[bug #27389] grub-setup broke partition table

[Igor Murzov]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?27389>

                 Summary: grub-setup broke partition table
                 Project: GNU GRUB
            Submitted by: garik
            Submitted on: Sun 06 Sep 2009 11:35:32 PM GMT
                Category: Disk &amp; Partition
                Severity: Major
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: None
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: 
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: 
                 Release: SVN
         Reproducibility: None
         Planned Release: None

    _______________________________________________________

Details:

grub-r2575 installed on /dev/hda (120 Gb disk with 4 partitions: hda1 -
/boot, hda2 - swap, hda3 - /, hda4 - /home).

After my experiments with gettin' grub to boot system from cd, my partition
table on hda became broken.

--------------------------------------------
address@hidden:~# grub-setup -b cdboot.img '(hd0)'
address@hidden:~# grub-setup -b boot.img -b cdboot.img '(hd0)'
grub-setup: error: Cannot guess the root device. Specify the option
``--root-device''.
address@hidden:~# grub-setup -b cdboot.img '(hd0)'
grub-setup: error: Cannot guess the root device. Specify the option
``--root-device''.
address@hidden:~# grub-setup -r /dev/hda -b cdboot.img '(hd0)'
grub-setup: error: Invalid root device `/dev/hda'
address@hidden:~# grub-setup -r '(hd0)' -b cdboot.img '(hd0)'
grub-setup: warn: Attempting to install GRUB to a partitionless disk.  This
is a BAD idea.
grub-setup: warn: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be installed in
this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and its
use is discouraged.
grub-setup: error: If you really want blocklists, use --force.
address@hidden:~# grub-setup -r '(hd0,1)' -b cdboot.img '(hd0)'
grub-setup: error: no such partition 
--------------------------------------------

After that partition table has been recreated with cfdisk (using `df`, `free`
info). It turned out that broken table and fixed table differs in only 3
bytes:

--------------------------------------------
$ cmp -l partition-table.broken partition-table.fixed
447   0 200
511   0 125
512   0 252
--------------------------------------------

With best regards,
Igor



    _______________________________________________________

File Attachments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun 06 Sep 2009 11:35:32 PM GMT  Name: partition-table.fixed  Size:
512B   By: garik
dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
<http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/download.php?file_id=18679>
-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun 06 Sep 2009 11:35:32 PM GMT  Name: partition-table.broken  Size:
512B   By: garik
dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
<http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/download.php?file_id=18678>

    _______________________________________________________

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