Ubuntu Install and boot issue V5.10

[Hodgins Family]

Good afternoon!

> I did discover something else.  Ubuntu will boot if I move the HD from
> the Trios directly to the IDE2.

Useful info! Excellent. Therefore the problem is  not the computer hardware, 
the Ubuntu software and not the hard drive.

>  Let me also explain why 6 drives.  I
> work in a support center and at one time we were supporting our
> software on W*95, 98,  ME, NT, 2000, and XP.  95 is no longer supported
> so I have an extra drive and wanted to install a Linux version and
> learn.

Ah! OK, yesterday I was wondering why you didn't just get one or two bigger 
drives.

> Now, here's what I tried.  With all three drives connected to the one
> trios Ubuntu will boot to the splash screen then deliver the error
> message and go no further.  I removed the power from the two "other"
> drives that has Windoze installed, left Ubuntu connected to the Trios
> and it booted fine.

Good, so far. The problem, then, isn't the trios hardware since putting the 
trios between the hard drive and the computer gives the same result as 
putting the hard drive on the IDE controller.

>  I supsect Linux may be seeing the other two dirves
> connected and naming them hda1 and hda2 and leaving Linux hda3.  Just my
> uneducated guess.

You may be right! You have 3 drives connected to the trios. Therefore, you 
must have 3 data cables coming from the drives to the trio. Which data cable 
has priority? I'm thinking is that the ports on the trio might be 
"assignable". In other words you might be able to set the trio so the the 
Ubuntu "data" cable is "seen" first and therefore gets the name hda1 (might 
be a ROM based configuration program)?

I've also seen that some folks have to set the jumpers on their drives to 
use "cable select" rather than the more traditional master/slave. I don't 
know if that helps or not :)

> I need to know how to find out where the grub.conf file is and see
> where it is looking during boot up.
>

In Ubuntu go to Places and select Computer.
    Click on Filesystem, and look in /boot.
            In that folder is another folder called /grub.
                    In grub is a text file called menu.lst

That text file has the drive assignments that GRUB uses to decide who to 
boot first, second, etc. These show up during the boot sequence. Caution 
here, though. GRUB doesn't use names like hda1 hdb1. Rather it prefers names 
like hd(0,0)  and hd(1,0). Here's a link to the GRUB manual: 
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Device-syntax

Good luck with this!

Rob