Hi.
I've been running suse 9.x for a while, using grub for dual boot. Today, instead of starting up nicely as usual, (it even logs me on 8)), I get GRUB loading stage 2.., then I'm in a GRUB interpreter. I search this site. I see to type "root(hd0,<tab>". I get [abbreviated]:

part num 0, fs type unknown, part type 0x7
part num 1, fs type extfs, part type 0x83
part num 2,
Error 18: selected cylinder exceeds mas supported by BIOS.
..hmmmm

I finish root command: "root (hd0,1)" answer: fs type extfs, part type 0x83....

I type: "makeactive" [no answer]

I type: "kernel /vmlinuz" answer: [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1400, size=0x1305b]

I type: "boot" answer:....lots of messages indicating boot in progress....

...the last three lines:

EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev=09:02, iso_blknum=16, block=32
Kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 09:02

.... i turn off machine...

Is this is bad as I suspect? ie is my mbr hosed? (and my life passing before my eyes???)

is there any way i can get this thing up long enough to get my data??? will i have to get another boot disk and mount my lost one as a separate fs? etc? etc?
help?!?!?!

and of course, thanks in advance....

kbg

I think you were almost there with that last boot. You seem to have lost your grub configuration/menu file - this is called menu.lst or grub.config.

But you do seem to have found your kernel!

- you probably have the correct root directory root(hd0,1)
- you probably don't need the makeactive command - that puts a boot flag on the partition that only Windows looks at (grub doesn't need it)
- you may need some options on the kernel line. Especially if you used more than one partition when you installed suse, you would need root=/dev/hda3, where hda3 was your / directory
- you probably need an initrd command between the kernel command and the boot command. Do this exactly the same way you did the /vmlinuz command - 'initrd /initrd' - this should load the init ramdisk. grub will tell you if it doesn't work.

You can use TAB-completion in grub, if you type 'initrd /', then hit the tab key, you should get a list of files in that boot directory. You can also use the cat command, together with TAB-completion to try to find your lost menu.lst

Does this work?

If yes, you will need to setup grub again, something seems to have gone very wrong with it. (That Error 18 is a bit disturbing)

If this does not work, you will probably need a live-cd with grub on it, to set up grub again.