GRUB
 

Over the week-end I've tried loading Fedora 18 a number of times to my sd disk from a DVD. I looks like it loads OK, but when I try to boot it, it gets to following and stops.
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Verifing DMI Pool Data ....
Boot From CD
GRUB
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At this point I can't type anything in to get any kind oy responce on screen.
I sure I'm told it to load the boot loader most of the time. I think the disk partiting part works funny.

I can't find out what to do from here. Everything I've seen in this forum and Goggle on how to fix it is for when the system is booted. I've broken into the shell several times during the DVD boot up, but I can't see fdisk or the grub-install commands. Or how too mound the hard drive onto the DVD to edit the GRUB config file. Can some one point me in the proper direction?

Don Dukelow

I don't know what you mean by that. From the rest of your post, it seems as though you have a Fedora DVD and you are using it to try to install Fedora on your hard drive, is that what you are trying to do? Is Fedora the only operating system you have installed? What did you do about the bootloader if you in fact were trying to install to the hard drive? Did you install Grub to the master boot record? to the partition you installed Fedora to? Did you take the DVD out of the drive before re-booting? Answers to these questions with a little detail on what you have done and what you want to do might help someone provide an answer.

After reading your post several times, I still have little clue of what you have done nor of the results you got.

What do you mean by "loading".

Did you copy the contents of a Fedora DVD onto an SD card? Or what?

I'm pretty sure "Verifing DMI Pool Data" was displayed by the BIOS.

I wonder whether "Boot From CD" was displayed by the BIOS. You were booting from an SD card at that point, correct?
So maybe that was displayed by boot code that you copied from the DVD to the SD?

I'm pretty sure "GRUB" was displayed by Grub. So you somehow got the beginning of Grub loaded (I guess from the SD card) into memory and executing, but Grub then can't find the rest of itself.

That sounds like steps from the actual install process. So maybe "loading" meant you booted the DVD and ran the installer to install Linux on the SD.

I don't know much about Linux on SD cards, nor about partitioning SD cards.

I'm sure the DVD has a liveCD mode, including GUI. So there is some way to get a good look around after booting the DVD. Try finding some Fedora install instructions online.

Hard drive? Or SD?

Anyway, Grub isn't healthy enough for its config file to even matter. So something more basic is wrong with what you copied, loaded, installed (or whatever) onto the SD.

I down loaded the Fedora ISO file and burned it to DVD. Frdora is the only OS I'm loading on the hard drive. I have only one hard drive in my system and the last time I loaded Fedora on it, when going through the install I slected the drive and left the button on that said load the boot loader. I used the default partitions the installer made up. I did take the DVD out before booting, and the system stops where I said above at the GRUB prompt. If I left it in, it would boot off the DVD and want to reinstall Fedora.
Is there a prosedure some place to get it to boot off the hard drive?

Which installation option did you select. The last time I installed Fedora it had 5 options including Use All Space to Create Custom Layout. You should have seen a windows which showed Install bootloader on /dev/sda near the top as well as a check box to the left. There should also be a change tab to the right. Installing to /dev/sda should have installed Grub2 to the master boot record and it should have booted.

Maybe the options have changed since the version I installed.
Since you can't boot from your hard drive, you might boot the Fedora DVD and if you can connect to the internet, go to the site below and read the instructions for and download and run the bootinfoscript. You should get an output file called results.txt which will provide information on boot files and partitions and someone should be able to advise you.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

Fedora 18 looks nothing like that. The desk setup window has a place to select the boot drive if there is more then one drive, and a button that says by default to "Load the boot loader". If you click that button it says "don't load boot loader". There is nothing about where on the drive to load the boot loader on the drive, that I could see. Also there is nothing about Drub2.
When I break out of the boot off the DVD I get a very down and durty Linux OS system. What are the commands to turn on the internet if you can do it from there, I have gone to my other PC running Windows XP and looked at the install procedures. There wasn't much about rhe boot loader for Fedoria 18, it was for version 17. It was from the same web sight I down loaded the fedora 18 ISO file from.
On another point I used to be an Sun, SGI, and HP admin so I under stand some of this. But some of the Linux jargen is new to me. So I'm guessing that SD card means hard disk drive?

Did you review the installation instructions at the Fedora Project. Looks like they have made a lot of changes:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...ction-x86.html

Sorry. I totally misunderstood what you meant by "SD disk". Linux uses the name sda for the first hard drive. The d in sda stands for disk, so it is not an "SD Disk". That would be one D too many.

