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Slackware 10.1 installation unhappiness

Hey, I'm still very much in the learning stage, so I'd appreciate any help you guys can provide me with. I installed Slackware 10.1 from CD, mostly default settings, maked ext2 partition on /dev/hda1, swap on /dev/hda2 and used the Root option to write LILO to the superblock on my Linux partition. After everything was done in setup, I restarted and I got this:

Code:

LI

..but no "LO".

I tried poking around and got very vague answers to what might be wrong, some places said it might be the superblock, mbr, or kernel being changed. So I installed again, this time using the floppy option to write LILO to a floppy to be read at boot. This time worked better than the last -- it now starts to boot up but halts after these lines:

Code:

...



Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4

ide: Assuming 33Mhz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx

PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:07.1

PIIX4: chipset revision 1

PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later

    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x1000-0x1007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio

CMD649: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:11.0

PCI: Found IRQ 15 for device 00:11.0

CMD649: chipset revision  2

CMD649: 100% native mode on irq 15

    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x1010-0x1017, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio

    ide2: BM-DMA at 0x1018-0x101f, BIOS settings: hde:DMA, hdf:pio

hda: HITACHI_DK23DA-40, ATA DISK drive

blk: queue c03ad460, I/O limit 4095 (mask 0xffffffff)

hdc: QSI DVD-ROM SDR-081, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

ide: Assuming 33Mhz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14

and then after that, the cursor stops blinking and the system fails to respond. Any idea what's going on here? Any more information you need, just ask.

From LILOs README.common.problems

Code:

Problem:  When I boot, all I get is 'LI'

=======================================

This means the first-stage loader gained control; it thought it success-

fully loaded the second-stage loader; but it never got there.  This most

often occurs when the second-stage loader, '/boot/boot.b', is not load-

able using the BIOS.



First, have you tried specifying 'lba32' in your 'lilo.conf' file?  On

newer systems, this will almost always work, since the loader will now

use the newer EDD packet calls, which are not cylinder-limited.



Second, do you know your disk geometry?  This means, do you know the

numbers of cylinders/heads/sectors of all your hard drives; and are these

the numbers that LILO is using when it installs the boot loader.  Three

reports of the disk geometry may be obtained:



  1.  Run 'lilo -t -v5' and check the geometry reports for each device.

  2.  Run 'lilo -Tgeom' and see if the same numbers are reported.  (This

      may fail on some systems, where LILO has trouble running BIOS 

      calls in v86 mode.)

  3.  Create the diagnostic floppy (see README.disk) and check the

      reported disk geometries.

From LILOs README

Code:

  LI  The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage boot 

    loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be caused by a 

    geometry mismatch or by moving /boot/boot.b without running the map 

    installer.

Happy hunting.

Cheers,
Tink

You might have known it... Slackware 10.2 is out!!! :)

Thanks for the advice, LILO is working now, but just reinstalled and still have the same problem, after that line it just hangs. Any idea what might be wrong? Please help! I have a version of Kanotix successfully installed on there, and I had Debian before, why doesn't Slack work?

I think that the second of the things I quoted may be causing your
troubles. Chances are that the OLD LILO is sitting in the MBR and
you installed the Slack LILO into the root partition. The one in MBR
then wouldn't find /boot/boot.b and spit the dummy.

Cheers,
Tink

Nope, I don't think that's the problem because I just installed Windows 2000 to one partition, so that overwrote the MBR. Now I'm using a floppy with LILO on it to boot Slackware. After all, it starts booting, but then it hangs after

Code:

ide: Assuming 33Mhz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14

Try booting from the Slack install CD. Instead of setup, mount /dev/hda1 and use lilo -u or lilo -U to uninstall both and then reinstall it into the mbr.

To the OP: have you got more than one IDE controller
in that box?

Cheers,
Tink

dracolich, thanks, but LILO working now on a floppy at least until I get this figured out. The real problem now is the ide controller issue, or whatever it is that causes it to hang while booting.

Tink:
I booted up on a Kanotix livecd and this is what I found:

in /proc/ide, there are apparently two ide controllers, ide0 and ide1.
in /proc/irq/14 there is ide0, and in /proc/irq/15 there is ide1.

I only have one hard drive, is there a reason why I have 2 controllers? Could this be the problem?

Actually, a very interesting new development... it will hang, but if you wait long enough, it gets past it! It continues to load...I'm not sure what causes this. It seems to happen erratically, too -- I can never predict when it will hang and then boot or when it will just hang.

?!?!?!?!?!

Still confused :(