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does not even get to bootloader
http://forums.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10036
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Author:  DyDx [ Sun May 14, 2006 12:00 pm ]
Post subject:  does not even get to bootloader

I had so much trouble getting MythTV to install to and boot from /dev/hda2 that I backed up my windows files and formatted hda entirely.

Doing so, I could now use the Auto Install.

I did this, that went fine until I removed the CD and restarted... Now the boot sequence just stops at "Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM:" (which is part of the normal boot sequence for my motherboard).

I've installed it twice and gotten the exact same result.

This is not an SATA drive, and other linux distributions work just fine.

I'm using the latest KnoppMyth on the front page.

What's up with this? Anyone have any ideas as to a way I could at least find out what's happening? or a way to boot it from the KnoppMyth CD?

Author:  cecil [ Sun May 14, 2006 12:54 pm ]
Post subject: 

Perhaps changing your BIOS and having it boot from the hard drive?

Author:  DyDx [ Sun May 14, 2006 2:42 pm ]
Post subject: 

cecil wrote:
Perhaps changing your BIOS and having it boot from the hard drive?


As I said, Windows and other Linux distributions work fine. My boot order is, and has been for years: CDROM, floppy, HD.

The fact that the "easiest" to use MythTV distribution chokes at just loading the bootloader is discouraging.

Is it possible I might have better luck with an older version (though I can't imagine why)?

And if it matters, my hardware is as follows:

AMD Athlon 2500+ OC'ed to 3200+
1gb PC2700
Abit NF7-S motherboard -- nForce 2 based (/dev/hda1 is on the first PATA controller, and is master of course)

I'm also thinking it's _possible_ something has gone awry with all of the formatting and partitioning I've done to the drive in the past few days trying to get this and other distros to work with MythTV, so I may do a low-level format if no one has a better idea soon!

Author:  tjc [ Sun May 14, 2006 2:55 pm ]
Post subject: 

Use the CD as a rescue disk and then you can both check on the disks status and fix any problems with the bootloader... Cecil has posted directions for doing this a number of times, as have a number of others, they can also be found on the wiki. Search for "chroot" and "lilo".

Author:  cesman [ Sun May 14, 2006 6:14 pm ]
Post subject: 

DyDx wrote:
The fact that the "easiest" to use MythTV distribution chokes at just loading the bootloader is discouraging.
Then use something else. No one is holding an M16A2 to your head. The simply fact of the matter is most people have no issues w/ KnoppMyth. Very few people have encountered the issue you have.

Author:  mjl [ Sun May 14, 2006 8:48 pm ]
Post subject: 

Hi DyDx,

Please, a little respect. These guys have helped thousands of folks get their KnoppMyth boxes running and most of the time are able do it while keeping their humor. They answer the same questions hundreds of times over and most of the time even offer a link or two to help people to help themselves. Don't worry, I've ask my share of dumb questions.

You really didn't give the guys much for tools to offer assistance. Comments like
Quote:
And if it matters, my hardware is as follows:
doesn't make for a good beginning. :(

Fresh start, What version are you trying to auto install? What kind of boot messages are displayed? One cmos setting that may affect things is the pnp should be set to off. Is the harddrive jumpered as master (not cs or slave) How much capacity is the drive? 10# won't fit in a 5# bag...This is not windows or an other operating system so you need to give the machine what it needs to function with KnoppMyth.

Trying to start off as a dual boot with the M$ as a beginner is a not good thing as it wasn't designed to do that type of setup. It was intended, as I see it, as a stand alone system for home entertainment which it does very well, at least for me and my family.

Work with the folks here and you shoud be up in a very short time.

Mike

Author:  DyDx [ Mon May 15, 2006 3:58 pm ]
Post subject: 

mjl, I don't see how I have been disrespectful. Also, telling you all what my hardware is very standard -- why would you even comment on that? I think I am coming off as "curt" because all of the suggestions so far have been, in my opinion, obvious things I have already checked -- but of course I'm sure you get tons of people here who have little to no knowledge of such things so I can't fault anyone for that.

