On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 1:25 AM, Andras Horvath <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I'm having problem with the latest kernel version for some time now. The previous kernel version boots fine and everything works just well, but the latest kernel (v2.6.32-431.17.1.el6.x86_64) cannot boot and Grub says something like "trying to reach blocks outside of partition" and that's all the message there is and boot hangs.

This sounds to me like your kernel has some blocks that lie beyond
what GRUB can read during boot (using the system BIOS). It worked
before because you got lucky; any time you reinstalled a kernel, you
were running the risk of some of the new boot image's blocks lying
outside the bootable range.

If this is correct, checking the inode number will not help. because
the problem the blocks inside the file itself, not the inode.

Possible fixes, in increasing order of difficulty:

Copy the kernel and initrd images until you get lucky again
See if your system BIOS has a setting related to booting from large disks
Reinstall grub with the "--force-lba" option
Reinstall the system, using an EFI boot partition (have fun)
Reinstall the system, creating a small (<500M) /boot partition as the
first partition on the drive


That last is what I have done for years. I tried not doing so for my
last install on a large RAID -- figuring this is the 21st century --
and my system failed to boot. I reinstalled with a small /boot
partition and now it consistently works fine across dozens of
reinstalls. I do not know whether this is due to a buggy RAID BIOS or
something else, and I do not care...

Good luck.

 - Pat