Grub has disabled my CD boot

[Bob Wittorf]

I am trying to upgrade Fedora Core 4 to Fedora Core 5. I put the iso disc
which I downloaded into my DVD drive, reboot, and wait. My bios is set to
boot from the CD/DVD drive first. After the bios screen, I get the message
"GRUB stage 2" and then the menu appears. GRUB completely bypasses the boot
from CD stage. 

 

My version of GRUB is .95.  I compiled and installed the latest version
1.9XX, but it did not remove the old version. Incidentally, since I can't
boot from this CD drive, I can't get Super-Grub to work either. I don't
know, however, if that will help any.

 

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Kam Leo]

On 4/28/06, Bob Wittorf <wittorf(a)attglobal.net&gt; wrote:
>  I am trying to upgrade Fedora Core 4 to Fedora Core 5. I put the iso disc
>  which I downloaded into my DVD drive, reboot, and wait. My bios is set to
>  boot from the CD/DVD drive first. After the bios screen, I get the message
>  "GRUB stage 2" and then the menu appears. GRUB completely bypasses the boot
>  from CD stage.
>
>
>
>  My version of GRUB is .95.  I compiled and installed the latest version
>  1.9XX, but it did not remove the old version. Incidentally, since I can't
>  boot from this CD drive, I can't get Super-Grub to work either. I don't
>  know, however, if that will help any.
>
>
>
>  Thanks for any help you can give me.
>  -- 
Can your FC4 installation read the contents of the CD-ROM? If not, try
the following:

1. Use different media, e.g. +R instead of -R, +R/-R instead of R/W,
another brand, etc.
2. Burn at slower speed.

[Michael A. Peters]

On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 11:38 -0600, Bob Wittorf wrote:
>  I am trying to upgrade Fedora Core 4 to Fedora Core 5. I put the iso
>  disc which I downloaded into my DVD drive, reboot, and wait. My bios
>  is set to boot from the CD/DVD drive first. After the bios screen, I
>  get the message “GRUB stage 2” and then the menu appears. GRUB
>  completely bypasses the boot from CD stage.  
Not possible.
Your bios either isn't set to boot from the CD, or your CD is not
bootable / misburned.

grub lives on the boot sector of a hard drive. It does not touch or care
about your bios. Your bios will search for something to boot in the
order it is configured to.

If the CD is configured to boot first but the bios doesn't see it as
bootable because of a bad burn, it will go to the next device - which
likely is the MBR that grub is loaded on.

Check your bios boot order, and if the CD/DVD is configured to boot
first - then you probably have a mis-burned DVD.
>

[James Wilkinson]

Michael A. Peters wrote:
>  Your bios either isn't set to boot from the CD, or your CD is
> not
>  bootable / misburned.
>  
>  grub lives on the boot sector of a hard drive. It does not touch or care
>  about your bios. Your bios will search for something to boot in the
>  order it is configured to.
>  
>  If the CD is configured to boot first but the bios doesn't see it as
>  bootable because of a bad burn, it will go to the next device - which
>  likely is the MBR that grub is loaded on.
>  
>  Check your bios boot order, and if the CD/DVD is configured to boot
>  first - then you probably have a mis-burned DVD. 
It's also possible that the Original Poster's CD drive is picky about
CD-RWs or CD-Rs.

On my old computer, it took a few seconds for my CD drive to work out
that yes, it did have a CD inside, spin it up, and read the boot sector.
By this time, the BIOS had decided that the CD drive obviously *didn't*
have anything bootable inside, and gone on to the next boot device.

My workaround was to insert the CD at the "right point" of the BIOS
screen, timing it so that the disc was still spun up when the BIOS tried
booting from it. That meant the drive could find the boot sector faster,
and the BIOS would use it.

It wouldn't do this with pressed CDs -- it could spin those up fast
enough by itself.

Hope this helps,

James.
-- 
E-mail address: james | It is difficult to produce a television documentary
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | that is both incisive and probing when every twelve
                      | minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits
                      | singing about toilet paper.  -- R. Serling