Problem at the last stage

ryanstev · n00b Joined: 23 Aug 2004 Posts: 3

I installed Gentoo last night, let the kernel compile while I slept and finished up the rest when I got up for the day.

I followed the instructions exactly, I used the default settings for my partitions, since I'm installing on an old P200MMX with a single hard drive that's not used for anything else.

I had no error messages, atleast none that I saw and I thought the install when through correctly.

I ran the last 4 commands in the instructions, exit, cd /, the umount and then reboot

When my pc rebooted I get the "system not found" error message by my bios.

I've booted with the live cd and triple checked my grub.conf and fstab files and they are all correct.
I've searched in this forum to see if anyone else has had any problems like mine and noone has.

I setup grub correctly at the time, emerging it, then typing:
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
exit

My grub.conf file is the same as the installation docs:

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.4.26-r6
root (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-2.4.26-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda3
initrd /initrd-2.4.26-gentoo-r6

My fstab is

/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/hda2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda3 / ext3 noatime 0 1

none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,user 0 0

Until last night I had Windows 98SE running on the pc, so the computer does work properly.

If anyone can help I would appreciate it.

I wouldn't mind using lilo, but I don't know how to install that from the live cd when I've already installed gentoo on my hard drive, I only know how to install it if I format and start again, which I don't want to do just yet.

Cuardin · Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 7:09 am Post subject:

We can say almost for sure say that the problem is with grub. YOur kernel and fstab are irrelevant at this point. Not untill you select an OS to boot in grub do we even look at those things.

Just to be sure: Is /dev/hda a separate boot partition? It is, right?

We can to a little test:
Concatenate grub's stage1 and stage2 files into one and write that image to a floppy. Now use that floppy to boot the comp. That way we kan know at least that your grub compiled properly and is in fact working.

I admit this is an unusual problem...
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ryanstev · n00b Joined: 23 Aug 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks for the reply, I'm just getting the floppy going now, it'll be a while, since I'm getting errors which are either due to a dead floppy drive or disk I've only got one floppy disk since I haven't used them in years.

lwithers · Guru Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 300 Location: Reading, UK

Did you make /dev/hda1 bootable? If not, boot up with a livecd, run fdisk (or cfdisk), and toggle the bootable flag. For some reason, most BIOSes seem to like having at least one bootable partition on a drive before they will execute the MBR (which is where grub is installed).

ryanstev · n00b Joined: 23 Aug 2004 Posts: 3

I feel so stupid, I never set the bootable flag, I totally missed it.
I went back and checked the docs and it tells you to set it, but I missed it.

Thanks lwithers.