When I boot my comp. (dual boot sys-Suse 10.1 & Win XP) the first boot stalls.

philip niedermeyer · 11-11-2006, 05:33 PM

Hello,I am philn I need help in determining if I need to modify my boot.ini. Because when I initially boot my multi-boot (Suse 10.1 & Win XP x32 Hm.) It stalls at the option screen to Del. into my registry. On the second soft boot it goes through. Q. I Extended the partitions on my external 1 TER. Maxtor HD with 200 gigs for Linux files the rest are NTFS. Is this causing the problem. The reason I ask is that I couldn't install Suse 10.1 on my external HD.

camorri · 11-12-2006, 10:14 AM

There is a lot you are not telling us. When you installed linux, did you install grub or lilo? If yes, where did you install them? On the MBR, or somewhere else? Please tell us how you boot to both systems.

The external drive, is it a USB connected drive? I'm sure it is possible to install linux on it, although there may well be an issue for the installer seeing the drive.

philip niedermeyer · 11-12-2006, 01:52 PM

I installed Grub and Linux on the MBR. When booting after a second soft boot I make it past the screen (where I can press the DEL key to enter the Registry) to the screen where I am able to choose which OS I want to load, ie, Win or Suse.
thanks
philn

camorri · 11-12-2006, 08:09 PM

If you installed grub to the MBR, this would be the first screen you see, not some other screen.

It sounds to me as if you modified your windbloze boot.ini file, and that is the first screen you are seeing. Did you edit boot.ini so you could boot to linux?

Wim Sturkenboom · 11-13-2006, 11:42 AM

I don't think that you're talking about the registry but about the POST (power on self test). Does it just stall or do you get an error that it can't find a boot record or something like that?

As far as I know this is a HW problem (maybe BIOS) and does not have anything to do with any operating system. My PC does the same when I set it to quick POST in the BIOS; set it to 'normal' and problem is solved. Seems that the HD is not ready yet when the PC wants to boot from it.

camorri · 11-13-2006, 06:04 PM

After re-reading the posts, I would agree with Wim Sturkenboom. This is a POST error of some sort. Have you done any hardware upgrades on this machine?

I have an old IBM PC I did a cpu upgrade on, and with the upgrade in the system, post will never complete, without error, and wait for me. I would have to get a new BIOS ( fat chance ) live with the error, ( I think I hit the ESC key ) to continue, or remove the upgrade and put back the genuine ssslllooowww cpu.

I decided to hit ESC...