I'm not trying to be rude. I just find it dismaying that my pretty standard hardware is having trouble for no apparent reason. I'm also not a "beginner" when it comes to Linux -- though I am certainly not an expert. But that is besides the point -- which is that I am here seeking help so I will (and, in my opinion, have been) conduct myself accordingly. I'm not trying to knock KnoppMyth or anyone here, I'm just frustrated in general.

Anyways, the drive is plenty big (60gb) and it is jumpered as Master (it MIGHT be cable select, I will check -- but I do not think it is).

I zero-filled the drive and am getting the same results.

However, this time I was at the computer during the KnoppMyth installation and noticed several read or write errors that scatter across the screen towards the end, mostly on the RAMDISK I believe. Is there any way I can get what these errors are specifically? Once it completes it goes to the "Finished" prompt and they disappear. Is there an installation log somewhere on the RAMDISK? I also have not noticed anything out of the ordinary while the boot CD loads, but it is of course impossible to catch everything that scrolls by.

I'll start searching the forum for posts about using the boot CD as a recovery disk in the meantime..

Oh and to answer the question, I'm trying the latest version -- R5B7 I believe it is?

Author:  DyDx [ Mon May 15, 2006 4:07 pm ]
Post subject: 

This person is having the exact same problem by the looks of things:

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... escue+disk

Author:  DyDx [ Mon May 15, 2006 4:26 pm ]
Post subject: 

I used the CD as a rescue disk, mounting /dev/hda and chroot'ing to it.

Then I ran lilo and noticed it was having unrecognized token errors at the beginning of lilo.conf, so I removed all of the lines referring to my other hard drives (those begining with part:) and the token error went away. (Maybe I am just ignorant but I don't see the reason for them to be in lilo.conf anyways if I am not booting an OS from any of them).

However, if I try to run lilo now I just get:

Failed: open /dev/hda: Permission denied

but it is mounted as read-write, otherwise I wouldn't be able to edit lilo.conf.

If I try to run lilo using sudo I get:
sudo: unable to lookup Knoppix via gethostbyname()
Fatal: open /dev/hda: Permission denied

If I try to su I get an unending deluge of this repeating:
bash: /dev/null: Permission denied

Author:  tjc [ Mon May 15, 2006 6:13 pm ]
Post subject: 

You may need to change the way hda1 is mounted after changing lilo.conf. Sorry I can't provide more details, I've never been around this particular mulberry bush...

Author:  mjl [ Mon May 15, 2006 8:34 pm ]
Post subject: 

Hi DyDx,

No problem, maybe I was being overly sensitive.

The first time you tried to do an install it was going for a dual boot ? If so, KnoppMyth does not handle that quite smoothly and will leave one or two lines at the top of lilo.conf that starts "part: ..... " I forget details but get rid of them. XP will give you the two lines as it has a small dos partition before the main.

Also, since you DID have M$ on the drive in the beginning, then the mbr has that information and is where lilo picks it up. I don't know how that works as I am a fairly new kid also.

Try running a dos bootable floppy or dos bootable cd with fdisk on it. At the world reknown A: fdisk /mbr This will make a clean master boot record and also removes all of linux boot.

Then repeat your install of lilo after checking the first couple of config lines. That should install a clean lilo boot.

You may try something like
# mount -o rw,dev /dev/hda1
# chroot /mnt/hda1
# lilo -v
It is normal for it to complain about a backup and there are a couple of errors during the last stages of install. Nothing to ponder on, just a little messy.

I dual boot w/o issue and I also have a test box with M$ and 4 other versions of linux. I have to use grub for that one.

Hope this helps you get your KM box up and running so you may enjoy the excellent work done by cesman and his team of developers. With appropriate credit to the Mythtv team for their work also.

Mike

Author:  DyDx [ Mon May 15, 2006 8:56 pm ]
Post subject: 

Well the thing is, every time I install KnoppMyth LiLo overwrites the MBR by default -- so doing "fdisk /mbr" from a Windows 98 bootdisk or "fixmbr" from a 2000 or XP Recovery Console wouldn't accomplish anything, to my knowledge -- it would merely restore the MBR for booting _Windows_.

Come to think of it, I _think_ that if I can find where the lilo.conf that the RAMDISK uses during installation is, I can edit it _before_ installation so I don't have to deal with the issue I described in my last post.

Now, where might it be? hmm..

Author:  mjl [ Mon May 15, 2006 9:05 pm ]
Post subject: 

Hi DyDx,

Since it doesn't work now, why not try it. I far as I understand it, the fdisk /mbr simply cleans the master boot record and points the system where to go to get the first instruction, M$ or what ever. Lilo does not destroy the mbr but simply "enhances" it to allow linux to co-exist. If M$ was in there originally, it will still be there twenty times later.

Mike

Author:  DyDx [ Mon May 15, 2006 9:21 pm ]
Post subject: 

mjl wrote:
Hi DyDx,

Since it doesn't work now, why not try it. I far as I understand it, the fdisk /mbr simply cleans the master boot record and points the system where to go to get the first instruction, M$ or what ever. Lilo does not destroy the mbr but simply "enhances" it to allow linux to co-exist. If M$ was in there originally, it will still be there twenty times later.

Mike


I've done this many times during this whole process whenever I needed to get back into Windows XP.

I'm not sure you understand how the MBR works. fixmbr will do nothing to help in this situation -- all that does is restore the Windows bootloader, overwriting lilo or grub or whatever was there previously. If you install Lilo to the MBR you are certainly overwriting whatever was there before, such as the Windows bootloader.

At least that is how I understand it. Regardless, as I said, I've done this several times and it does not help.

After I'm done studying for my last final (yay!) I will try it again but I will do like I said and look for the lilo.conf.

Author:  ChapmanI [ Tue May 16, 2006 3:16 am ]
Post subject: 

Quote:
And if it matters, my hardware is as follows:

AMD Athlon 2500+ OC'ed to 3200+
1gb PC2700
Abit NF7-S motherboard -- nForce 2 based (/dev/hda1 is on the first PATA controller, and is master of course)

You're still missing a little bit of information here. What tuner card are you using? What brand and size of hard drive are you using?

Yes it actually does matter, and might help solve your problem. No PC, except perhaps the original IBM PC is made of "standard" parts. They are all a collection of widely divergent processors, chipsets, RAM types and timings, video cards, NIC's, hard drives, and in this case tuner cards -- each with their own specs.

Yes yes yes, Windows can recognize a mushed together system during the install, and usually get it to work. Until recently --the last year or two-- that hasn't been the case in Linux. It is one of the main reasons for the slow adoption of the open source OS. So the specifics DO matter.

For example, is your hard drive a Western Digital? We've seen several cases of WD drives on nForce motherboards that just won't work, until they are jumpered as Cable Select, with the drive attached in the Master location on the cable. Weird, crappie and a pain in the posterior, but true.

Quote:
However, this time I was at the computer during the KnoppMyth installation and noticed several read or write errors that scatter across the screen towards the end, mostly on the RAMDISK I believe.

Quote:
AMD Athlon 2500+ OC'ed to 3200+

Hmm - me smells a possible connection here. Could the overclocking be pushing things too far for this application? Despite the fact that it works for Windows, the ram timings might be to aggressive for Linux. You might be pushing your PC-2700's too far. Oh and what kind of ram is that, cheep crap or branded? Try running MEMTEST86+ and see if it shows any problems with your overclocked settings. (The plus version is a little more modern and still in development, while the plain MEMTEST86 last saw a new version in Nov 2004. 86+ is at http://www.memtest.org.

You could alway try an install at the standard setting and see if your problems go away.

Quote:
I zero-filled the drive and am getting the same results.


Again, no specifics. How did you zero it? If you truly did zero it out, then the MBR would not even exist on the freshly cleaned drive, let alone have any reference to your Windows disks. Try the ISO of "Darik's Boot and Nuke" [url]dban.sourceforge.net[/url].

These are just some possible solutions. But then again perhaps I'm just like Sgt. Schultz -- "I know no-THING!" (Hmmm - since you're talking about finals, you're probably too young to get that reference.)

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