stage1.5 read error on hard-reboot (ok on soft)

[Russ Tedrake]

I'm trying to boot off a compact flash (1GB microdrive) that is plugged 
into a secondary IDE drive (/dev/hdc).  The redhat 9 anaconda installs 
grub and then does a soft (warm) reboot.  Everything loads fine.  When I 
actually cycle the power (cold boot), grub gives me a "stage1.5 read 
error".

This behavior is repeatable.  I can boot off a floppy, then do a soft 
reset (removing the floppy), and boot off the compact flash just fine. 
The next time I cycle the power, I get the stage1.5 read error.

All of this is running on a PC104 stack with Pheonix PicoBIOS (v ). 
I've tried all sorts of things, including running install from the grub 
shell with the 'd' option.  No luck.

I *think* that it is getting the right geometry for the microdrive 
(2088/16/63), at least hdparm gives me the same info when everything 
boots properly off the floppy.

I've attached a trace of my grub session.  I would really appreciate any 
advice I can get.  I'm stuck.  Thanks in advance.

- Russ

sample grub session:

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
 (hd0,0)

grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 2088/16/63, The number of sectors = 2104704, /dev/hdc
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  16 sectors are 
embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p 
(hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2
/boot/grub/grub.conf"... succeeded
Done.