Jyde;

If you used a 4.3.0 or newer Puppy Gparted to make the partition, it makes partitions
with 256 inodes. This will cause Grub2error when trying to install earlier versions,
which need 128 inodes.

With old hard drives I usually wipe them with "Dariks Boot and Nuke" (Dban),to be
sure they're clean.

Tried Meanpup on my old p3 laptop, full install. Works fine.

correct menu.lst

title Linux (on /dev/hda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=normal

So use Gparted from an earlier than 4.3 puppy, be sure boot flag is set, and it
has a msdos disk label in devices.

Bobbio, thank you so much for the suggestion, I am going to try that.
One question, first, if you don't mind: Wouldn't installing the latest Puppy 4.3 work in that case (it did suffer from the same issue when I tried, as did 4.2, and 4.1)? Or is it only GParted itself that uses the newer 256 inodes, and not Puppy's Grub?

I fairness, I simply do not remember what I used to partition the HDD with. I think that latest attempts were partitioned using Damn Small Linux Not 01RC4... in other words, could the issue be the opposite as what you describe, i.e. I have formatted with 128 where is should be 256?

The MeanPup I am trying to install is 2.02.From what I can find, this seems to have been released in August 2006, so - as you say - should be using 128?

Cheers!
CJ

A bit late in the day, have been busy elsewhere...

I have, thanks to Bobbio's suggestion, managed to get the issue sorted!
It took a bit of tinkering but in the end I didn't even have to use dban, but simply wipe the disk from the MeanPup live CD and install again.

I can only assume that all the times I have partitioned my HDD, it has been with other OS's live CDs.

Now I just have to work on the swap, but that's another issue.

Anyway, thanks for all the help, much appreciated!

Cheers!
CJ

This is just not true on a old computer with as little memory as this

I'm running puppy 4.3 on a lifebook C, 64MB, 400MHz celeron.
My grub menu.lst entry is:
Grub is installed to /dev/sda2/boot/grub

I have always had to (re)figure out how to make grub behave when full installing puppy on the HD. So hang in there

Thanks for the reply, uten, but - as per above - I already had it sorted.

Blast, I thought I had marked the topic sorted... must be pre-senility setting in!

Cheers!
CJ

Good your problem is solved. I was a bit late writing up my post. So yours came in between..