[huskerlug] Re: Serious hard drive/boot loader problems! (LONG)
- From: James Worrest <jworrest@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: huskerlug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 14:36:21 -0500
I should look on my other computer and see what was in the
mail on this problem too, but JR does have a good idea on the solution.
SuSE 7.3 makes it easy to add the linear mode when you set up Lilo.
Also you should install Windows first and then Linux. Windows
has a tendency to wipe out what's on the mbr of the hard-drive.
Finally, when you use SuSE you should be able to get some
help from support@xxxxxxxx, and you can give a detailed message like
the one below, or if you didn't buy SuSE you still can get on their help
forum and there will be a lot of guys to help you out with SuSE problems.
---Jim
On Wednesday 07 August 2002 13:07, you wrote:
> I had that problem with the LI showing up, but only on older systems. To
> fix it, I told Lilo to work with the drive in linear mode, not lbr. That
> was by adding this line in the lilo.conf file....
>
> linear
>
> On Wednesday 07 August 2002 5:27, you wrote:
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > I'll start out with the story. I purchased a 40 gig western digital 7200
> > rpm at best buy to use as my linux drive. I installed it as a master on
> > the second channel, on the first channel i have a 60 gig maxtor with
> > windows xp.
> >
> > Anyways, I installed suse 8.0 from the ftp. It took along time. I awoke
> > the next morning to find it almost completed noticing it didn't give me
> > an option to install lilo. (Probably because i took so long to respond,
> > it automatically installed lilo to the mbr on /dev/hda) So I happily
> > rebooted my computer. Lilo fires up and issues this message: "LI".
> >
> > Ok, this gave my an opportunity to fix lilo and learn a lot about it. I
> > wasn't sure what the problem was, but I read quite a few how-tos on lilo.
> > I restored the mbr to the windows xp bootloader then I loaded up my linux
> > rescue disk, mounted my newly created suse partitions and accessed them
> > with ease. I wanted to reinstall lilo on the mbr of /dev/hda (master on
> > first channel). So i issued the command "lilo -M /dev/hda" (after
> > configuring lilo.conf). Lilo reported "mbr updated". I rebooted, lilo
> > didn't even install itself. I fired up the rescue again, and issued the
> > commmand "lilo". I knew this was suppose to install lilo on the mbr of
> > the current drive (/dev/hdc). It errored saying "can't handle device
> > 0x0102". Someone on irc told me that was the device kmem. Which made
> > sense, since my rescue loaded everything on the ram disk.
> >
> > At this point i decided to give up on suse 8.0 on this computer. So
> > installed mandrake. The install went without a hitch. Rebooted, lilo
> > worked like a charm. At this point I thought it was a suse-lilo problem.
> > I wasn't sure. Mandrake didn't satisfy my needs and I wanted to try
> > redhat 7.3. So installed it with lilo(keep in mind i'm installing linux
> > on the 40 gig western digital /dev/hdc) rebooted and the same error "LI".
> > I tried grub with redhat 7.3, receiving the error "GRUB ". I thought
> > this was weird. So i ran all the diagnostics i could think of. Western
> > digital includes a nice diagnostic disk. I ran everything on that disk,
> > and it checked out ok. I booted up windows xp to run partition magic
> > 7.0. Partition magic reported an error about the second harddrive saying
> > it could fix it. So i let it fix it. Tried installing redhat again. It
> > was no good, same problem. I loaded windows again and partition magic
> > complained of other errors that it couldn't fix. It wouldn't even let me
> > repartion my hard drive.
> >
> > I installed mandrake again, it worked without a problem. Loaded up
> > windows again, ran PM and more errors, i formated the disk this time to
> > fat32 to run some of the windows diagnostics. No errors.
> >
> > I decided the hell with it. I thought the drive might be bad, so
> > exchanged it for another one. I installed redhat 7.3 on this new one and
> > the same problem occurred.
> >
> > I have no idea what is causing these problems. The only thing that i can
> > think of is that i have a hot swapable hd bay that i bought from DIT for
> > like 13 usd. But the bios doesn't see it, and it seems to be transparent
> > to everything. Another problem i thought of was, that i have an ata66
> > ide cable in an ata33 controller. But i knew that shouldn't cause a
> > problem. But what is so weird is that mandrake installs and boots ok, but
> > redhat 7.3, suse 7.3 and suse 8.0 don't.
> >
> > Any ideas guys? I'm so damned lost... sorry this is so long. I know i
> > can put lilo on a floppy, and i don't have a problem doing this, i just
> > want to know what is causing these problems.
> >
> > Any help would be appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Jon Paul
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
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