Greetings

This problem is not easy to explain, (English is NOT my native language) but this is probably the place to find out what is happening.

My computer:

nVidia nForce 3 Ultra chipset on K8N neo MSI mobo.
Bios Raid NV (software) DISABLED (important)
2 sata HDD - 2 CD/DVD
AMD athlon 64 3000+ CPU
First HDD = 2 partitions: Windows XP SP3 / Debian Lenny 501
Second HDD = 2 partitions: ext3 / ntfs

The problem:

Boot start.
Bios show the 2 HDD/ 2DVD-rW
Nothing to say for the first screen display

Next: The raid nForce3 250Gb sequence, waiting to configure (even if disabled in bios)
Then hardware boot sequence (boot from...)

Then grub screen.

1.- If I allow grub waiting the usual 5 seconds:
Boot start normally. Stop 30 sec. to "populate dev"
and then stop at:
"loading kernel modules"
Here: freeze!
Nothing happening then. Even waiting 1/2 hour...Nothing.
No way to resume or stop.
(same thing in single user or previous kernel)

2.- Now today, I tried something:
As soon as the blue grub menu pop up, I strike "return"
And this time, after the usual 30 sec. "to populate devices"
the boot process resume normally and complete.

My question is:

Is there anything behind the scene happening during the 5 seconds grub is waiting for my OS choice?

I can post some additional detail if necessary.
Thank you for your post

Jean-Pierre

Hi Jean-Pierre,i 've not understood at all your HDD/filesystem set,but i can suggest some things to check,first:do you use the initrd sistem?"initrd is used to load some kernel modules before the kinit starts where required,if yes have you compiled your kernel with tis option enabled?(if you doesn't compiled any kernel sources is yes).Sad that i'm not so keen on this kind of trouble,but i can suggest to update your bios software and maybe try to put a livecd into your pc,with the live cd you will be able to read the boot log,check and change the grub file(/boot/grub/menu.lst) and if you can do that you can chroot into your usual debian sistem as user...

p.s:the 5 seconds of the grub loading is intended do take the user the time to chose different boot,this value is set in your /boot/grub/menu.lst

hope this 'll help you !bye

Thank you for your help.

Sorry if I did not explain my fstab settings.
Here it is

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda2 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/sda6 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/sda5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/winxp2 ntfs-3g defaults,user 0 0
/dev/sdb2 /media/d2 ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/sdc1 /media/clef0 vfat rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/win2 ntfs-3g defaults,user 0 0
192.168.0.102:/media/D /media/asus nfs noauto 0 0

It is possible that something here may be wrong.

About my attempt to hit the "return key", it does not work 100% today. I had to do a reset when it freeze, then reboot as a single user, hit the return key as soon as possible. Afterwards a new reboot was successful.

About initrd, I am using lenny "out of the box". I mean I made no change in the startup. About grub, here is the end of menu.lst file:

## ## End Default Options ##

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686 (single-user mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-2-686

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-686 (single-user mode)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

Do you see something interesting ?

Thank you
Jean-Pierre

I am not sure, but I found something new:
If I comment the "loop" module in the file /etc/modules, then the boot process continue.
However, I found this in my dmesg:

[ 41.039751] res 51/84:6f:c7:06:f0/00:00:00:00:00/e0 Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error)
[ 41.039831] ata2.00: error: { ICRC ABRT }
[ 43.851994] powernow-k8: BIOS error - no PSB or ACPI _PSS objects
jpre@debiangiga:~$

Anybody to tell me what it means???

Thank you
Jean-Pierre

My attempt to comment the "loop" module failed.
I have to find something different.
Sigh...
JP

After some test, I came to the conclusion that the dual boot is not a good idea for the computer I am using.
The problem is very likely linked to the partitions and file system.
In the near future, I will keep this computer with Windows XP only, and have Debian on its own machine.

Thank you
Jean-Pierre