I think you reported that when you boot from the hard drive, one of the messages you see is "Boot From CD". Did I understand that correctly?

I've never seen the version 18 install DOC's untill today. I down load Fedora 18 ISO file from the Fedora web sight but I only say version 17 DOC's. Anyway I did figure out how to do the rest of the install except the GRUB part. According to the DOC's the install program installs GRUB if it is a new install on a single disk system, althoufh I did see the tick mark to install GRUB on my drive. I never say the rest of the prosedure for GRUB.
The DOC's did say on older systems the /bot partition has to be in the first 1024 sectors of the drive because of a BIOS issue. My system is about 6 or 8 years old and maybe that is a problem.
I'm going to reinstall Fedora tonight and pay attention to these issues. I'll let you know!

I don't think 8 years old is old enough to have the problem that you need a /boot partition and it needs to be near the start of the disk.

But your symptoms kind of fit that problem. So I guess it is worth making sure you have a /boot partition early on the drive.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you but my day yesterday didn't go as plained.
Anyway this afternoon I reinstalled Fedora 18 on my hard drive again and I come up with the same problem. When I boot the system after the install it halts at

Boot From CD
GRUB

I get no keyboard responce or anything after that. If I put my Fedora 18 DVD in it won't boot unless I hit reset. Now while the install program is booting there is a place to stop and drop into a shell and run some Linux commands. Is there anything I can do from there that would help someone figure this out? I can mount /boot and the root partitions from there and look at them.

On another note, while partiting my drive that GUI needs help. If someone wants to talk about it I'm here. Like part of the problem you can't tell where on the drive the /boot partition is.

When you reboot after installing?

When are you putting your Fedora DVD in? When you get the message above? It wouldn't be expected to do anything. Or do you mean you reboot with the DVD set to first boot priority and it won't boot until you reset?

If it is a root prompt, enter: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L in the command) which will output partition information.

Also, could you post some hardware informaton.

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Quote:
When I boot the system after the install it halts at

Boot From CD
GRUB

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Quote:
When you reboot after installing?

If I put my Fedora 18 DVD in it won't boot unless I hit reset

When are you putting your Fedora DVD in? When you get the message above? It wouldn't be expected to do anything. Or do you mean you reboot with the DVD set to first boot priority and it won't boot until you reset?

T thought I corected this but I guess not. What happens is once the system stops at the GRUP prompt. If I put the DVD in and hit reset the system will reboot off the DVD and want to start the install all over again. Other wise it does nothing but stare at me.

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Quote:
Now while the install program is booting there is a place to stop and drop into a shell and run some Linux commands.

If it is a root prompt, enter: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L in the command) which will output partition information.
Sorry but I have to manualy copy all information from one system to another. I hope this is what you want. The shell on the DVD doesn't have fdisk on it, if I have to use fdisk I mount the root partition on my hard drive and use the fdisk on it.

/dev/sda2 is /boot
/dev/sda3 is /
/dev/sda1 is /home

Also, could you post some hardware informaton.

What hardware information do you want and how do I get it. I don't know the Linux commands for this. But rember I have to manualy copy it from my Linux system to my windows PC.

If you get a prompt on boot and then put your Fedora DVD in the drive, yes you would need to reset or reboot for anything to happen.

Also, just to clarify it is GRUB not GRUP, Grand Unified Bootloader, apparently written by some very modest people??
I'm not a Fedora user so I'm not sure about your DVD. Is it just an installation DVD or is it a Live DVD which you can boot and get to a standard Desktop without needing to install. Usually on a Live DVD, you get a Desktop with an install icon. It will have the standard programs an installed system has. It will also allow you to access a terminal where you can enter command such as the fdisk command. It should also allow you to enable an internet connection. If you can do this, post the output of fdisk I suggested previously after booting the Fedora DVD. Also go to the site I previously suggested and run the bootinfoscript and post the output. If this isn't a Live DVD and you can't do any of this, I have nothing else to suggest. One question, why Fedora. I don't use it but it is extremely popular and if your computer is fairly old, it may not be able to run Fedora 18. Fedora is also a test system for Red Hat and has very short term support and has frequent new versions. It is usually good for people who like bleeding edge software and have the latest hardware installed.