"GRUB loading stage1.5" and crash

[Marc Haber]

Hi,

I am experiencing problems using grub on a SuperMicro Mainboard with
AMI BIOS 07.00.xx. The POST screen says "01/12/2000 Super 370SSR/370SSE
Bios Rev 1.1a", the last line reads
"62-0112-009999-00101111-SOLANO-SSR70112-Y2KC-H".

After the POST, the system tries to boot and either does an immediate
cold start (starting again with the POST) or displays "GRUB loading
stage1.5" and then crashing so hard that even Ctrl-Alt-Del does help.
Reset button time.

I am using "grub (GNU GRUB 0.5.96.1)", and I installed it this way
from the grub shell on a freshly installed Debian/GNU Linux 2.2r2
(kernel 2.2.18pre21):
|    GRUB  version 0.5.96.1  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
|
| [ 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> find /boot/grub/stage1
| (hd0,5)
|
|grub> root (hd0,5)
| Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
|
|grub> setup (hd0)
| Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
| Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
| Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
| Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  15 sectors are embedded.
| succeeded
| Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) (hd0)1+15 p
|(hd0,5)/boot/grub/stage 2"... succeeded
|Done.
|
|grub> 

I am using grub from the Debian package, version 0.5.96.1-0.1,
backported to potato.

Here is the disk's geometry:
|Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 3737 cylinders
|Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
|
|   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
|/dev/hda1             1      3737  30017421    5  Extended
|/dev/hda5             1        61    489950+  82  Linux swap
|/dev/hda6            62        67     48194+  83  Linux
|/dev/hda7            68       191    996029+  83  Linux
|/dev/hda8           192       689   4000184+  83  Linux
|/dev/hda9           690       813    996029+  83  Linux
|/dev/hda10          814      3737  23487029+  83  Linux

The root file system is mounted from /dev/hda6, this is also where
grub resides.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug in grub? Can I do
anything to help you debugging?

Any hints will be appreciated.

Greetings
Marc

-- 
Dipl.-Inform. Marc Haber                           planNET Systems GmbH
Senior Manager Security                            Schönfeldstr. 8
E-Mail: address@hidden                      76131 Karlsruhe
Fon: +49 721 6636-0                                Fax: +49 721 6636-199