Hi:
This is a “re-install” done via SLED12 SP3 DVD (actually UPDATE). Re-install is actually having to move my two HDDs (1TB each) and 1 SSD (14GB) with a DVD R/W unit to a new MOBO, w/ AMD Ryzen 4 Core CPU and 8GB of RAM (similar to prior system that had a powersupply failure that took out the MOBO).
Went into the BIOS to figure out what it was set for, defaults, etc. Had to make a config change so that it would boot from the DVD/CD any time it needed to restart and bootable media was in the tray.
In order to get everything connected where it needed to be (across the SATA connectors) I booted Knoppix 7.6. This failed. Got a copy of 7.6.1 and that was able to boot and run with this setup:
ASUS Prime B450-Plus motherboard, AMD Ryzen w/O graphics, external Graphics (RADEON and I’ve forgotten the exact model, but it works), two monitors, and bluetooth keyboard/mouse (USB).
So now the two HDDs are connected in SATA 1 & 2 as they had been in the original machine.
Booted using a Knoppix 7.6.1 live DVD, I mounted the various partitions and verified they are there and good (so power supply failure didn’t wreck the HDDs).
Here is where things go down hill.
Attempted to boot off the harddrive(s) and the system could not find the O/S.
[Also, I do not put in the registration code during the running of the SLED12 SP3 installer. The SUSE system counts those – even though you are working on the same system. But it doesn’t have a problem when the system “registers” or “re-registers” once booted since it will have the name it had from the last time.]
Ok, so the prior machine did have EFI, so I figured an UPGRADE using the SLED12 SP3 DVD should find and solve the problems with “Grub” [I am not sure that these drives were done using GPT if this even matters at this point.].
No joy. The upgrade logic couldn’t find the correct “/” partition. I don’t know why, but it was looking at a test partition (sdb2) that was not a SLED partition (hadn’t needed to deal with this for a long time and had forgotten it was there). Yes, you can tell it which one to use, and I did that and that didn’t work either.
So I restarted all of this and did an 'INSTALL" where I told it to format the SWAPs (1 per each drive), and to format the system partition(s) (/home was to be untouched as it is RAID 0 mirrored between the two HDDs).
This worked as I expected, and I caught the forced rename to “linux” and corrected it to the correct name for this workstation. [Been down this road before so I know that this type of install works.]
The install code then went off to reboot (and I removed the DVD from the tray), and the BIOS did not find any boot (should have found Grub). All I got was a flashing underscore about 3 lines down the screen.
Ok, so I booted the SLED DVD again and told it to boot the system on disk. Same problem – it couldn’t find the O/S and so immediately rebooted the DVD.
I have made a change so that the EFI partition would be mounted (entries in fstab done by the install DVD). That didn’t help.
I would like to NOT set this system to Legacy mode – but that may be what is required.
I am at a loss. From all I understand, from having done this kind of thing with other distros, It should have set this so it would boot. Even if the HDDs were swapped, GRUB should have picked up the correct partition on the correct drive, right (system is using UUID)?
Any idea what option I should be specifying that I’m not to get this to setup?
If you need screen captures, I’m not sure that pictures of the monitor(s) would be readable when posted here. <<
Thanks in advance.
