Re: Suse 9.1 personal install failure

From: Mark Burgo (mfburgo_at_atlanticbb.net)
Date: 09/17/04 

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:25:28 -0400

alex wrote:

> Mark Burgo <mfburgo@atlanticbb.net> wrote in message
> news:<vf9p12-rvh.ln1@mfburgo.homelinux.org>...
>> alex wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>> > I went back to trying Lilo, just to confirm what happens with the
>> > current set up. Again, it will boot Windows, but with Linux I get
>> >
>> > Loading Linux..........
>> > BIOS data check successful
>> >
>> > then it stops.
>> What hardware are you running
>> MB:
>> Drives:
>> MEMORY:
>> just for a start.
>
> The machine is about 5 yrs old. It has a celeron 400 processor with
> 128MB of RAM. I think it is a QDI Legend mother board (I don't have
> the exact details to hand). The graphics card is a Riva TNT and there
> appear to be issues with nvidia drivers and 3D but Suse seems to be
> recognising the card OK and using the nv driver. Anyway, I CAN get in
> and use the system so I don't think it's a display problem.
>
> There is one 10GB hard disk. I have Windows 98 on the first partition
> (primary), a windows data partition second (logical),a linux swap
> partition(primary) and a linux ext2 partition (primary). All the
> partitions are below the 1000 cylinder mark according to fdisk (just
> in case this has anything to do with the 1024 cylinder limit).
>
> I have the BIOS type set to LBA. There is a large option, but when I
> tried that I got a system error on boot up so had to revert.
>
> I also have an IDE DVD/CD reader and an IDE CD writer. I don't know if
> it's at all relevant, but I am having problems with the CD writer.
> Konqueror won't open it (I don't know the exact error, something about
> mount I think). Suse does not seem to recognise the CD writer during
> boot up, there is no mention of it in the Yast hardware info, but
> there is an entry in /etc/fstab for /dev/cdrecorder and it appears
> under Konqueror devices. [I have since checked the Suse hardware
> support page and the manufacturer (Mirai) was not found so I think I
> can stop searching on that one!]
>
> A related theme is that the two windows partitions do not show up in
> Konqueror.
> I have not investigated this yet.
>
> There is a factor which leads me to think that the 128Mb memory may be
> a problem. I have been using Yast Install software to try and install
> some more packages from the personal CD, but it only seems to want to
> install small ones (< 1Mb). I am getting lots of "Packages returned
> errors" on the larger ones. I know this is the same error that you get
> if Suse cannot read the package from the CD, but I tried copying a
> couple of them to disk and that worked OK. [On my first installation,
> I copied all the packages and they all went through OK]
>
> Let me know if any other information would help you track the boot
> problem. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

After asking I think I may know what your problem is.
Boot from the CD and select run existing linux from hard drive ( something
like that during the installation) once booted check the /boot directory
and verify you have an initrdxxxxxxx and an vmlinuxxxxxxxx files and links
in that directory. if you don't, I think your initrd is not configured run
yast and reinstall the kernel and verify that you have the initrd and
vmlinux files before you restart. I ran into this after an update via yast
to the kernel and had to manually fix it before....

Check it out and let me know........ 

-- 
Mark B.
Linux 2.6.5-7.108-default
  1:21pm  up 10 days  3:50,  7 users,  load average: 0.18, 2.02, 3.05

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