Lilo boot freeze on booting kernel
 

I try to boot and lilo only to gets to booting the kernel, then it freezes.


What it gives me is below
Then it just sits there

Any help is appreciated

At a restart, it loads kernel & ramdisk, boots the kernel, then mounts root.

rerun lilo first. Then think. Can you boot from (any) install CD/DVD? I would comment out the ramdisk line and try that. If you still end up on the rocks, run memtest86.

See this blog entry about running lilo in a chroot:

http://www.nickcoleman.org/blog/inde...6131822%21unix

To enter a chroot, boot with a rescue disk, mount your normal partitions somewhere (say, /mnt), mount /dev and /proc, chroot to where you mounted your partitions, and run lilo.

Also, check if you made or need to make an initrd before running lilo.

I can boot from small cds just fine. Its just Lilo and Grub that I have a problem with. I got Lilo to run, but upon reinstallation I picked the wrong settings and it doesn't boot.

This is the first time I've heard of chroot, as I'm fairly new to linux. If business_kid's method doesn't work, I'll be sure to try that.

The issue is that when you boot from a rescue disk, the filesystem is that of the rescue disk, not the previous installation. (Unless the rescue disk specifically looks for and mounts your previously installed partitions, in which case you will need to read the documentation for your rescue disk.)

Therefore, when you run lilo, you are running it for the rescue disk, which means lilo affects the MBR record of the rescue disk, which is usually a ramdisk, not that of the installation.

So, you need to manually mount your installation partition(s) somewhere, commonly under /mnt. If you have separate /usr, /var and /etc partitions in your installation, mount them too. For example:
chroot is an artificial way to switch to that mounted filesystem and "pretend" it is now the root filesystem, e.g. /. Once you have chroot'ed to /mnt, you are effectively now operating on your installation, not on your ramdisk.

This means that now, when you run lilo, it will use the correct /etc/lilo.conf file and will change the correct MBR on /dev/sda1 instead of the incorrect one on the ramdisk. Read the blog entry for more; don't forget to mount /dev and /proc.

Since I told debian to put everything on one partition and I have two hard disks, I should only need to mount the two hard disks right(I have hda1 hba1 and two swap partitions)?

One other thing, how do run lilo once the OS is started? The only way I've run any boot manager is from a call from the BIOS.

lilo is both the thing which boots and the command-name that installs it.
I'd go with grub, but it sounds like you've almost paid the learning tax.

So typing lilo in the command line would run or install lilo?

The reason I didn't go with grub is because lilo only has one config file(lilo.config), and because grubs defaults gave me unable to mount root fs on unknown block 0,0

Lilo from the command line, as root, installs Lilo the boot-loader.
Mind you, it needs to be correctly configured first.

Grub doesn't require reinstallation whenever you update the kernel. That's
the biggest difference. (Of course, if it doesn't work, what help is that?)

Your first message upstream says that Lilo printed LILO... which means it's
pretty much finished successfully. I would look carefully into your initrd
location, contents, etc. The warning on your line 2 is a major red flag to me.

Dave

I tried

mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1/mnt
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb/mnt

both of these gave me a help section

I tried

mount /dev/hda1/mnt
mount /dev/hba1/mnt

both of these gave me something to the effect of "cannot find hda1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

You shouldn't need "-t ext3" anymore; Linux detects filesystem types very well now.

You do need to sort out your /etc/fstab eventually, but mount wants 2 parameters.
1. What to mount and 2. where to put it.

If /dev/hda1 is supposed to be your root directory, lilo needs to pass it
to the kernel as root=/dev/hda1 . But let's forget /dev/hdb for now, until
you can boot, OK?

Dave

So first I need to mount. Then run the command lilo root=/dev/hda1 right

"root = /dev/hda1" needs to go into your /etc/lilo.conf. You can mount
from your rescue CD to do that. While there, (and I can offer no guarantees
to this part) you can run "/sbin/lilo -b /dev/hda1". Whether that works,
I'll still be here in half an hour.

Dave

Firefox, I wonder if you are confused about mounting filesystems in Linux. I hesitate to go into an explanation because it could get very involved and confusing.

If you don't have anything you need to keep, honestly I would simply do the installation again, overwriting what you had before.

However, when you mount, you specify a device (a partition) and its location in the filetree. Your example of is failing because you need a space between /dev/hda1 (the partition) and /mnt (the place in the filetree). Then, after that you are replacing what you just mounted by doing another mount on the same place. I suspect that's not what you want to do.

What have you got on /dev/hda1 and /dev/hdb1? We need to know before we go further. Or just re-install the system.

hda1 is a crunchbang install and hdb is a win2000 install that I don't need anymore. I don't want to reinstall unless I know what the correct setttings are for lilo, because one cd-rw is already dead from exploring the different distros(it was used before this too). I now use usb boot thru plop.


Thanks. This is my first yr of linux.

I was going thru text rescue mode on a debian lxde disk. Before, it always called my disks hda hdb(hard drives) and sda(flash drive). Thru rescue mode, it called them sda,sdb,(hard drives) and sdc(flash drive I booted from). Could someone tell me why this is?

Lilo worked when I installed debian but not when I installed crunchbang. I'm pretty sure I chose the same settings on both installations. On the debian lilo, I don't think it said the following

Initial ramdisk loads below 4Mb; kernel overwrite is possible ..............................................................
BIOS data check successful
Probing EDD (EDD=off to disable)

Decompressing Linux... Parsing ELF...

Both installers looked pretty much the same since crunchbang is based on debian. I'll probably just go back to debian xfce or something, unless someone knows why.

I would like you to try another kernel, and another ramdisk. You'll probably solve it that way. And I wouldn't worry about lilo. Do you need a ramdisk? If your basics (root filesystem format, chipset, pc partition tables support) are compiled in, you don't need a ramdisk.

I don't think it's a lilo fault. Lilo is finished.

I am pretty sure I know what a kernel is. Are you recommending going to a earlier kernel? Tho I wouldn't know how to change it without changing installation discs. The only thing I've ever compiled is java.

The only thing I know about a ramdisk is it might have something to do with the file initrd.img.gz.

You would have walk me thru either of these. I don't think Lilo is finished since it worked for me when grub's only option wouldn't. Grub also didn't detect my windows 2000 installation like it was supposed to.

I am writing this from the the computer on debian fvwm-crystal

Just a different one to eliminate the kernel itself as a possible problem. Ditto with ramdisk.

Firefox54, this is post #20. Most problems get fixed much quicker. That tells me something you are taking as OK is not OK. Is there not a choice of kernels on your installation CD? Why not use another of those. You don't need it to finish loading, just to start.

Likewise, leave out the initrd line and see what happens. check for another initrd on your install cd.

I don't remember a choice for a kernel or a initrd on the cd. I went through the text installation. I'll leave out the initrd line and try that. If all else fails, debian is working fine.

/Tears hair out.

If DEBIAN is working fine, why not copy over the kernel module tree, and use the DEBIAN kernel & initrd (If there is one) and try that?

I would do that, but I got anitx workiing. I am using grub and it is working good. fluxbox/icewm is faster than openbox so I like it better.

Please don't think you've wasted you're time with me. Thru this thread, I've learned how to mount thru the terminal properly, how to update lilo thru the terminal, and more.

I think I'll stick with antix, but don't think you haven't helped me. You've taught me some basic linux commands