slackware lockup after bios check (very beginning)

fincher69 · 02-10-2005, 04:34 PM

I post this under linux general but since the problem is mainly with slackware I figured I would post it here too and get some help from my fellow slackers. :-)

Here's what I got...

Pentium II 300mhz
256mb RAM
40gig hd
10gig hd

currently I am not using the 10 gig. The 40 gig is partitioned into a 512mb swap, 30 gig slackware 10.1 (running 4.6.10 kernel) partition, 1 gig Damn Small Linux partition, the rest unused.

I had the slackware partition running fine, then put on DSL. At first my lilo got screwed up but I got it fixed (i thought) and slackware booted up fine. Next time I tried to restart I choose to bootup the slackware partition and it says "booting slackware.... BIOS check successful" then the screen blinks off (as it always does) but instead of blinking back on and showing the text of the loading, it hangs. I left it for 10-15 minutes and nothing happened. I tried turning it off then back on and slackware booted up fine again. my next restart I had the same lockup, this time when I restarted it did the same thing. I restarted about 5 times with the same result. when I try to boot the DSL partition it works fine. I turned everything off and came back the next day and slackware booted up fine, but then the next time I restarted it reverted back to its old bad habit. Any idea what could be causing this? Thanks in advance for reading and any suggestions that might help.

__J · 02-10-2005, 04:38 PM

where is lilo installed?

Shagrath239 · 02-10-2005, 04:42 PM

Try to reinstall LILO, boot from the slackware CD, and follow the instructions to boot the partition where Slack is....

Then pkgtool... lilo script...

Check out this thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=288645

fincher69 · 02-10-2005, 05:44 PM

lilo is installed in the master boot record. I looked at the upgrade instructions for going from 10.0 -> 10.1 and it gives an example of a lilo.conf and mine matches. If something was messed up with lilo wouldn't it always fail? The fact that I can change nothing and sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't is the main thing that's really throwing me. Thanks.

Bruce Hill · 02-10-2005, 06:15 PM

I had the same problem in a dual boot situation for over a year,
and don't really know what I did to fix it. When I came to the LILO
screen my choices were Slackware or Windoze, in that order. If
I didn't enter, but let it timeout on Slackware in the 5 secs I had
set, it would boot fine. If I hit enter before it timed out to go
ahead and start Slack, the screen would blank and it hung. But I
could immediately give it the three finger salute, hit enter on
that second attempt, and it would boot. What I always saw was
something about "uncompressing vmlinuz" or something.

Finally in the process of buying more parts, upgrading that comp,
and building a file server -- it doesn't do that anymore.

Do you have a stock Slackware kernel, or have you compiled
one on your own?

Give us something to look at...post the output of "fdisk -l" run
as root from a terminal, and your /etc/lilo.conf

NB: When you post output like that, either use the Code button
above to enter it, or put [_code_] without the underscores
before it, and [_/code_] without the underscores after it, so
that it's properly formatted and eaiser to read.

fincher69 · 02-15-2005, 06:27 PM

I've been playing around with different distributions so my partitions are a little crazy at the moment. The only thing I really changed that started this problem was the upgrade to the 2.6 kernel and Slackware 10.1. I have the stock slackware kernel. Nothing too crazy. Here's the results of the fdisk -l

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1          63      506016   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda2              64        3773    29800575   83  Linux
/dev/hda4            3774        4865     8771490    5  Extended
/dev/hda5            3898        4020      987966   83  Linux
/dev/hda6            4021        4865     6787431   83  Linux
/dev/hda7   *        3774        3779       48132   83  Linux
/dev/hda8            3780        3785       48163+  83  Linux
/dev/hda9            3786        3798      104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda10           3799        3811      104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda11           3812        3824      104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda12           3825        3837      104391   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/hdb: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 39205 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *           1        4769     4883440   83  Linux
/dev/hdb2   *        4770       10492     5860352   83  Linux
/dev/hdb3   *       10493       15261     4883456   83  Linux
/dev/hdb4           15262       39205    24518656    5  Extended

and here's my lilo.conf

Code:

