Can't boot or enter BIOS after Debian 6.0/Xfce install
 

Hi there!

Desperate times for me so I really hope for your help.

I tried to install Linux Debian/Xfce on my ~6 years old PC. Installation process was easy and I think successful until installation of Debian was finished I needed to restart computer.

After restart it didn't boot. It "freezes" all the time at the "splash screen" and I can't access even BIOS.

At first I was thinking that my hard drive is "dead", but what are the odds... So I removed HDD and tried to power on the computer without it - now I could access BIOS or boot from my Live CD.

So the next step i made was to test the HDD if it's still running. So I plugged it in to my new PC and it booted without any problems. I was able to run Linux Debian on my newer PC without any problems!

So what could be the problem / solution ?

Computer Specs:

Pentium 4 2,66 GHz
MM Asrock 775V88+
1 GB RAM
80 GB hdd
Geforce FX 5200

Did it have a working distro on the old computer before you did the new install?
If it did, which distro and version?
If no then I would try and run a live linux distro cd and run a memory test.

The old computer was running Windows XP. I wanted to check it out if linux (debian or f.e. xubuntu distro) would be better (faster) alternative. So at the Debian install process I choose to delete the old partitions of XP and created the new ones manualy.

I have installed Debian before the same way on my laptop. It worked like a charm, can't figure out what's wrong this time installing the same distro to older machine.

Most of the later larger distos require 1 gig of memory to respond in a reasonable amount time. As I mentioned try memory test from a live cd distro. You could also try one of the smaller distros such as puppy, Bodhi, Slax or Tiny Core These require less memory to operate and should not require your h/d for testing.

First, turn out splash screen. To do it, press e when in a grub select screen, then delete quiet splash from kernel boot parameters. Then try to boot, and see the last message.

Ok, I will try to run memory test from live cd.

Maybe I confused someone with the "termin - splash screen" (I don't know how it's properly called in English)

For me it's the first "image" when you press power button of computer and for a short amount of time (about 2 sec.) f.e see logo of laptop manufacturer and keys to press to enter BIOS, choose boot etc.

What I was saying in my first post is that my PC get's stuck at this "image" (I'm not able to get to GRUB boot menu)

Sorry for my English.

Hi mucker!

Only a question: for "splash screen" do you mean the BIOS splash screen or the Grub splash screen?

Flavio

Do you mean that without the h/d you can enter the bios setup but with it installed you can not?

Im having exactly same issue with Debian 6.0.3 x86, after reboot it get stuck at the splash screen, i tried 3 diff hard drives same result, i didnt check other stuff yet. It boots fine with liveCD thou when i detach the hard drive.

Hi Flavio! I'm stuck at BIOS splash screen.

Yes, I do. Without (removed) HDD I can enter the BIOS or boot Live CD, but with HDD installed I can't enter BIOS or even boot Live CD.

If you mange to solve this problem please post the solution in this forum thread. I posted about my problem at Latvian IT forums too, but it seems like nobody knows what could be the problem. I will definitely post the solution in this thread if I will manage somehow to solve this issue. :S

If you are trying to install the x64 versinn distro that will cause problems like you are having.

Hi mucker,

as you know, after the last POST, the BIOS runs the bootsector of the boot disk.
Your problem could be be a wrong boot sector or a wrong boot loader (the boot sector code, in turn ,runs the real bootloader).

After connecting only your "critical" hard disk to your computer, try to boot from a Live Distro (CD o USB stick) and run grub (I mean grub 0.97, the legacy grub) again, with the command:

root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)

quit


Then switch off, remove the USB key and boot again from the "critical" hard disk.

Flavio

It maybe have something to do with the updates, i did check the update options while installing both security and volatile.

Regards

Has anyone checked to see if there is a motherboard bios update?

I did repeat the install of Debian 6.0.3 in the same machine using one of the same hard drives(after erase partition and recreate them in a different machine) skipping the volatile, security updates and mirror the system boots fine after install is done.
I did minimal install and selected "parted" in the load from cd option, did manual partition again just saying to format and use partitions as previously set.
I hope this helps.

regards