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Dell R610 boots to grub Rescue after update

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Dangerousdave26
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Joined: 2022-09-13 20:33

Dell R610 boots to grub Rescue after update

#1 Post by Dangerousdave26 »

Dell R610
2 x 6 core processor @ 2.5GHZ
64GB Ram
6x 900GB SAS drives
perc 6i configured for 1 virtual drive in hardware raid 6

I installed Debian 11 in November of last year. I had to use the Non Free version because of the drivers needed on the server. The standard version couldn’t see the Raid drive. Everything went fine until last May when I ran updates and rebooted. When it booted it came up to grub rescue and I had to figure out how to fix the boot up process.

I finally got it fixed and it was rebooted a number times since then without an issue.

Last week I decided it was time to run updates again and this time it would boot to Grub menu and complain about trying to read or write outside of disk hd0. This was not the same problem I had last time but I tried to fix it the same way. After that didn’t work, I tried a number of other ways to fix the booting issue until I figured it would just be easier to rebuild it from scratch.

I then copied off all my important files (it is really only used for network storage) and wiped it clean.

I blew out the virtual disk in the raid controller and reloaded the system using bios mode and automatic formatting of the hard drive using the debian-live-11.4.0-amd64-gnome+nonfree.iso. Oddly enough I had the same issue with the server on a fresh reload.

I then tried switching to UEFI boot and reloading and that would boot to the Grub menu but couldn’t see anything but the (hd0) as the drive. When I tried to ls the drive it said unknown file system. For some reason it could not see the partitions.

I scrapped UEFI and went back to bios mode. I installed again but this time I did a manual disk formatting. I also did not use a mirror the install. I loaded from the USB drive to save time.

That time it worked and booted fine.

I started copying all of my files back onto the system and loading Samba and NFS.

With those complete I ran updates again and now we are back to the Grub Rescue mode because it tried to read or write outside of disk (hd0).

The problem with grub rescue at this point is it does not have all of the commands installed.

If I type set:

cmdpath=(hd0)
prefix=(hd0,gpt3)/boot/grub
root=hd0,gpt3

There are no other available commands. Boot, lsmod, normal, configfile commands all yield unknown command.

(hd0,gpt3) is the working partition

Clearly there must be a problem with loading updates.

How to I get it to boot from here?

p.H
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Re: Dell R610 boots to grub Rescue after update

#2 Post by p.H »

The latest 11.5 release upgraded GRUB from 2.04 to 2.06. Maybe an issue with GRUB 2.06 and your hardware (or actually BIOS/UEFI firmware).
Dangerousdave26 wrote: 2022-09-13 21:37 I then tried switching to UEFI boot and reloading and that would boot to the Grub menu but couldn’t see anything but the (hd0) as the drive. When I tried to ls the drive it said unknown file system. For some reason it could not see the partitions.
Weird. Displaying the menu requires to be able to read the root/boot filesystem.

Dangerousdave26
Posts: 2
Joined: 2022-09-13 20:33

Re: Dell R610 boots to grub Rescue after update

#3 Post by Dangerousdave26 »

It appears the core problem even before the update broke the booting is Bios boot doesn't like large drives. For a test I used 1 drive 900GB as the OS drive using Bios boot and it has worked so far. After the updates it has survived multiple reboots.

I think the final answer will be to setup a virtual drive for the OS of 500GB across all 6 drives in RAID 6 and use the rest for the storage area.

I am also thinking of creating virtual drives on the RAID controller 1 VD of 550 MB for boot UEFI (try that one again), 1 VD for 500GB OS install, and the rest for mounting as storage.

p.H
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Re: Dell R610 boots to grub Rescue after update

#4 Post by p.H »

Some BIOS do not properly handle logical sector addresses beyond an arbitrary boundary (e.g. 2 GiB). The usual workaround is to install anything that is needed to boot (BIOS boot or EFI partition, /boot or root filesystems) in partitions located within this boundary. A hardware RAID controller may provide other options.

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