Topic: GRUB Loading stage2... [FIXED]

[judgej]

All my CDROMs are 700Mbyte and the ISO is 722Mbyte - the writer refuses to squeeze the image onto the disk. The writer also refuses to put the image onto a DVD, insisting it is for CDRs only. I suspect the latter is something I can override, which I will look into. Unless there are DVD images somewhere that I am missing? Otherwise I'll have to order some 750Mbyte oversized CDRs and burn to one of those.

I've reconfigured the router and network, so there is no urgent need for the server to be up and running, so I can afford a few days to get it fixed.

[janet]

judgej

This CD size issue was identified some time ago for sme8.1, refer
http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Download#ISO

"Due to the growth of a number of included packages, the size of the smeserver ISO has now outgrown the size of CD-ROM media. A DVD-ROM is now the prefered sized medium or use a Usb Key. (N.B. Technically, you can still burn the smeserver 64 bit ISO to a CD-ROM provided the CD creation software is capable of writing more than the official disk capacity, over burn feature, but not the 32-bit version. Therefore, it is now strongly recommended to use a DVD-ROM or USB Key for both versions.)"

[janet]

judgej

No need to try booting in rescue mode to a USB drive (iso)

You should be able to boot to a sme8.0 CD in rescue mode (or another Linux boot CD), to interrogate your sme server & hopefully fix the grub issue.
The older 8.0 version IIRC can write to a standard size CD
Also IIRC rescue mode is/can be menu selectable, read the screen

See http://wiki.contribs.org/Booting

Bit stuck on rescue mode.
I have booted "linux rescue" or "sme rescue" (different sources list different commands) from a USB key. The boot process now wants me to select the source of the rescue image. It gives me a choice of CDROM, HD, NFS image, FTP or HTTP. None of them include the USB key, so far as I understand. So can a rescue not be done from a USB key?
I was expecting the rescue mode to drop me into a prompt, but I guess not.

[Stefano]

Bit stuck on rescue mode.

I have booted "linux rescue" or "sme rescue" (different sources list different commands) from a USB key. The boot process now wants me to select the source of the rescue image. It gives me a choice of CDROM, HD, NFS image, FTP or HTTP. None of them include the USB key, so far as I understand. So can a rescue not be done from a USB key?

I was expecting the rescue mode to drop me into a prompt, but I guess not.

just copy the iso image into your usb key and select CD..

worked for me several times..

[judgej]

Phew! Thank you for your help all.

• I created an 8.1 bootable USB key under Windows. It was very straight-forword: http://wiki.contribs.org/Install_From_USB
  
• I copied the SME 8.1 ISO file that I used to create the USB key onto the USB key alongside the installation OS. I don't know what format the USB was, but Windows 7 had no problem reading and writing to it.
• I booted with the USB key and entered "linix recover" at the boot prompt.
• The recover process ran and asked for some language settings.
• The recover process then asked for the ISO that I would like to recover from. I selected "hard disk" then device sdc (there were two sda and two sdb partitions, which I assumed where the installed hard drives, so my guess is that sdc was the USB key). This time it found the ISO file on there immediately and booted up to a shell.
• I followed the steps to reinstall grub here http://wiki.contribs.org/Grub ("Fix the GRUB from the startup command line"). I made sure it was installed on both hard drives - (hd0,0) and (hd1,0)
• I exited grub (the reboot command) then exited the shell, and removed the USB key as the machine started to reboot - successfuly

That was it. In short: reinstalled grub, and the machine now boots. All recovery was done from a USB key. Are the days of burning CDROMs really over? I hope so

Thanks again.