically, the files on a linux system are found in the /boot directory. As a result, this needs to be specified in the command, using the '--root-directory' flag, as follows:

   # grub-install --root-directory=<location_of_grub_images> <device_name>

or, in the example mentioned above:

   # grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/sdb

Afterwards, the contents of the updated device map will be displayed.

This is the contents of the device map /boot/boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script 'grub-install'.

   (fd0)   /dev/fd0
(hd0)   /dev/sda
(hd1)   /dev/sdb

Additional Information
Additional links for reference:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialRecoveryAndBootDisk.html

Also, reference man page for grub.

Product
Sun LX50 Server
Sun Fire V65x Server
Sun Fire V60x Server
Sun Fire V20z Compute Grid Rack System
Sun Fire V60x Compute Grid Rack System
Sun Fire V40z Server
Sun Fire V20z Server

boot, linux, grub, MBR, grub-install
Previously Published As
77663

Change History
Date: 2004-10-19
User Name: 7058
Action: Approved
Comment:
There is a very similar doc out there 71976, but it deals specifically with Sun Fire V60 and 65 systems and RAID'd drives. This one is much more descriptive and explains things to the customer so much better. Good doc. I reformatted it using STM and expanded the grub acronym in the title.
Publishing.
Version: 3

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