LinuxQuestions.org
Welcome to the most active Linux Forum on the web.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Newbie
User Name
Password
Linux - Newbie This Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question? If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 02-13-2007, 09:59 AM   #1
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Rep: Reputation: 0
mass of troubles installing linux


i've got a bit of a story to tell so grab a cup of coffee or tea or what ever you drink in the morning cause this may take a while.

I finally got linux fedora core 6 downloaded (my first linux os) and i attempted to install it on my computers slave drive, for the first month of attempting, the farthest i got was it initializing anaconda, then it would freeze up. So i set it down for a while and lived with only having windows on my scsi and my ide (scsi is the master)last weekend i decided to try again, this time i did the media check, and it came out ok, i was told i could use the dvd, and this time i made it past the initialization, so i proceeded to install fc6 on the ide drive, i installed grub on the hda, the slave drive (which i realize might of made a problem now, keep in mind, i've never installed an os in my life, let alone a bootloader)after this i left every other setting alone, except for the time zone, and the installation package (i chose to install the first two on the list, i left the rest alone)
so when it finished installing. I rebooted the computer, and it went directly to windows, it didnt even show grub. So being the idiot i am, i decided to install it again, this time on both drives, choosing everything else the same as the last installation i attempted. when it finally installed i got the message "error loading operating system" so i've done some research and learned it is grub that was installed incorrectly. So i tried reinstalling the os again, and i got the same problem, i tried a third time, and it crashed after i deleted all fc6 partitions on both drives. I have tried to reinstall it since but it keeps freezing not installing (is this normal?). I have also downloaded a third party bootloader called GAG graphical boot loader, which some one had suggested i use. So I am in dire need of help, i cannot reinstall windows, and i cannot install fedora core, so my computer has no os, pleas some one help me with this. (for now i will attempt to reinstall windows again)

Last edited by zetsumei; 02-13-2007 at 10:01 AM.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 10:13 AM   #2
PTrenholme
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Olympia, WA, USA
Distribution: Fedora, (K)Ubuntu
Posts: 4,187

Rep: Reputation: 354Reputation: 354Reputation: 354Reputation: 354
If you have your Windows installation disk, you should be able to recover you Windows OS by booting that CD, going to the "Recovery" mode, and using the fixmbr command. That should put the Windows MBR into the correct drive.

Then boot Windows and use the Windows partition manager to delete the Linux partitions.

Now reinstall Fedora as you did before, with GRUB on the IDE drive.

Reboot your system, and open your BIOS edit screen -- usually F1 or F2 during boot, sometimes Del. Check you system documentation. Look for the place where the "boot order" is specified, and change it so the IDE is the first boot device. Save the change and reboot.

The system should boot to GRUB, and you should be able to select either Fedora or Windows from the GRUB menu.

In other words, you had it right the first time. You only forgot to tell your system where to find the correct boot drive, so it used the Windows drive.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 10:20 AM   #3
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
now it has told me when attempting to reinstall windows, that i need special softwear to install windows on an scsi hard drive, I do not have that softwear, i bought the computer with windows pre installed. I'm considering setting my ide as the master drive, so i can reinstall it on that drive.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 10:32 AM   #4
wpn146
Member
 
Registered: Jan 2005
Distribution: Solaris, Linux Fedora Core 6
Posts: 170

Rep: Reputation: 30
Quote:
Originally Posted by PTrenholme
<...>
In other words, you had it right the first time. You only forgot to tell your system where to find the correct boot drive, so it used the Windows drive.
But he tried it with fc6 on the scsi and got errors on loading the system. This might be a hardware support issue.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 10:40 AM   #5
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
i am planning on buying a sata drive. and setting it to be master, and the scsi to be the slave, i may very well remove the ide, does this sound like it would be a problem?
 
Old 02-13-2007, 10:59 AM   #6
lilili
Member
 
Registered: Jan 2006
Location: SantaBarbara
Distribution: Slackware 12.1
Posts: 196

Rep: Reputation: 30
Here's a story of mine that is quite similar to yours
I have 2 hd, 1 master and 1 slave.
Master (maxtor 80 gb) has xp and slave has slack (odl wd 20 gb). In bios I have it boot to master(hda) first and I install lilo in master mbr. Until a week ago , my slave died. After that my pc can not boot to any os at all so I use the recovery tool from xp cd and fixmbr, totally smooth xp is back on.

Now I just bought a new hard drive to replace the hdd(wd 20 gb) that just died and I follow the same procedure to install slackware on hdd( new wd 160gb) and behold lilo complains with 01 01 01 01 (yup that's my thread). Same boot procedure. I install lilo on the same hda since it got erased by fixmbr.
I tried installing lilo on hda just like I did it before but it just doesn't happen.

then i give up on the idea of using the same setup, and decided to switch the new hdd to be hda, so now xp become hdd and new hd with slack become hda. After that boom everything works easily.
My guess is fixmbr so how hijack my old hda MBR and doesn't allow lilo to be there anymore, as i have the correct lilo.conf and did lilo -M /dev/hda and lilo didn't even shows up, it goes straight to xp.

