newbie: centOS -> "error: file not found" after installation

Easter Bunny

Easter Bunny

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*sorry for the extremely long post - i just wanted to give you an idea of what i have done so far*

so i'm new at linux.

work sent me a link so i can do online training for a+ and n+. i logged on and saw linux+ as well, so i decided to play with that too. after doing a quick google search, i found that linux+ is meant to be "distro neutral", but mostly they focus on red hat, so the general feeling was that centOS is a good one to play with while they teach you things.

so i downloaded centOS 6.5 to try it out.

!suddenly! i got an idea: get ubuntu, centOS and fedora (the ones i have heard the most of) and install them all on different partitions on my harddrive and bam! i can use whichever one i want.

so today i decided to install centOS first.

i fiddled with the partitions and then somewhere i made a mistake. i have a 250gb harddrive, so i created a 30gb partition for centOS and a 3gb "swap" partition. then i forgot to make a boot partition, so i did it all over again and forgot to make the boot partition first, so it ended up being the last one i created (300mb if i remember correctly). went through the next things and it asked me where i want to put the mbr, but i can't remember which one i picked (carry on reading and you'll probably be able to tell me).

did the installation and then was excited to reboot.

error: file not found
grub recovery>
Click to expand...

bollocks. i almost reinstalled, but then realised this would be a great opportunity to learn something.

i went online and searched for some grub tips. i found one that said i must boot with the dvd, select the repair option and then do a reinstall of grub. i did that, but got no joy.

then i found this guy's procedure. fiddling around with that i managed to find where i think my boot files are.

"ls" gave me three partitions on my harddrive:

hd0,1
hd0,2
hd0,3

"ls (hd0,3)/" gave me what looks like all the boot images that i need:

.vmlinuz-2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64.hmac
system.map-2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64
config-2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64
symvers-2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64.gz
vmlinuz-2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64
initramfs-2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64.img

"ls (hd0,1)/boot" is empty. this is the 30gb partition that centOS is installed on.

i read up a little on "grub" here and it seems fairly straight forward. on that site he has an example like this:

title openSUSE 10.2
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-...
initrd /boot/initrd.img-...
Click to expand...

so i reckon for me, it's trying to look in (hd0,1)/boot for everything when in actual fact it is in (hd0,3)/ however, fixing that seems to be where i am getting stuck. i found a site that said i should mount the partition in a folder (which, as i typed this, suddenly makes sense, because on my android phone i always had a folder for "sdcard" or something like that) and then i can browse them, but when i get into bash and try do that, it tells me i need to specify the filesystem type.

in the other guy's procedure (first link above), his steps worked up until "insmod linux" - i got "file not found". i'm not sure where that file is located though. i imagine it's like dos. you either need to be in that folder to use a file, or you need to put down the whole path of it. what i'd really like to do is open the grub config file and see where it's looking for the OS to load.

i'm refusing to reinstall because i feel i have figured out what is wrong, but fixing it is where i'm stuck. i'm gonna post this and then give it another go to see if i can fix it. i'll check back later for any replies here. ;)
 
i think i just realised that the boot partition isn't where your boot configuration files go, it's where your actual OS boot files go.

see? i'm learning so much already.

also, booting from the disk and selecting the recovery option, i got it to search for an OS and it mounted it for me. i then noticed that i mounted all the partitions for me as well. rad!

i'll let you know if i get this sorted. :D
 
Grub error are particularly tricky for someone that is new to it.
You will probably need to boot with the live disk and then remount partitions and chroot to make your changes.
 
in the end I gave up and reinstalled. :(

was fun playing around though. I think I had some files missing, so I started from scratch. some of the commands I found online were coming back with file not found, so I took it as a sign of a fatal n00b installation. :D

i booted from the dvd and went for repair options and started the shell. my installation partition was being mounted as /mnt/sysimage and my boot partition was being mounted as /mnt/sysimage/boot.

but unmounting the boot partition gave me access to what is in the installation partition's boot folder. odd that it allowed mounting on a folder that wasn't empty.

I'm rather excited about learning linux (finally!). initially I wasn't keen on it because of drivers and most of the work being done in the shell, but the drivers are fine and the shell appeals to me more than guis. :)
 
If you are unsure about the partition layout, leave it with all the default Logic Volumes and just install as is.
Else, a simple layout would be to create the following partition layout during installation:

200MB /boot
2000MB swap
(The rest) /

That should not be used in certain instances, especially where you are going to have many users using the system etc. But just for the sake of playing around with the OS it should be fine.
 
that's pretty much what i ended up doing on my spare harddrive on my pc. i also installed vmware on my work laptop so i could play around. my home pc's cpu doesn't support virtualisation. :( vmware did an automatic setup this time round, so i didn't get to break any partitions. :D

if i remember correctly, i read that if you create a boot partition for the boot files, then you need to make sure you have the correct rights to that partition incase you ever need to update anything, which should be taken care of by either changing the rights for your user account or by logging in as root.

if that's correct, then i'll be happy, because it feels like i'm learning. :) i found some pdf documents that fell off the back of a truck ;) so i'm working through that now. one is for beginner command line people and the other is a full command reference. i'm back at work this week and it's going to be quiet i hope, so i'm doing some reading and taking notes.
 
Easter Bunny said:
in the end I gave up and reinstalled. :(

was fun playing around though. I think I had some files missing, so I started from scratch. some of the commands I found online were coming back with file not found, so I took it as a sign of a fatal n00b installation. :D

i booted from the dvd and went for repair options and started the shell. my installation partition was being mounted as /mnt/sysimage and my boot partition was being mounted as /mnt/sysimage/boot.

but unmounting the boot partition gave me access to what is in the installation partition's boot folder. odd that it allowed mounting on a folder that wasn't empty.

I'm rather excited about learning linux (finally!). initially I wasn't keen on it because of drivers and most of the work being done in the shell, but the drivers are fine and the shell appeals to me more than guis. :)
Click to expand...

Download ubuntu desktop. Learn linux the fun way :D
 
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