[indiana-discuss] "zio_read_data failed" in GRUB while trying to boot from compact flash (CF)

[James Lee]

Cindy.Swearingen at Sun.COM wrote:
> Hi James,
> 
> No answers from me, just some information.
> 
> The ability to boot from a disk greater than 1 TB integrated last fall
> and this support is in the OpenSolaris 2009.06 release.
> 
> I see the same zio_read_data error (boot from install okay, but not
> from the disk) in this CR:
> 
> 6843138 can not boot off of a 2.2TB and zfs root
> 
> The root cause seems to be that the that BIOS is not reporting correct
> capacity.
> 
> This CR is fixed in Nevada, build 117. If someone can get you the stage2
> binary from build 117, then we would know for sure that is bug is your
> issue.

Thanks Cindy.  I think we may be onto something with this.  I grabbed
c62013fcda99 from hg where this fix was committed and compiled GRUB.  I
installed the stages like:

# installgrub stage1 stage2 /dev/rdsk/c7d0s0

And GRUB actually loaded menu.lst and the splash image!  This is the
furthest I've gotten so far.  Unfortunately, it can't read the kernel now:

> loading '/platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS,console=graphics' ...
> cpu: 'GenuineIntel' family 6 model 7 step 7
> [BIOS accepted mixed-mode target setting!]
> zio_read_data failed
> 
> Error 15: File not found
> 
> Press any key to continue...



Back in GRUB:

> grub> find /platform/i86pc/kernel/unix
> zio_read_data failed
> 
> Error 15: File not found



So what would cause GRUB to be able to load /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst
fine but not /platform/i86pc/kernel/unix?