GA-880GMA-UD2H hangs on "Loading Operating System..." after removing LILO from MBR
 

Preamble: I just joined the forum today. I'm not a linux beginner per se (about 4 years experience, now running Ubuntu Lucid on my laptop and windoze-free) and I built the desktop PC I'm typing this on six years ago. However, this is my first HTPC build and my first KnoppMyth install, and I've probably done something foolish.

This was an attempt at a fresh KnoppMyth 5.5 install on a virgin system. Hardware details:
MB: GIGABYTE|GA-880GMA-UD2H R
CPU: AMD|PH II X4 925 AM3 RT
RAM: 2Gx2|GSKILL F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH
HD: 1T|WD 7K 64M SATAIII WD1002FAEX - OEM
CD: BLU-RAY BURNER LG | WH10LS30 OEM - OEM
TUNER: pcHDTV HD-5500 HDTV PCI CARD
CASE: HTPC ANTEC|M FUSIONREMOTE 350
DISPLAY: Sharp Aquos LC-32D62U LCD TV

I made partitions / (10G), /swap (12G), /cache (18G), and /myth (remainder of 1T). I wrote the partitions, set up swap, and followed the fstype suggestions. I changed Load Config to /KNOPPIX/knoppmyth-sata and input all information. The installation (to /dev/sda1) appeared to complete normally. I removed the CD before reboot.

Upon reboot, the system goes through usual POST and boots from Linux.
However, I do not get the expected Xterm popup.

Possibly unrelated nasty looking (red) language in the startup dialogue:
...
"*Cannot check root filesystem because it is mounted read-only."
...
"Mounting local filesystems...failed."
...
(at this point, the screen blinks on and off several times, and then stays on with the line below)
"INIT: Id "c7" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes"
If I wait 5 minutes, it does the blinking again and corrects itself with the same message.

If I CTRL-ALT-F2, I see a white background with "KnoppMyth" at the bottom and a terminal window designed like a TV. I can login as root, but I cannot figure out how to proceed with the normal configuration that is supposed to be running at this time. I have tried to boot from the CD again, but my system continues to boot from the Linux installation on HD, even when I set all three boot devices in the BIOS to the CDROM.

After finding that KM5.5 is no longer supported, I need to wipe the KM5.5 stuff so I can start over with LinHES6. I'm willing to try either a CD install (downloading ISO now) or a USB install.

Still being unable to boot from CD and convinced it had something to do with LILO being in my master boot record, I logged in as root, issued 'lilo -U /dev/sda' and rebooted. Thus began the complaint in my subject line.

Now all I get on boot is a hung "Loading operating system..." (but no error message) and it still will not boot from CD, nor will it boot from my KM installation on HD. My BIOS boot order is
1. USB-FDD
2. CDROM
3. Hard Disk
I've tried F12 on startup and specifically selecting CDROM to boot, but I get the same hung message.

Basically, I just wish I had never bothered with KM5.5 and I want a do-over to go back to the beginning and put the LinHES 6.03 CD in and just do the installation. Since I can't do this, I'd like to at least be able to wipe everything I did and start fresh. Recall that I couldn't boot from CDROM even before I made the daft remove of LILO. The only time I successfully booted from CD was the very first time I turned on the machine to install KM5.5

Sorry for the verbosity, and thanks for any tips. Right now it's a fancy paperweight...

possible issue reading the Boot CD you're using. Try burning another bootable ISO. Additionally ... lower your writing speed in the cd burning program ... turn off smart drive monitoring, etc.. things that have caused problems in the past can always rear their ugly head agian.

you could even try loading the safe defaults in your bios, update only to make sure it boots from CD first, etc.. any tweaks made in the bios could push the system over the edge.

Also make sure your boot cd is in the drive *before* the system reaches the end of post. Sometimes, the cdrom drive hasn't had enough time to spinup, see the disc and prep for booting from it before the system wants to boot ... you could give a little more time by having the bios set to check most of the ram you have installed.. give it 10 to 20 seconds of memory testing then hit your spacebar or escape (check screen for correct key) to skip the rest of the memory test.. thus hopefully the CD Drive has finished its initial boot and disc reads, and is then ready.