I just installed Slackware 8.1 on a pretty standard AMD1.4Ghz/ASUS board. Everything seemed fine, then I removed the CDROM that I installed from and powered up and I ended up on a screen that said "Press A Key To Reboot"... So no matter what I did I was forced to reboot.

My one guess as to the problem is that when I used fdisk to partition my harddisk, I got an error trying to access /dev/hda so I installed everything on /dev/hdb. Is this a problem? I'm wondering if it can't find the correct files on hdb to boot from. After looking around these forums I tried booting from the cd I installed from and at the prompt tried:

bare.i root=/dev/hdb noinitrd ro

But that just led to some kinda "Kernal Panic" error...

Anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks.

when booting from the cd, do bare.i root=/dev/hdb1 noinitrd ro.
u need to specify which partition u put it on. and did u install lilo or another boot manager? because u need to do that if ur root partition isn't on the first partition of the first hard drive

Much appreciated Rahmed...

"bare.i root=/div/hdb2 noinitrd ro" got me up and running. Now lets see what Slackware can do!

Thanks again!

So I'm able to boot using a bootable CDROM, and at the prompt using the above command ("bare.i root=/dev/hdb2 noinitrd ro")...

My question now is, why can't I boot from my harddrive i.e. /dev/hdb2 ?

In my lilo.conf I have the line "boot = /dev/hdb2". I assume this means that lilo is to boot from the 2nd partition on my harddrive...??? I have only 2 partitions on my harddrive, swap and then everything else. Do I need to make this partition bootable? or install lilo to the MBR?

Do I need to add "root=/dev/hdb2 noinitrd ro" as a parameter when running liloconfig->expert ? For whatever reason I can't get the liloconfig->expert to install at all, and liloconfig->simple installs, but I still have to boot from the CD.

As you can see, I'm not sure what steps to take next...

Any/all help is appreciated.

Thx

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LILO.html
after u read that, then ask questions.

Thanks for the link. It helped me have a better understanding of LILO. I'm still having trouble however with my particular setup.

The problem still remains that I cannot boot from my harddrive... I still need to boot from a CDROM. Right now I boot using the CD and at the prompt type "bare.i root=/dev/hdb2 noinitrd ro".

I have one harddrive /dev/hdb that is partitioned as follows:
/dev/hdb1 ID=82 SYSTEM=Linux Swap
/dev/hdb2 ID=83 SYSTEM=Linux (this partition is flagged as bootable)

My lilo.conf is as follows:
boot = /dev/hdb2
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
change-rules
reset
vga = 773
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdb2
label = Linux
read-only

As this is my first experience with Slackware, I'm not sure what other information you guys might require to help me out.

Thanks for any help!!!

where did u install lilo too? the superblock or a floppy? try intalling lilo simple to the mbr tahts what i do..

ps if u installed to a floppy, make sure that u have boot from floppy enabled in ur bios. and that u have the floppy inn the disk drive.

Run cfdisk and check if your partition is marked as "Bootable"