SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
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I am having trouble getting my MSI X610 to boot Slackware that I have installed on it. I have tried using Slackware 13.3.7 and 14.1, and both hang at the same stage early in the boot process. I installed both from a USB memoery stick set up using UniversalUSBInstaller 1.9.5.4 from pendrivelinux.com. If I boot from the Slackware set-up on the USB stick, I can then boot the hard drive installation using "hugesmp.s /dev/sda6 rdinit= ro". I have installed Xubuntu to /dev/sda5, and this boots no problem.
When the boot process hangs, the screen shows the following:
OK, I have now installed Plop to the MBR on the hard drive and tried to boot both the Slackware and the Xubuntu installations - it reports the following:
Code:
MBR: is valid
Checking bootsector
Warning:
No valid bootsector signature
Continue boot? [y/n]
If I continue with the boot the screen blanks and the cursor blinks in the top-left corner and that's it. Both Slackware and Xubuntu are installed on logical partitions, so is the boot information missing from these partitions' boot records?
I have done some more testing/re-installations, including installing Slackware 13.37 from DVD (which I have done on other machines without problem), and it seems that LILO run from the hard drive just doesn't want to work on this MSI X610 - and yet I can boot into the Slackware installation on the hard drive by first booting from the LILO installation iso on USB (using WinSetupFromUSB) as previously described.
After installing Slackware 14.1 to /dev/sda5 from the iso on USB (using WinSetupFromUSB), I then installed Xubuntu Desktop to /dev/sda6 and this installed GRUB to the MBR which then enabled me to boot Windows XP installed on /dev/sda3, Slackware 14.1 installed on /dev/sda5 and Xubuntu installed on /dev/sda6.
So what is wrong with LILO??? Is there somewhere I can report this problem?
Jumping ahead; but if sda1 is a 100mb partition created by a windows 7 install, and sda2 contains windows 7, i encountered this problem a few weeks ago.
If that's the case, when you installed windows 7 it uses some form of invalid partition table (messes up other operating systems) i couldn't quite figure out how to resolve it, so i ended up reformating to an MSDOS partition table, then installing slackware before the windows 7.
Yes, that could potentially be the heart of the problem.
/dev/sda1 is the MSI Windows 7 Home Premium rescue partition (~10GB)
/dev/sda2 is a small "SYSTEM" partition presumably used by the rescue partition (100MB)
/dev/sda3 was the Windows 7 Home Premium partition (not a big fan), now Windows XP Pro SP3
In fact, here is the full partition table info from cfdisk:
I could try wiping the disk entirely and starting afresh, but I would really need to take a copy of the rescue partition first. However, before I do that, I really need to try to get it working (which it doesn't at the moment).
But thanks very much for the suggestion - definitely one I will pursue at some point I think.
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