To fix this specific issue, the first thing I'd try would be another netboot, and then running the appropriate fscks for the filesystem(s) on the CF partition(s). That might be enough to get things straightened out and booting.
More generally, are you using one of the extended filesystems as your boot partition? I generally find it's best to have /, /boot and /usr as ext3.... on a small CF like that, you'd likely want just one partition, which means ext3. You're probably not going to be doing much in the filesystem anyway (to avoid wear on the CF), so sticking with a simple, compatible format is usually the best idea. Reiser/XFS/JFS are great, but I prefer using them in non-system-critical partitions like /var, /tmp and /home. As far as why GRUB is throwing this error, complaining about the filesystem.... it's a design decision. It installs its bootsector only once, at installation time, and never touches it again. That boot stub uses the filesystem structures to find the next stage and the configuration file. This lets you boot arbitrary kernels from arbitrary partitions at the command line, which has saved my butt more than once. But it can obviously be confused by a bad filesystem, a problem LILO doesn't have LILO hardcodes the file locations on disk, so it doesn't care about the filesystem, but you can end up unbootable if you forget to rerun it. It will let you change boot arguments, but can't change the actual kernel that gets loaded; if a given kernel hasn't been hardcoded into the boot sector, you just flat can't run it. GRUB doesn't have that problem; it can load anything you like from any media that's visible from the BIOS. Further, I've seen many more bugs in LILO; there was a period about three years ago where I was very fearful of updating, as new versions broke constantly. Recovering from a bad LILO install is painful. GRUB is generally much easier to fix, and this is the first time I've seen it outright break. Overall, if you want to boot from something other than ext3, then LILO's hardcoded sectors will probably be easier to work with. With ext3, I think GRUB is a bit better. Bill Maas wrote: > Hello Andy, > > quick search on well-known search engine reveals a.o.: > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/grub/+bug/64928 > > Admitted, I shun those monstrous GNU "manuals" as well, but typing "grub > error 16" in a search engine input box can't be that hard;). > > What a boot loader has to do with fs health remains a mystery to me, I > used to think that that was an OS boot issue. But grub seems to need > data from the fs. Maybe revert to good old reliable Lilo, or the new > EXTLINUX. > > Bill > > > On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 12:50 -0400, Andy Michaels wrote: > >> I finally got Debian to netboot and install to a 1GB flash card on a >> Net4801. After Debian installs, the reboot fails with this: >> >> GRUB loading stage 1.5 >> >> GRUB loading please wait >> ERROR 16 >> >> I installed GRUB to the MBR of the CF card. Should I not? I also created >> 2 partitions / is ext2 and /var is ext2 noexec noatime >> >> eventually, I'll mount / with noatime >> >> Anyone know how to get past this ERROR 16? >> >> Thanks! >> >> -Andy >> _______________________________________________ >> Soekris-tech mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech >> >> _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
