New RHEL 5 installation, grub timer not running

[forrie]

I ran into an odd problem this evening with a fresh/new RHEL 5 install. The grub timer, you typically see at boot which selects and runs the default kernel in X seconds, is not working. I checked the grub.conf file and it's correct.

I can just reinstall this from scratch and see, but I'd rather understand how to fix it -- ?


Thanks.

 

[Annihilannic]

How is it not working? Is it just sitting there indefinitely waiting for input?

Perhaps you could paste you grub.conf contents here so we can see them too...

Annihilannic.

 

[forrie]

Here is the grub.conf

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You do not have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/cciss/c0d0p1
#          initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/cciss/c0d0
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-194.3.1.el5)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5.img

 

[Annihilannic]

Thanks... and my first question?

Annihilannic.

 

[forrie]

Sorry, I was just about to leave work.

It just sits there and does nothing until I press <RETURN> yes.

 

[Annihilannic]

Hmm... umm... sorry, I haven't a clue! Looks fine to me. Unless a key is stuck or something and is cancelling the timer somehow... but surely you'd notice that somewhere else too.

Annihilannic.

 

[forrie]

I think there may be a hardware problem with this system. It's an old HP Proliant G3 -- the BIOS is set somehow to require you to press "F1" to continue (updates didn't resolve that). I will try moving the disks to another similar system.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[forrie]

It turns out to have been a hardware problem. When I swapped the disks to another G3, even without updating the firmware (which I eventually did), the system booted up normally.

Strange!

Thanks.