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Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs
From: |
Ben Liblit |
Subject: |
Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs |
Date: |
Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:54:35 -0700 |
A little while back, I had reported:
> The call to biosdisk_int13_extensions() never returns.
Okuji said that this points at either a bug in GRUB or broken LBA
support in my BIOS. Thus:
> First, I'd recommend investigating if GRUB could work with your
> BIOS, when the LBA support of your BIOS is disabled. If that allows
> GRUB to work with your BIOS, then your BIOS must be buggy.
I'm dealing with two BIOSes here: my motherboard's BIOS and my SCSI
controller's BIOS. I found and disabled LBA support in my motherboard
BIOS, and that had no effect. No big surprise there, I guess, since
the disk I'm trying to boot hangs off the SCSI controller.
I couldn't really find anything in the SCSI BIOS setup that sounded
like it corresponded to LBA support. I toggled a "Extended BIOS
Translation For DOS Drives > 1 GByte" option, but that had no effect.
I'm kind of absent minded, and by this time I'd forgotten what I was
even looking for. :-) The next time I went into my SCSI BIOS setup,
I saw a "BIOS Support for Int13 Extensions" option, and I convinced
myself that this is what I had been looking for, and I turned it off.
Presto: GRUB now works! Disabling int13 extensions was the key.
Let me review what we know so far:
- Issue #1: eleven second hang and detection of bogus floppy disk.
We eventually attributed this to the get_diskinfo_floppy() call in
get_diskinfo(), on line 220 of stage2/bios.c. Both the hang and
the bogus floppy disk are fixed by commenting out this call.
What happens next? In an earlier message, Okuji wrote "I don't
remember why get_diskinfo_floppy is there any longer; It seems not
only unnecessary but also harmful, I think." Should we officially
remove that call? I know that would help my machine. Perhaps we
should make that change and see if it breaks things for anyone
else...? I defer to the better judgment of Okuji and the other
core developers on how to proceed.
- Issue #2: permanent hang on access to hard drives. Fixed by
disabling int13 extensions in SCSI controller BIOS.
Okuji had asked me to try disabling LBA support, not int13
extensions. Are those two different terms for the same thing? Or
are they unrelated and somehow I just got lucky?
Presumably, this latest experiment reveals that my SCSI
controller's BIOS is buggy. I guess we have three options:
1. I keep int13 extensions disabled in my BIOS. Has no
development impact on GRUB, but anyone else with the same
controller will have to re-discover the same issue.
2. GRUB gains the ability to detect this specific BIOS and
avoids using the buggy int13 calls. Such a workaround would
require additional development, but will proactively avoid
future bug reports from other users with similar hardware.
3. GRUB gains a new command which lets users tell it not to use
int13 extensions on specific devices. Future users will
still have to re-discover this issue, but the workaround is
ready and waiting, and could be recommended as a thing to
try in the GRUB FAQ.
To be honest, I find it surprising that my SCSI BIOS turned out to
be buggy, since this is such a mainstream controller. The Adaptec
AHA-2940UW might be a bit dated now, but in its day it was an
extremely widespread piece of hardware. I would have thought that
any bugs in its BIOS would have been found and fixed long ago.
Apparently not. :-(
Does anyone else have a 2940 controller? Does GRUB work for you?
If at least one person can state that GRUB works correctly on
their AHA-2940UW, then we have a more interesting scenario,
because that would suggest that the problem is not simply with the
SCSI controller, but is with some interaction between the
controller and other components of my system.
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, (continued)
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Ben Liblit, 2001/08/05
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, OKUJI Yoshinori, 2001/08/08
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Ben Liblit, 2001/08/08
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, OKUJI Yoshinori, 2001/08/08
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Ben Liblit, 2001/08/08
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Yoshinori K. Okuji, 2001/08/08
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Ben Liblit, 2001/08/09
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Yoshinori K. Okuji, 2001/08/17
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs,
Ben Liblit <=
- Re: [Bug-grub] Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Jason Thomas, 2001/08/24
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Yoshinori K. Okuji, 2001/08/26
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Ben Liblit, 2001/08/26
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Yoshinori K. Okuji, 2001/08/28
- Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Ben Liblit, 2001/08/29
Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Jeremy Katz, 2001/08/08
Re: "grub" command works, but GRUB boot loader hangs, Ben Liblit, 2001/08/05