Precise 12.04.1 Fails to boot image on disk after installation via PXE

[Jeff Marcom]

I'm unable to boot from the hard disk on several machines after a seemingly successful PXE installation.

I kicked off automated PXE installs for 12.04.1 daily image and out of 23 systems these machines were left at a blinking cursor after the install was finished:

Dell Inspiron 620
HP Z800 Workstation
Lenovo Thinkpad T510

This did not happen with the last proposed kernel of 3.2.0.29 for 12.04.1 and does not occur with any other main release (example: 12.04, 11.04, 10.04, etc).

Kernel tested was 3.2.0.30.48

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Can you follow the "Boot options" instructions on the following wiki to enable additional output on boot:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingKernelBoot

As mentioned on the wiki, it would be great if you can attach a log file which may have captured any messages you see. If you are unable to capture a log file, a digital photo will work just as well. As a last resort you can even copy messages down by hand.

[Jeff Marcom (jeffmarcom)]

A little more info, we had testing the previous proposed kernel with 12.0.4. I've now tried to install via PXE with 3.2.0.29 and 12.0.4.1 and the failure is the same.

Changing this to ubuntu.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

I'm confused as to why you are testing that kernel version. The version in updates is 3.2.0-29.46 and the version in proposed is 3.2.0-30.48. As you can tell from the tracking bug, you should be testing the -30.48 kernel. Please test that and update this bug and the tracking bug with the latest information.

[Jeff Marcom (jeffmarcom)]

We are testing with 30.48, sorry I copied the wrong package version to the bug. We are indeed testing with the latest kernel and 12.04.1 image. However, to clarify, I also tried to recreate this problem with the following scenarios:

1.) 12.04.1 with 3.2.0.30.48: Failed
2.) 12.04.1 with 3.2.0.29: Failed

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

Actually, that kernel version doesn't exist. Is that just a typo in the bug description?

[Jeff Marcom (jeffmarcom)]

@Joseph,

There is unfortunately no Grub menu or shell available. The installation or grub menu will not load from the drive at all.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

Ok, so this failed with the previous kernel as well and so isn't a regression (if I'm understanding you correctly). The -29.46 kernel is the 12.04.1 kernel so are you saying that if you just install 12.04.1 that it fails to boot up after the install?

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

@Jeff,

If you don't have a grub menu then this is an installer issue, not a kernel issue.

[Brendan Donegan (brendan-donegan)]

We'll not consider this a blocker for the SRU release. I noticed at least one of the systems mentioned above did in fact install. We'll do some more investigation around whether this could be down to something with the 12.04.1 image (last testing was done with 12.04 itself).

[Jeff Marcom (jeffmarcom)]

This was due to some systems having issues booting with an sd card present. Marking this as invalid.