grub crc error after decompressing linux

Question

I have a debian with a raid1 on it. Both HDDs have bootable flags and grub setup in MBR. If I only start up with sda, linux boots. If I only start up with sdb, grub shows up and says

Decompressing Linux...
crc error
-- System halted

I have reinstalled grub a few times now but still nothing.
It goes like this:
/dev/md0 contains /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
find /boot/grub/stage1 shows (hd0,0) (hd0,1)
The line that boots Linux shows:
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686

This kind of renders my "redundant" array useless.
Any clues?

update: just to mention, these are 2 different HDDs, sda is 320gb and sdb is 400gb. Both are WD and both have exactly the same partitions, cloned using sfdisk.

Is this a new installation or has it been working for some time ? — user9517, Jun 13 '10 at 10:41
I added the 2nd hard drive last week, but didn't had to test it until yesterday. — w00t, Jun 13 '10 at 17:12

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 14 '10 at 10:46

2

If you built the raid correctly and it fully synced then chances are high that you have some bad sectors on sdb.

What does the output of

cat /proc/mdstat

say about the device ?

answered Jun 14 '10 at 10:46

user9517

114,104
20
206
289

It used to be in sync but now I have kicked the drive out of the array. I'm trying to use separate /boot partitions for each drive and keep raid just for / – w00t Jun 15 '10 at 06:51
I just installed a fresh linux on the ex-sdb and even with this one grub gives errors - error 18, which I googled and somebody said: "18 is a hard-disk read on the wrong cylinder or such". – w00t Jun 16 '10 at 21:22

w00t · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-16T22:01:00.837

1

I finally managed to repair it. It was a HDD related problem and I had to go into BIOS, at the HDD's options and disable Block Mode.
Then I just proceeded with the normal installation: re-add the partitions to the array, setup grub.
It now works booting from this drive.

edited Jun 16 '10 at 22:01

answered Jun 14 '10 at 08:42

w00t

1,134
3
16
35

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 13 '10 at 09:44

0

root (hd0,0) 
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686

If this is from your grub.conf on sdb, it's missing some important information, such as what to boot. The kernel line should look something more like this:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 ro root=/dev/sda5

with root= pointing to the block device that contains the / filesystem.

In addition, if you're booting off the secondary drive, you'll want to specify that grub actually use it -- specifically,

root (hd1,0)

answered Jun 13 '10 at 09:44

Well, considering the scenario where sda fails, I remove it and sdb now becomes sda, so hd1 is hd0, I don't need to modify that. I also don't need the root= because it already knows where the root is -> root (hd0,0). The problem is that it finds vmlinuz and initrd, starts decompressing but gives that crc error. – w00t Jun 13 '10 at 10:28

grub crc error after decompressing linux

3 Answers3