My advice is if you don't like spending time with your pc or learning details don't go for unix but other than that stick with it and you'll graduate to Power user.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 11:05 AM   #7
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
i love spending time with my pc...i just wish i could get it to run. Soo i found ou that in the usb port their was a usb thumb drive, i didnt know it was there becouse there is a pannel deep enough to hide a thumb drive, covering the usb port.... and the computer recognized it as c:\ (no i did not put it there, it is my brothers, why he was using my computer, i will never know).
 
Old 02-13-2007, 12:48 PM   #8
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
update on my situation

i still have no os. windows wont install on either the hda sda (hda is too small it says, becouse it has a boot partitiion on it) and sda you need special softwear. So thats rulled out until i either figure out how to format the hda (i dont know dos, and it is not drive C)I cannot try to reinstall linux, the last three times i attempted it, their was a glitch causing the screen to look similar to what a tv looks like without any input and it crashed.


I've said it before, i am a complete novice at this stuff, i have no expirience, for i have not had a computer to experiment with. I am in dire need of help.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 12:58 PM   #9
oskar
Senior Member
 
Registered: Feb 2006
Location: Austria
Distribution: Ubuntu 12.10
Posts: 1,142

Rep: Reputation: 49
I had that alot, especially when I had up to 10 linux systems on 4 harddrives, and every now and then Windows decided there's something terribly wrong and "fixed" the mbr.
I decided to go with winchester drives, and I'm happy eversince. I only have windows, ubuntu and a test system now... It's like dealing with 4 year olds. You have to put them into air conditioned cages far away from each other.

---
note to self: don't raise children.

Last edited by oskar; 02-13-2007 at 01:02 PM.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 01:20 PM   #10
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
(i laughed at your reply)
 
Old 02-13-2007, 02:03 PM   #11
mattyoly
Member
 
Registered: Sep 2005
Location: Canada
Distribution: openSUSE 8.0 - 11.00 Fedora 10
Posts: 71
Blog Entries: 1

Rep: Reputation: 15
This shows you how to partition and format your hard drive.(it's never late to learn a bit of DOS . http://www.escotal.com/partition.html When you create the partitions create 50% for windows and 50% for linux, or whatever amount you chose. Install Windows on the first partition, because if you install linux first you won't be able to install windows. So once you installed windows, then boot linux from cd, and install it on the second partition that you have created with fdisk. Now make sure you install the bootloader on the mbr, and make sure you rewrite the mbr. That will put the bootloader at the beginning of the drive, this way it will load first. When you boot, you will have the option of chosing which opsys to start.

Good luck.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 02:14 PM   #12
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
thanks for the link. Now how exactly to i install the bootloader on the mbr.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 02:24 PM   #13
mattyoly
Member
 
Registered: Sep 2005
Location: Canada
Distribution: openSUSE 8.0 - 11.00 Fedora 10
Posts: 71
Blog Entries: 1

Rep: Reputation: 15
i'm not too familiar with fedora, but when you change the bootloader options, there should be an option that you can select which says "install generic code to MBR" or something similar to that. So that's what you want to do.

There is also another option, you can choose to install GRUB onto a floppy disk, and then get into your bios and make sure you get the floppy to boot first by changing the boot order. That way when the computer boots it will read the floppy, and run grub as your bootloader.

Whichever option you choose works just fine.

Good Luck
 
Old 02-13-2007, 02:32 PM   #14
michaelk
Moderator
 
Registered: Aug 2002
Posts: 25,592

Rep: Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880Reputation: 5880
If you really have a SCSI controller you should see its BIOS splash screen being displayed during boot up. Hopefully some info on the make and model number is displayed that you could post. You should be able to down load the driver from the web.

When installing windows first create the desired NTFS partition but leave the rest of the drive unallocated. Most linux installers create multiple partitions automatically. FC6 will create 2 partitions.

The installer should ask you where you want to load grub with the MBR being the default.
 
Old 02-13-2007, 03:10 PM   #15
zetsumei
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Feb 2007
Posts: 20

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
ok, thank you...i still have the problem of installing windows onto the scsi drive, when i get to the part of instillation where it asks where i want to install windows, it gives me the sda and the two partitions on hdb (i meant to put hdb) when i try on the ide drive, it is too small, when i try on the sda it says i need special software. Oh and i installed FC6 again installing the bootloader on the mbr, now i get the error "boot sector not found"
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Mass Linux Deployment pmrent Linux - Enterprise 5 07-07-2004 03:40 AM
problems with linux kernel 2.6.x and usb mass media? kierse Slackware 22 04-20-2004 06:14 PM
troubles while installing United Linux meshmesh Linux - Distributions 0 01-06-2004 02:14 AM
Has Linux reached critical mass ? Bert Linux - General 5 10-02-2002 02:49 AM
troubles installing plonka Linux - General 2 07-05-2002 10:41 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Newbie

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:51 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration