Can't get Gentoo to boot!!!

kaotic504 · n00b Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 7

i always get "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press any Key to Reboot" i've tried installing Gentoo about 3 times. and i thought i've corrected my problems everytime. i think i might try to use LILO instead of GRUB but how do i uninstall GRUB?. i'm following the x86 handbook to the T. i'm trying to load Gentoo on a Gigabyte 7DXR+ (AMD761 chipset) w/ a 1.33ghz AMD Athlon T-Bird, D-Link NIC, and an ATI Radeon (7200). that's all that's on my system, beside a TDK 24x cd-rw and a Western Digital 10gb harddrive. i thought i'd load this on spare parts and see how Gentoo is. this is my first install. i want to use the machine for surfing the web, chatting, and maybe a web or ftp server. what should my make.conf look like if i want a KDE or GNOME desktop. i followed the one in the handbook. also if i use the genkernel do i have to "emerge" any more builds for my setup? also if i follow the manual, why does my root partition always show up as an XFS instead of a Ext3? i think that's the only thing that seems odd in my fstab but i make adjustments when i see that. also what should my rc.conf look like? i uncommented a few things at the bottom so that it'll load GNOME and use gde is that incorrect? sorry i have sooo many questions but any help is great appreciated. thanks in advance!

Maedhros · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:42 am Post subject: Re: Can't get Gentoo to boot!!!

Whew, loads of questions!

TheX · Guru Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 349 Location: .de

you might have to execute grub and write the mbr to the disk you want to boot..
boot with your live-cd and start grub
then type root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
quit
you have to use your hard disk numbers .
hda1 = (hd0,0)
hdb4 = (hd1,3)

the root partition have to be the on where youre kernel is stored

tata..

kaotic504 · n00b Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 7

Maedhros: if i put "X" in my USE= in my make.conf , is that sufficient? should i put emerge X? also how do i change the XFS to Ext3? just replace it?

TheX: thanks for your suggestion, i'll try that first and see if i can boot, if not, then i'll try to run LILO.

i should be able to use my LiveCD to boot and then run LILO, correct? i'm very new to Linux although I have programmed in ANSI C and C++ on a Sparc before, I just never did anything but code on the consoles.

Thanks for the help, i'll see how everything goes and report back later this evening when i get off of work. very quick answers, THANK YOU!

Maedhros · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:56 pm Post subject:

kaotic504 · n00b Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 7

well i've tried it over and over again, i get further each time. bu this time. i'm stuck when gentoo loads and it goes to :
>>Mounting root...
moutn: MOunting /dev/hda on /newroot failed: Invalid argument
>> Count not mount specified ROOT, try again
>> The root block device is unspecified or not detected.
Please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell...
after that i typed in /dev/hda3
how do i get it to autoboot that device or my root?

it also says:
*Mounting proc at /proc...
*Starting devfsd...
Started device management daemon v1.3.25 for /dev
*Activating (possible) swap
*Remounting root filesystem read-only (if necessary)...
*Checking root filesystem...

Failed to open the device '/dev/ROOT' : No such file or diectory

Warning....fsck.reiserfs for device /dev/ROOT exited with signal 6.
* Filesystem couldn't be fixed

then it asks:
Give root password for maintence:

where do i go from here? what file do you think i wrong? i think it might be in my fstab. but i can't be sure. any help on where to go from here?

djm · Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 12:55 pm Post subject:

I think you need to change /dev/ROOT in /etc/fstab to your actual root partition (dev/hda3, or whatever)
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Captin · Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject:

I'm having this same problem.

I'm using lilo and when I run

kaotic504 · n00b Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 7

thank you so much guys. i figured it out. it was an error in my /etc/fstab and my grub.conf. when i emerged genkernel it gave me parameters at the end that i HAD to have in my grub.conf for it to work. i didn't define the partitions in my /etc/fstab. i left them as "/dev/ROOT", "/dev/BOOT", "/dev/SWAP" well i changed that to "/dev/hda3","/dev/hda1","/dev/hda2" . then in my grub.conf i added vga=0x317 and splash=verbose and defined the "real_root=/dev/hda3" instead of leaving it as "real_root=/dev/hda" after that it worked!!! i'm happy that i've finally got it working. i've tried every night for almost a week to get this correct and was stuck on that last part. i feel like an idiot, but this is a great forum and a great version of linux. well supported and well maintained, that's why i chose it. i could have installed an easier one but i find this is surrounded w/ a lot of support and i don't like to be like a lot of others how use Mandrake and RedHat. thanks for all the help guys.

djm · Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 8:16 am Post subject:

Captin · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 7:09 pm Post subject:

Here is everything in my lilo.conf:

djm · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 7:33 pm Post subject:

When you say you're having the same problem as the OP, what exactly do you mean? Just that you can't boot or the same error messages at boot?

What error messages do you get? (and posting your fstab won't hurt, even if it's not the problem)
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Captin · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:05 pm Post subject:

O.k. here is my fstab:

djm · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:38 am Post subject:

As far as I can tell, it's something to do with the "genkernel only" stuff in lilo.conf, but I've never used genkernel, so I'm not sure what the problem is. This is the entry from the hand book though: