system not booting off of hard disk

[Zelgadis]

I just did a new install of Slackware 10.0 onto a pentium 2 box running at 450mhz with 256 Mbs of ram. I had a successful installation and I told it to use the bare.i kernal to boot from. I told it also to use lilo to boot with and installed lilo onto the superblock of the first partition which I also made bootable.

My problem is that whenever I boot up the machine and it comes to boot I just get a blinking cursor. I used the boot disk I made at boot and it starts up like it should. What's wrong?

[JohnT]

You have just the one hard drive? Is Windows sharing that drive and if so where is it's loacation. What did you do to the drive before installation? Fdisk, format, anything to the MBR? Tell us about your partioning scheme.

[Zelgadis]

Ok before I installed the linux I Autoclave (http://staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/autoclave/)ed the hard drive because I got the machine from a garage sale. It only has one hard drive about 2.2 GB's. I then fdisk'ed it with 2 partitions the first being root about 1.6 GB's the second being swap 512 MB's. I then did a standard install of slackware and told it to use lilo on the first partition's superblock. That's it.

[JohnT]

You should have used a Win 98 bootdisk to format and reinstall the MBR, then proceeded. Did you earmark the first partition as bootable, when using fdisk?

[Zelgadis]

i did mark the partition bootable should i try to use a win98 bootdisk to format the mbr then remark the first partition bootable?

[Zelgadis]

Hey thx for the advice I went through with a Win 98 boot disk and did "fdisk /mbr" then rebooted and it worked! One last question while I'm at it, I have a user called binary, how do I give this user some root privs? B/c like when I try to mount a floppy it says only root can do that.

[JohnT]

Glad you got up and running .:D

As root change the permissions on the "mount" command.

[paj12]

when I try to mount a floppy it says only root can do that.
You could add "user" to your etc/fstab next to the line for your floppy, unless you just want that one user to mount.

[Zelgadis]

I added users to the /etc/fstab but for future reference how do I change permissions on the "mount" command?

[paj12]

You can either chmod from the command line (not sure of the syntax) or you can open Konqueror, find the program for mount, right-click and properties, and go to the permissions tab.

[saikee]

I am just another nwebie trying to learn something here, especially from John T.

Am I right in thinking that the problem was due to Slackware's Lilo bootloader has been put into the first partiition and the MBR during installation? With no wWindows system on this PC Slackware would have been bootable without the floppy had Zelgadis instruction Lilo to go to MBR. Is this correct?

It is funny to me that we have to rely on Windows for help to boot a Linux when Windows isn't even in the hard disk at all.

Lastly would I be right to say the PC can be made bootable if one reconfigure Slackware with the original CD again? A reconfiguration is partial alteration on setting and not a re-installation. Knoppix allows me to do that without even seeing the original CD.

If Grub were used by Slackware typing

Grub-install /dev/hda

as a root user would have been enough to achieve the same thing.

[JohnT]

It is funny to me that we have to rely on Windows for help to boot a Linux when Windows isn't even in the hard disk at all. Its not that you have to rely on windows but it is the easiest way for someone "new" to set up a harddrive for Linux. When you learn about the MBR and the partition boot records then you can apply other ways of doing this. For now just install Lilo to the MBR when instructed to during install...or choose not to..... and install gurb afterwards. make a boot disk though...whichever route you take.

[perry_a]

Originally posted by Zelgadis
I just did a new install of Slackware 10.0 onto a pentium 2 box running at 450mhz with 256 Mbs of ram. I had a successful installation and I told it to use the bare.i kernal to boot from. I told it also to use lilo to boot with and installed lilo onto the superblock of the first partition which I also made bootable.

My problem is that whenever I boot up the machine and it comes to boot I just get a blinking cursor. I used the boot disk I made at boot and it starts up like it should. What's wrong?

sounds to me your XF86Config is not suitable.... what kind of hardware are trying to use...

- perry

[perry_a]

Originally posted by Zelgadis
I just did a new install of Slackware 10.0 onto a pentium 2 box running at 450mhz with 256 Mbs of ram. I had a successful installation and I told it to use the bare.i kernal to boot from. I told it also to use lilo to boot with and installed lilo onto the superblock of the first partition which I also made bootable.

My problem is that whenever I boot up the machine and it comes to boot I just get a blinking cursor. I used the boot disk I made at boot and it starts up like it should. What's wrong?

and it wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in a decent dual boot front end...

http://www.v-com.com

- perry

[saikee]

John T

OK I take your point. I just wasn't sure why. That is all.


perry_a.

What do we get out of a commercial version of a boot manager?

In my four-week adventaure into LInux this is the second time people mention to go for a commercial boot manager.

So far I think John T uses NT's own bootloader to load Linux, or using Windows to manage Linux.

I experiment with Linux's own Grub and Lilo and I can chainload 5 Linux with XP the lazy way of doing almost nothing. Thus to me all linux system boot Windows without any effort. Every Linux I installed include Windows inside the boot menu automatically.

I read about someone creates a devoted partition to boot all Linux and Windows. Think this is the route a commercial boot manager would be. The post I read suggests that is something easily arranged within Linux.

Is there something we have missed out? Linux appears to be very user-friendly when co-existing with other systems. Most problems seem to come from the selfish nature of Windows trying to drive other system out but Linux seems to be able to manage it perfectly and doesn't tread on MS's toes. I need to know more about what benefit a commercial boot manager can bring to Linux.

[JohnT]

I need to know more about what benefit a commercial boot manager can bring to Linux. Well the only advantage that comes to my mind is its ease of use for someone not entirely comfortable with configuring their own bootmanger.....of course their might be other reasons.....they just dont come to my mind. Similar to the use of "Partition Manager" ....if you have money to burn...go for it.;)

[Zelgadis]

Wow I go away for a few days and there's post's galore. The reason I didn't install Lilo to the MBR is because in the past I've had trouble's with installing Lilo directly to the MBR it nearly killed the hard drive, I needed to get some software from the manufacturer to fix it. But I think the problem was that when I Auto-Claved the drive the MBR wasn't done correctly and the use of the Win 98 boot disk just made it easier to fdisk the MBR which just re-writes the boot record and which partition to boot from.