Boot problems

johngalt · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 7:06 am Post subject: Boot problems

I have a triple drive system, and I just installed Gentoo (made it all the way through GRUB installation) but it is not booting at all. I barely got XP booting again by moving the open parenthesis to the correct spot in rootnoverify command, so I can at least get on the net and ask questions here.

At any rate, the primary drive /dev/hda is a 120 GB, which is partitioned as follows:

35 (hda1) = XP, 45 (hda2) = FAT32, where I store my music.

Now, there was an extended partition created (obviously) to make the original Music partition, and I just sized it down, and then used the resulting 40 GB free space for installing Gentoo.

However, it will not boot after I made my grub.conf as follows:

adaptr · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 7:23 am Post subject:

Your Windows boot partition is the same as your Gentoo boot partition.
Not to put too fine a point on it - that is not possible.

Run

johngalt · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:38 pm Post subject:

oops - windows is (hd0,0)

my error

Next time maybe I should get some sleep prior to typing this all out....

At any rate, I seems like it is starting to boot, and then it hangs, but the screen is completely illegible due ti the black and white with the white line. Looks like some sort of bastardized ASCII on crack, to tell you the truth.

The XP boots fine (I wrote the original thread from XP).
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chunderbunny · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:47 pm Post subject:

It sounds like a kernel config error more than anything. Try disabling features that aren't strictly necessary from your kernel (ACPI, framebuffer, bootsplash etc) and see if that helps.

johngalt · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:53 pm Post subject:

Actually, framebuffer was already disabled, and I used pretty much the same config as when I replaced the vanilla fedora 2.6 core with the Linux militia kernel ck5.

There were some differences, obviously, but for the most part (I am doing it from memory) I did it the same way.

I am recompiling it with framebuffer now - I think that might affect the display so that I can at least read wth the screen says so I can troubleshoot the boot process.

Also, why is there not a stage 1 for Pentium 4 builds? j/c.
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johngalt · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 9:03 pm Post subject:

Sorry for the dp - I figured out a lot of my problems, mostly with the grub config (I copied the text from my older Fedora install this time after having a brainstorm and creating a tmp dir in /mnt and mounting the Fedora boot partition) as well as not enabling XFS filesystem in my kernel (duh!)

But I am receiving an error now that I am not sure - at least it is readable:

inode77 · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 11:52 pm Post subject:

Post the "fdisk -l" outputs of all 3 drives, your /etc/fstab from gentoo, and if you changed something you're actual grub.conf.

I don't see any error right now, but I pretty tired and my thinking ability isn't top anymore, so post it and I look at it tomorrow morning. (Damn only 6h to go until start of the new day)

johngalt · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:13 am Post subject:

lmfao - There isn't a fdisk in Fedora, I just tried it as root and it says

inode77 · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 2:06 am Post subject:

It doesn't have to fdisk, anything is ok cfdisk,parted....

johngalt · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 2:10 am Post subject:

let me see what part manager is has built in - Still relatively new to the Linux world and I don't know all the different programs...

bbiab

OK, the Fedora configuration makes some sort of reference to parted, and yet I cannot get it to run from a root prompt.

AM I missing something? or do I need to mount a CD ROM and run it off the CD ROM?

Heck, I'll try that anyway....

Nope- no native parted 'program' anywhere on either the love-livecd2 nor the Fedora Core rescue CD. I hate to have to reboot with one of the CDs - I wonder if there is a package for partition editing on the fly that I can use - let me go search some more....

OK, so I downloaded the latest parted (1.6.14) and installed, and here is the info:

Chin Yee · n00b Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 48

I had a similar problem and have filed a bug report 2 months ago and the problem is still not fixed yet.

See

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56892

johngalt · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:52 am Post subject:

Hmmm, every time O go to a bug report like that I see the entry form to fill in information about the bug - I don't see where I can look at details re; the bug anywhere. Therefore, I am not sure if it applies here or not.

Also, as an aside - I ma in Fedora Core right now and I have both the Gentoo boot partition mounted as well as the Gentoo root partition.

So it is some weird as hell error that is causing this to happen - and yes, this time around I *did* enable XFS file system in the kernel.
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inode77 · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:40 pm Post subject:

johngalt · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 9:29 pm Post subject:

*grumble* I had everything written down and was sure that I had formatted it XFS, but I wil ltry it the other way.

Thanks for spotting that for me...

More later
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johngalt · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject:

OK, I adjusted my fstab accordingly, and still am geting the exact same problem as before.

my grub.conf:

adaptr · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 12:14 am Post subject:

That's weird - my dmesg says it is adding NET protocol family 16 - and yours adds 1, 2, and 17.
Whatever.

Can you boot it with the LiveCD from the HD ?

johngalt · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 12:37 am Post subject:

ummm, a bit more there please. I a using the love-livecd2 for now (though DaveMCS has offered to let me downlaod the rebuilt 2004.2 live cd) but when it boots am I to stop the boot process and feed that statement to the arguments to boot with at the

adaptr · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 12:57 am Post subject:

Stop the boot process?
Any LiveCD should stop at the boot: prompt and allow you to type in what you want to do.
If that CD you mention does not then you may assume it is not an official Gentoo LiveCD.

EDIT: Ah I see what you mean.
No, that is not the boot process - or rather, it is, but it is the boot loader, which has little to do with Gentoo.
It just loads it.
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Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

johngalt · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:00 am Post subject:

yah, my terminology was skewed - I'm off to try your suggestion and see what happens - I have a bad feeling though that I have screwed something in my kernel config lol

not surprising since I am a rather n00b - but logically everything seems to be OK now...

bbl when I have an answer.
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johngalt · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:25 am Post subject:

OK, the Love-liveCD2 was able to get me to a login prompt, but as it is kernel 2.6.7 and not the 2.6.8 that I used with Gentoo, it is having problems.

The original 2004.2 would not boot after 4 attempts at burning. but I now have DaveMCS's rebuilt boot CD - I am going to burn that and see if it will let me boot or not.
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johngalt · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:46 am Post subject:

The rebuilt minimal boot CD from DaveMCS works like a charm.

I was able to boot to my HD Gentoo installation, but it had a few problems, mainly b/c the dir structure was not there from my Fedora core in /mnt (I had to ad XP, downloads, music and usb_flash) but I got a login prompt and was able to log in.

Should I proceed with the rest of the handbook now, or what? I have a feeling this means that, more than likely, I need to re-compile my kernel, eh?

BTW, I fired up the laptop so I can work on the DT and still post questions and follow the directions I am given, if any more need to be given.

Also, will posting my .config for my kernel here help?
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johngalt · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 3:00 am Post subject:

I guess this means I start from scratch. :evil:

botting with smp (according to the handbook I should use smp if I want to use kernel 2.6) has locked up on me.
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johngalt · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 11:07 am Post subject:

I bootstrapped this time - I had one error but reading some other people's problems I abruptly realized what my prob was - going to fix it now and see what happens.

(for th record, I forgot to make the boot partition bootable)
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johngalt · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 11:44 am Post subject:

but it still will not boot - it does not recognize the root partition at all.

Now I am a at loss - I will have to boot back into Gentoo to get the error message, unless there is a log of the boot so that I can copy it quickly and paste it here?

I also have access to the grub.conf and fstab as I have already mounted the Gentoo partitions under Fedora.
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To · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 12:34 pm Post subject:

Best way for us to understand what partions you are using. You could boot from a live CD, mount the your partions => /mnt/gentoo and /mnt/gentoo/boot ( and /proc ) and then cat /proc/mounts and paste here what you have. This could make us understand what partions you are using.

Tó
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