grub boot failure

[Andries.Brouwer]

Bug report:
(i) grub fails to boot after SUSE 10.0 install
(ii) grub fails to tell the user what syntax it expects.

Ad (i):
Quite possible this is a SUSE bug, rather than a grub bug,
but recently I upgraded a working SUSE 9.2 system on which
I used LILO to SUSE 10.0, where the installer installed grub,
and the system did not boot.
Later I installed SUSE 10.0 on a similar machine, and again
there was a grub failure.

In both cases I installed LILO using a rescue CD, and all was fine.

So - why can LILO boot what grub cannot?

The grub error message is

"Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS".

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S=1024/16/63, 1032192 sectors
partition 0: type 82
partition 1:
Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds ...

(at boot time)

Under Linux I get

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 33483/16/63, The number of sectors = 33750864, /dev/hdb
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
   Partition num: 1,  Filesystem type is reiserfs, partition type 0x83

instead.

---

Ad (ii)
The grub info file - with more advertising than info,
it is not a pleasure to read, it smells like spam - tells me that
"Basic functions must be straightforward for end-users".
Unfortunately I am an end user with twelve years of experience with LILO,
it just works and never failed me, and only occasional encounters with
grub, and each time that happens I have to struggle with the device names
grub uses, since they are not used elsewhere on Linux, and my memory is bad.
One does not have access to any documentation after a failed install
that leads to a grub prompt. What does one say? What is the syntax?

grub> ?
Error 27: Unrecognized command.
grub> help
blocklist FILE
...
vbeprobe [MODE]
grub>

Hmm. I want to boot some kernel, so have to specify a device
and a file on that device. Maybe a partition is specified using
the root command. Try "root hdb2", "root hd1(1)", "root hd1,1",
"root hd1:1", "root (hd1,1)". Yes! Fifth attempt, not bad.

It would really help if Grub answered something more helpful
instead of "Error 11: Unrecognized device string".
For example, it might add "Use, e.g., (hd3,0)."
Or there could be a short item in the help menu on device naming.
It would be even better if Grub accepted familiar Linux names like hdb6.
Probably most grub users are Linux users.

Andries