bad install
 

me=noob!

1) just purchased redhat enterprise linux professional workstation.
2) my existing 120 gb hdd had windows xp installed in sole ntfs partition.
3) bought partition magic and shrunk ntfs partition to about 55 GB and created unused space
4) installed linux using defaults into the unused space and everything went fine as far as i could tell until the install said to remove the media and reboot. now it just keeps rebooting and it looks like a bunch of kernal errors are happening (flashing by too fast to really read them).
5) scratch head for 10 minutes rebooting several times. win xp still boots fine when i select dos from the grub menu.... didn't know what else to do so i decided to reinsall linux.
6) install linux again accepting defaults and telling install to remove linux partition/installation and then install. install goes as before - no errors or problems. but i still get the same problems after what appears to be kernal errors on boot.

help!

does the machine actually boot up (despite the errors, i mean)? Do you get a command prompt? If you do, log in as root and type "dmesg" You can use Shift+PgUp to scroll up and see all the errors.

nope! only flashes the initial loading everything then reboots after a bunch of what appears to be kernal errors.

read one that comes by, even part of it would help i think, at worst case u should just not reboot when it tells you to but do
chroot (wereever on your had drive linux is example / or /asdfa)
tehn recomile the kernel so itll boot right :)

can't read one. pc is too fast the only word i can make out is "kernal".

after the install the only option i have is to reboot...

ok... let's try again. i removed all the partitions on the drive and tried installing again...

install went well, but still have the same problem. i could see the following error message though.

"? do_page_fault [kernel] 0x## (###########)"

where the ? and # changes.

i can modify the kernal arguments through the GRUB boot loader. i can also change the boot commands. i just don't know what to change them to.

HELP!

Maybe the simplest solution would be to recompile a fresh kernel. You can either get a red hat kernel source from one of the mirrors or a vanilla kernel from kernel.org. Boot into your linux system using a boot disk. Install the kernel source (if you got the vanilla kernel, use "tar jxvf linux-2.x.x.tar.gz -C /usr/src/"). Then compile it and install. There is an excellent how-to in one of these forums.

wow! maybe i'll give up on linux and go back to windows or my mac... it shouldn't be this hard... i'm installing from a cd set that cost me as much as windows...

aren't there any parameters i can throw at the kernal kinda like windows safe mode??? remember... me=noob.

i have no boot disk (and didn't see a place to make one during the install) - i don't even know if my floppy drive works... haven't used it in a year or more.

you're right, it shouldn't. But the frustrating thing is that, without a complete list of error messages, no one can tell what is wrong. And since you can't get a list of error messages without first solving the problem, we have a sort of catch-22.

whats the point? there are so many excellent distributions out there that are completely free. But if you did pay a lot for your linux, then Red Hat probably provides support. They should know their product much better than any of us. Have you tried contacting them?

thanks for your help! i know your trying but this should work without having to call support.

is there no safe mode type param for kernal? i can specify kernal params in grub... maybe a param to slow it down so i could get the error msgs.

have a look at http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...08.1/0778.html
The problem there seems to be similar to yours.

http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html
has a list of kernel boot parameters. I would try "mem=0x1000000". Your problem seems memory related, so it might help to specify your memory size explicitly

ok, i tried it and got more info...

the commands in grub 0.93 are
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-4EL ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.21-4.EL.img


if i remove the initrd command i get different results... no more "do_page_fault" stuff - the last item printed before it rooboots is "hpt366_get_info" or something like that...

when i add the "mem=512m" to the kernal command i get the same thing, but if i put "mem=256m" it seems to loop and keep running for 5 minutes before i tire of watching it.

GLW: DO NOT GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK man, one thing to try: Get your important data out of your XP install.

completely format the hard drive

reinstall XP, give RH whatever room (like I usually give mine about 15 gigs)

install RH linux

If it doesn't work, I'll send you some peanut butter :D

dave,

i already removed xp, repartioned, and gave the whole 100gb drive to RH. after install it's still bad... how will you know where to send the peanut butter... or can i just download it :D

There is definitely a problem with the kernel. You can reinstall as many times as you like - it won't solve anything. You will need to install a new kernel.
1) download ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/redha...-28.9.i686.rpm
2) download ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/slack...otdisks/bare.i
3) if you are using windows, go to ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/slack...ent/bootdisks/ and download the appropriate "RAWRITExx.EXE"
4) create a bootdisk by opening up a command line and typing:
C:\path\to\rawrite\rawriteXX.exe C:\path\to\bootdisk\bare.i
5) boot using your bootdisk. When you get the "boot:" prompt, type "mount root=/dev/hdXX" where hdXX is your root partition.
6) install the kernel (try "rpm --help" for the specific command - i don't use RH, so I'm not sure)
7) do "less /boot/grub/grub.conf" to check if your config file is pointing at your new kernel.
8) reboot