Grub Error 18 Selected
General support questions Post Reply Print view Search Advanced search 5 posts • Page 1 of 1 Stickybit Posts: 4 Joined: 2011/11/18 09:46:46 Grub Error 18 Quote Postby Stickybit » 2013/03/26 18:48:33 Hi guysAm I in trouble? Yes I am. Got a server that has been running for half a year .. and now .. it just will not boot. Grub complains with this error:Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOSI havn't changed anything with the hardware. The only thing that has changed is regular updating.Could some Grub update be the problem here - and how do I revert if that is the case?Regards Sticky Top TrevorH Forum Moderator Posts: 16858 Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56 Location: Brighton, UK Grub Error 18 Quote Postby TrevorH » 2013/03/26 21:27:40 Can you choose a different kernel from the list in the grub menu and boot that instead? Check your BIOS hard drive mapping and make sure the geometry has not changed - maybe your CMOS battery has reset and lost a bunch of settings? Top Stickybit Posts: 4 Joined: 2011/11/18 09:46:46 Re: Grub Error 18 Quote Postby Stickybit » 2013/03/27 05:56:04 Trying to boot the older kernel's produce the same error, while booting the win7 installation on the same disk (which actually is a raid1) works just fine.Could some strange disk error produce this problem? - and is there a way to check the mirror for errors using rescue-mode with a installation media?Regards Sticky Top TrevorH Forum Moderator Posts: 16858 Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56 Location: Brighton, UK Re: Grub Error 18 Quote Postby TrevorH » 2013/03/27 09:16:03 I've seen this before on the forums and it has to do with the RAID 1. Can you post your /boot/grub/grub.conf here? Might have to boot from rescue disk to do so.The problem is that grub asks the device for its geometry and the BIOS for the limits from which it can boot and the RAID 1 "disk" returns some bogus geometry with about a million cylinders and it looks to see where the ke
we highly recommend that you visit our Guide for New Members. Solved: grub error 18; Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS Discussion in 'Linux and Unix' started by jrbuergel, Aug 2, 2011. Thread Status: Not open for further replies. Advertisement jrbuergel Jim Thread Starter Joined: Jan 17, 2004 Messages: 772 The internal Linux and XP do boot fine, but all 5 Linux installed on the external sata drive do not boot, but give grub error 18; "Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS", but the partitions do look okay when viewed from either http://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3821 a windows XP Linux file system tool, or from booted into one of my internal drive Linux and from that newer disk utility, such as in Fedora 13 or 14. After more google searching I did find out that this issue is caused by a limitation in older motherboards BIOS, which my computer is fairly old as a 5-06 Gateway. This limit is that older BIOS will only search https://forums.techguy.org/threads/solved-grub-error-18-selected-cylinder-exceeds-maximum-supported-by-bios.1010466/ for boot files in the first part of the drive. So the solution is either to flash a update into the BIOS, or create a separate boot partition near the beginning of the hard drive. The weird thing is that all my external drive Linux have been booting up just fine for quite some time now. jrbuergel, Aug 2, 2011 #1 Sponsor saikee Joined: Jun 11, 2004 Messages: 3,782 This error has one cure if your 5 Linux are store at the end of a 2TB external hard disk where Grub1 would not be able to access and the cure is to use Grub2. If this isn't your case read on. However Grub1 has a bug and it is quite common to see this error if you use a Grub1 version newer than the one in the internal hard disk which always boots first. It occurs if you pass the PC control from an older Grub1 to a newer Grub1. Although Grub1 has stopped maintenance after the 0.97 version many distros doctored it for their own purpose and their work may not be thorough. You could overcome this problem by using the latest Grub1 in the internal hard disk. If you see Grub prompt
Login: [x] Format For Printing -XML -Clone This Bug -Last Comment First Last Prev Next This bug is not in your last search results. Bug522029 - grub https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=522029 : Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS Summary: grub : Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS Status: CLOSED WONTFIX Aliases: None Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Classification: Red Hat Component: grub (Show other bugs) Sub Component: --- Version: 5.4 Hardware: All Linux Priority low Severity high TargetMilestone: rc TargetRelease: --- Assigned To: Václav Pavlín QA Contact: Release Test Team Docs Contact: URL: Whiteboard: grub error Keywords: Reopened Depends On: Blocks: Show dependency tree /graph Reported: 2009-09-09 04:25 EDT by Winfrid Tschiedel Modified: 2013-03-19 09:08 EDT (History) CC List: 1 user (show) gasmith See Also: Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix Doc Text: Story Points: --- Clone Of: Environment: Last Closed: 2013-03-19 09:08:59 EDT Type: --- Regression: --- Mount Type: --- Documentation: --- CRM: Verified Versions: Category: --- oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements grub error 18 from Atomic Host: Cloudforms Team: --- Attachments (Terms of Use) Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.) Groups: None (edit) Description Winfrid Tschiedel 2009-09-09 04:25:07 EDT Description of problem: grub cannot write BOOTRECORD into the partion - ends with Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): grub-0.97-13.5 How reproducible: always - independant of the redhat linux distribution seen also with fedora 12, rhel-6 but not with NOVELL linux distributions Steps to Reproduce: 1. write on a system (with dmraid?) in the extended partition a bootrecord to a partition 2. 3. Actual results: Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS Expected results: grub writes bootrecord to the partion Additional info: I have a similar system, where I have no problems to write a bootrecord to a partition ( partition nimber >= 5 ) grub on the system in trouble : [root@rx220a ~]# uname -a Linux rx220a 2.6.18-128.1.14.el5 #1 SMP Mon Jun 1 15:52:58 EDT 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux [root@rx220a ~]# rpm -qa | grep grub [root@rx220a ~]# grub Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time. GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory) [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is support