FC2 Frist boot after clean Install

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To: fedora-list@redhat.com
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 16:44:02 +0000

Here’s a quick review of my environment:

(1) Always a COMPLETELY clean install – using Drive Image utility to erase
all partitions and restore MBR.

(2) Two machines, both Asus P4 clones with 1 GB RAM, and 1 Western Digital
20 GB hard drive each.

(3) Both machines have subsequently loaded Redhat 9.0 and ran flawlessly –
no problems at all.

(4) I have two different ISO image CD’s from two different mirrors – both
with verified MD5Sum’s and both producing the exact same problem each time.

So I’ve been trying to install FC2 – I’ve just finished my 11th attempt.
Following the advice of different threads and release notes, I always go
back to a fresh install before trying anything new.

To minimize variables, I keep the install as simple as possible. I choose
“Automatic Partition”, which creates a 100MB /boot on hda1, a 17GB “/”
(root) on hda2, and a 2GB swap on hda3. I also choose a “minimal” install to
eliminate possible variables from the other CD’s – this way I only have to
use CD1.

Each time, the install itself is flawless. But after the first reboot – and
naturally each time thereafter, immediately following the POST, I get a
black screen with the word “GRUB” in the upper left corner. No response to
keyboard strokes or mouse movement at that point.

I have to rule out hardware – since this problem with FC2, I have
successfully installed and ran RedHat 9.0 and FreeBSD 4.10. I always use a
tried and true utility to erase the hard drives of all partitions and
restore MBR before installing anything new. This guarantees a pristine
physical drive during the install.

I compared the grub.conf files on each machine after the FC2 install. They
are identical. No big surprise there I guess. Then, just for further
comparison, I isolated one machine and wiped it clean, and loaded RedHat
9.0. Then I compared it’s grub.conf to that of the FC2 install. Almost
identical except for the “/” (root) and swap partitions. In each case the
/boot partition is always the first (hda1). In FC2, the “/” root partition
is the second one (hda2) followed but the swap on hda3. But in RedHat 9.0,
the swap is on hda2, followed by the / root on hda3. No big deal there, the
grub.conf files compensate for this but looking to hda2 on FC2 and hda3 on
RedHat 9.0 as one would expect.

Both grub.conf files from FC2 and RedHat 9.0 list an entry as follows:

Root (hd0,0)

… I’m not sure if having different root partitions should affect this or
not, but it’s the same in both OS’s.

One other thing I thought was odd is that on both machines, the standard FC2
install puts a strange format or partition table on the physical drive; so
much so that it takes a few extreme steps to wipe the partition info off the
drive. Normally I would just use the “delete” function of the utility, which
works for all the RedHat dirstros and FreeBSD – but in FC2 it generates and
error stating that it can’t delete the partition. I have to use a utility
called “bigfdisk” then put a dos partition on it, then delete the dos
partition – to get everything set back to a completely empty hard drive.

I’d really like to give FC2 a test run – been looking forward to it. I’ve
read the release notes, and browsed for two solid days through news threads
and docs. I’m stuck, could you please help me out here?

Thanks in advance,

Lonnie

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