Filesystem type unknown...Debian

[BoB KoT]

I have an Abit KT7-Raid motherboard with a single
IBM 30GB hard drive. The drive has 3 installed
OS's.

Partition #     OS
1               BSD type partition no longer viable- ignore
2               Extended DOS
                    Debian Linux /boot
                    Debian Linux swap
                    Debian Linux /
3               FreeBSD 5.0 Current
4               FreeBSD 4.3 Release

My present boot manager(booteasy) installed by FreeBSD's sysinstall
utility onto the MBR of the hard drive can only boot partitions 3
and 4 above. My only method of booting Debian is with the rescue
floppy. I'm trying to avoid putting lilo into the MBR.

I am trying to get grub to boot all 3.

While running FreeBSD 4.3R I built the grub port
/usr/ports/sysutils/grub
and followed the instructions in info grub on making a floppy with dd
containing stage1 and stage2. Grub version is 0.5.96.1

Booting that floppy I can then successfully boot partitions 3 & 4 as:
        grub> root (hd0,2,a)
        grub> kernel /boot/loader
        grub> boot

        grub> root (hd0,3,a)
        grub> kernel /boot/loader
        grub> boot

My problem is trying to boot the Debian Linux in the extended partition
on a fresh boot of the grub floppy I try this:
        grub> debug
        grub> fstest
        grub> root (hd0,4)
<2, 0, 1024><2, 0, 24><128, 0,204><16, 0, 204> Filesystem type unknown,
partition type 0x83

At this point the ext2fs (which does exist on that slice of the extended
partition) should get mounted, but it is not. Hence trying to issue a
kernel
command finds no files.
Similar results trying
        grub> root (hd0,6)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x83

Here's some info when running linux booted via the rescue floppy.

        #uname -a
Linux chinook 2.2.18pre21-ide #1 Sat Nov 18 19:41:46 EST 2000 i686


        from dmesg
hde: IBM-DTLA-307030, 29314MB w/1916kB Cache, CHS=59560/16/63, UDMA(100)

        #sfdisk -l -x -uS /dev/hde

Disk /dev/hde: 59560 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot    Start       End  #sectors  Id  System
/dev/hde1            63   5631695   5631633  a5  BSD/386
/dev/hde2       5631696  11775455   6143760   5  Extended
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,255,63)
/dev/hde3      11775456  18955439   7179984  a5  BSD/386
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,255,63)
/dev/hde4   *  18955440  60036479  41081040  a5  BSD/386
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,15,63) found (1023,255,63)

/dev/hde5            63    204862    204800 
/dev/hde6        467007    598078    131072 
/dev/hde7        204863    467006    262144 
/dev/hde8        598079   5631695   5033617 

/dev/hde9       5631759   5660927     29169  83  Linux
    -           5660928   6160895    499968   5  Extended
    -           5631696   5631695         0   0  Empty
    -           5631696   5631695         0   0  Empty

/dev/hde10      5660991   6160895    499905  82  Linux swap
    -           6160896  11775455   5614560   5  Extended
    -           5660928   5660927         0   0  Empty
    -           5660928   5660927         0   0  Empty

/dev/hde11      6160959  11775455   5614497  83  Linux
    -           6160896   6160895         0   0  Empty
    -           6160896   6160895         0   0  Empty
    -           6160896   6160895         0   0  Empty

/dev/hde12     11775456  12037599    262144 
/dev/hde13     12037600  12299743    262144 
/dev/hde14     12299744  18955439   6655696 
/dev/hde15     19217584  19479727    262144 

/dev/hde16     19479728  20004015    524288 
/dev/hde17     18955440  19217583    262144 
/dev/hde18     20004016  60036479  40032464 

        #mount
/dev/hde11 on / type ext2 (rw,errors=remount-ro,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/hde9 on /boot type ext2 (rw)

        #dumpe2fs -h /dev/hde9
dumpe2fs 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
Filesystem volume name:   <none>
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          68d20bb9-05b9-43c7-aea2-0da4812e612e
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      filetype sparse_super
Filesystem state:         not clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              16384
Block count:              65536
Reserved block count:     3276
Free blocks:              62621
Free inodes:              16364
First block:              1
Block size:               1024
Fragment size:            1024
Blocks per group:         8192
Fragments per group:      8192
Inodes per group:         2048
Inode blocks per group:   256
Last mount time:          Thu Jun 28 00:10:42 2001
Last write time:          Thu Jun 28 07:10:45 2001
Mount count:              2
Maximum mount count:      20
Last checked:             Wed Jun 27 14:15:10 2001
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Mon Dec 24 14:15:10 2001
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               12

        #dumpe2fs -h /dev/hde11
dumpe2fs 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
Filesystem volume name:   <none>
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          4f0b4278-2e82-4de8-b27a-f33fa32c990c
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:     (none)
Filesystem state:         not clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              314880
Block count:              629202
Reserved block count:     31460
Free blocks:              489610
Free inodes:              277163
First block:              0
Block size:               4096
Fragment size:            4096
Blocks per group:         32768
Fragments per group:      32768
Inodes per group:         15744
Inode blocks per group:   492
Last mount time:          Thu Jun 28 00:10:40 2001
Last write time:          Thu Jun 28 07:51:40 2001
Mount count:              2
Maximum mount count:      20
Last checked:             Wed Jun 27 14:15:08 2001
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Mon Dec 24 14:15:08 2001
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               128

Some ?'s
Without installing grub onto my harddrive's MBR I should be able to use
the grub floppy to boot the 3 OS's on the hard drive?

Is grub capable of booting an OS in the extended partition?

Are the expected/found contradictions that sfdisk returns of
importance to grubs proper operation? Are they involved with this?

I see that dumpe2fs for hde9 has:
        Filesystem features:      filetype sparse_super
but for hde11
        Filesystem features:     (none)
is this going to be an issue?

Barring getting grub to directly mount the hde9(grub hd0,4)
might installing lilo into hde2 and then using grub to point at that
be a workable alternative? How to do it?

The linux kernel that i want to boot sits on hde9 and the linux
root tree / which contains the bulk of the file tree / /usr /var /home
is on hde11

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Please cc: directly to me
as I am not subscribed to this list.

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