Installing grub for a different computer

[Kevin Freeman]

On Wed, 2004-11-17 at 07:15 +0000, Colin Paul Adams wrote:
> assumptions, assumptions....
> NOW Murphy is kicking good and proper. Here are the last few messages
> from the console:
> 
> Mounting root filesystem.
> EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock
> mount: error 22 mounting ext3
> pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed: 2
> umount /initrd/proc failed: 2
> Freeing unused kernel memory: 168k freed
> Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.
> 

Looking at the bright side, at least the kernel was loaded from
the /boot partition. ;)

I can think of 3 likely causes: 

1) root parameter on kernel line is pointing to the wrong partition
2) initrd points to a different version than the kernel version
3) your / partition is at least partially corrupt

> I tried the above with two different kernels (there's 4 or 5 installed
> - all FC1).
> Now, I mentioned before that I was able to mount the root file system on my
> other computer OK, so I'm rather puzzled by the failure to find the
> superblock.
> 
> Is there anything I can do at this stage?

Try modifying the root= parameter of grub's kernel config.  If you did a
stock FC1 install, try root=LABEL=/.  Otherwise, just try root=/dev/hda1
through root=/dev/hda5.  One of them has to work!  This should not cause
any harm to the drive since nothing will be mounted read/write until
your / partition is properly specified.

If this still does not work, you might try Toms root/boot:
http://www.toms.net/rb/

This floppy contains fdisk, vi, etc. and will allow you to explore the
drive to locate the / partition and edit /boot/grub/grub.conf.  While
there, also verify that /boot/grub/menu.lst links
to /boot/grub/grub.conf.

Kevin Freeman