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
#compact        # faster, but won't work on all systems.
prompt
timeout = 300
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# ramdisk = 0     # paranoia setting
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz-generic-2.6.10
  initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
  root = /dev/hda2
  label = Slackware
  read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /mnt/dsl/boot/linux24
  root = /dev/hda7
  label = DamnSmallLinux
  read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
 image = /mnt/fedora/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667
# image = /boot/vmlinuz
#  map = /mnt/fedora/System.map-2.6.9-1.667
  initrd = /mnt/fedora/boot/initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
  root = /dev/hda8
  label = Fedora
  read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /mnt/DebBoot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-1-386
  initrd = /mnt/DebBoot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
  root = /dev/hdb1
  label = Debian
  read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/hdb2
  label = Gentoo
  read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /mnt/SUSEBoot/vmlinuz
  initrd = /mnt/SUSEBoot/initrd
  root = /dev/hdb2
  label = SUSE
  read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends

Hope that helps. it's definitely a weird problem.

Bruce Hill · 02-15-2005, 08:56 PM

Now these may not be relevant, or they may be...

(1) in your first post you said you have 2 hard drives,
one 40GB and one 10GB (which you're not using). But
fdisk says you have two 40GB drives, and LILO says
that you're using them both;

(2) your swap partition (which might never be used)
is on the front of your drive, rather than the back of
it (or better yet on another drive);

(3) you have these partitions set as bootable
/dev/hda7
/dev/hdb1
/dev/hdb2
/dev/hdb3
but if you install LILO in the MBR then you don't
need any partitions marked as bootable;

(4) your Slackware has an initrd image, but
DSL does not. Why do you need an initrd for
Slackware? or did you just install it with all the
other stuff on CD2 when you got the 2.6.10?;

(5) /dev/hdb/ as an empty Extended partition;

There are many other things that I see in your
last post, but I'm wondering if the initrd image
might be the problem. From Slack-10.1 CD2
/testing/packages/linux-2.6.10/README.initrd

Quote:

1. What is an initrd?

Initrd stands for "initial ramdisk". An initial ramdisk is a very small
Linux filesystem that is loaded into RAM and mounted as the kernel boots,
and before the main root filesystem is mounted.

2. Why do I need an initrd?

The usual reason to use an initrd is because you need to load kernel
modules before mounting the root partition. Usually these modules are
required to support the filesystem used by the root partition (ext3,
reiserfs, xfs), or perhaps the controller that the hard drive is attached
to (SCSI, RAID, etc). Essentially, there are so many different options
available in modern Linux kernels that it isn't practical to try to ship
many different kernels to try to cover everyone's needs. It's a lot more
flexible to ship a generic kernel and a set of kernel modules for it. The
generic 2.6 kernel in Slackware supports the ext2 filesystem (which is
used by the initrd), and also supports most IDE controllers (much like the
old bare.i kernel). So, if you have an IDE based system that uses the
ext2 filesystem, then you will not need to use an initrd to boot.
Otherwise, read on.

fincher69 · 02-15-2005, 10:07 PM

number one was my bad, I initially did have a 40 and a 10, but I replaced the 10 with a 40 yesterday. Number 2, i didn't know the area of the disk where the swap resided was relevant. 3, if I have a distribution with boot mounted on like /dev/hda5 and the root is mounted on /dev/hdb1, would both need to be bootable or just the boot partition? 4. I don't remember having an option of installing it. Either lilo automatically referenced the initrd, or I just was fooling with stuff and threw it in there to see if it would change anything. But from what I see on that description it would seem that I would need it since my root partition is reiser. would that be a correct assumption? on 5 I have been in the process of adding stuff and I haven't partitioned the extended partition like I need it yet. Thanks for helping me out with this.

Bruce Hill · 02-16-2005, 06:29 AM

If you have reiserfs support in your kernel (which you
do with Slackware), you don't need an initrd for that.
I don't really know what the problem could be, but I
would definitely get rid of that initrd if you don't need
it. Some of the other stuff you just learn from reading
and being around. Like, swap is for when you run out
of physical ram, so it needs to be farthest out on the
drive, or on another drive.

fincher69 · 02-16-2005, 07:28 AM

I'll take it out today and see if it makes any difference. Thanks for your help :-)

fincher69 · 02-23-2005, 08:28 AM

well I have found that it definitely has something to do with the 2.6 kernel. the one that comes with slackware is 2.6.10. I re-installed slack and it boots up fine everytime while it's running the 2.4.29 kernel, but when I upgrade to 2.6 it starts locking again. To upgrade I followed in the how-to-upgrade in this slackware forum and I didn't change any configuration. Everything seems to work fine until I reboot. very very odd