Re: OpenSuSE 11 LiveCD doesn't install properly

Hello,

I appreciate your replies. Let me be more detailed.

This computer was running Windows 2000 until I used a Knoppix bootable
ISO and shredded the hard drive. I decided to shred the drive so that
I'd have a totally fresh disk to put SuSE on. (using shred -n 1 -v -z /
dev/hda)

Because I have run Windows 2k on it, booted it off of a knoppix iso
and shredded the HD, and booted it off of the Open SuSE v11 Live CD, I
know that this system is operational. Performing an fdisk -l shows
the partitions on the system, looking at /proc/cpuinfo and /proc/
meminfo, the system reports the correct CPU, RAM, and HD info. If
this system was broken in any way I would expect it to have showen
some kind of bad behavior at some point during all of this.

This computer has a CDROM, no DVD reader. So, I'm forced to use the
Live CD for install. I attempted to connect an external USB DVD
reader but the BIOS doesn't see the external USB device at boot time.

So, I boot off of the Open SuSE v11 32Bit Live CD as described on the
opensuse.org website http://en.opensuse.org/Installation/11.0_Live_CD
.. I select Open SuSE 11 at the boot time splash screen and the system
begins to boot off of the CD. After a brief period I'm presented with
a desktop populated with a green wallpaper and icons as described on
the installation proceedure. I double click on the Install icon and
process through the presented GUI menus accepting the license
agreement, selecting my timezone, creating the first user, and
selecting a partiton setup. There's really no way to screw up the
install unless someone intentionally goes in a fools with the
partition stuff; which I'm not. I click on the install button on the
last install screen and the system begins the install process. This
take a little while but it completes without any errors. The last
window presented at the end of the installation process states that I
need to reboot the system with the Live CD removed. So, I select
reboot from the start menu and select reboot. When the system begins
flashing the BIOS stuff I eject the CDROM. The system completes the
POST and then I'm presented with a blank black screen with a blinking
cursor in the top left corner. I've tried rebooting the system
several times with the same result. I've also tried all of the F?
keys on the keyboard and nothing happens. The system does beep one
time per keypress after I've pressed the keys maybe 15 times.

I've gone through the install process again, taking pictures of each
step. As a Solaris, Irix, and Linux system admin with over ten years
of experience, I'm very capable of performing the instructions
described on the opensuse.org website. My problem is that there's no
way to start attacking this problem since I'm not even seeing the GRUB
boot menu. I'm guessing that something special will have to done
during the install process to get at least the boot loader running.
You can view the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ramseyrt/SuSE11LiveCDInstall

From a trouble-shooting standpoint it would be easy to say that the
user is screwing something up. That just isn't the case. Again,
since I've followed the install proceedure verbatum I don't know why
this isn't working.

Thanks,

Rob Ramsey
Colorado Springs

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