Seeing Linux grub prompt on reboot.

[Vague Assumption]

I had just performed some operations in the ACU, and thought myself rather clever. I had just popped a new, spare drive into a fully functioning web server and used HP ACU 8.28.13 to pair it up with the single drive to make an array. I saw the array build. After 100% I broke the array, thinking that having cloned the drive, I could use the spare drive now fully imbued with a copy of the first drive to start a new server.

Nice theory. All I got on reboot, regardless of which drive I put where, singly, or in combination was the linux grub prompt. Didn't matter which bay I put the drives into (you know the old message informing you that either your disk offline or in a new position?).

Now, mind you, I have successfully broken a two disk raid 10 array, also using HP ACU 8.28.13, to create a cloned copy of a server. So I know that part CAN work. But my array creation didn't work.

Did I
1) forget to reboot to the OS after creating the mirror, so the OS would know about it

2) misinterpret the 'create array option.' Did it expect me to have two prexisting arrays of at least two disks before commencing?

3) was there a way to rescue the server with grub? If so, what was the command. I just rebuilt the old server, so I'm just curious to know whether was actually anything on the server.

Can I do what I intended with HP ACU 8.28.13?

[Matt Palmer_2]

Hi,

1)have u tried passing the args manually to grub to see if it can see vmlinuz? and other data on your disk.

2)have you tried booting from the linux install CD and if your distro offers it using the rescue mode to see if the partition table is still intact?

regards

Matt

[Matt Palmer_2]

Hi,

you can check if there is readable data on the disk from grub using 'find' in grub

a simple 'find /etc/hosts' will produce an output saying it successfully saw the file ( if it exists).

you could try sending something like this to grub:

root(hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz
initrd /boot/initrd
boot

you need to make sure that you pick the correct root for your installation ( grub will tell you what partition type is in the root you have just tried to mount)

hope that helps

regards

Matt

[Vague Assumption]

Did I mention this was an Installation of Windows Server 2008?