red hat booting problem

krazycow1 · 08-30-2002, 09:43 AM

i had win98se on a system, and i decided to install Red Hat 7.3 over it. I installed graphically, as workstation with Gnome. i configured X Windows, and then it prompted to reboot. i rebooted, and it goes through the BIOS check, then it just displays and L and the bottom left. i have reinstalled about 4 times now. LBA is enabled. it's an AMD k6/2 333mhz, and inside i have a linksys NIC, Diamond Speedstar A50 video card, and generic sound card. i booted with rescue disk (the one you make at the end of installation), and entered Linux ... it says i should change disks, but there are no disks to change. i tried vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb and it goes through these commands by itself, then gives some PANIC line and the caps lock and scroll lock keys flash on and off. please help, i know like no linux. thanks.
have tried MBR and first prtition installs.

i went to rescue mode, then did chroot /mnt/sysimage... then i put fdisk -l /dev/hdb (cause /dev/hda, doesn't give me anything). i think this is what you guys want to know:

Disk /dev/hdb: 15 heads, 63 sectors, 13424 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 945 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 108 50998+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 109 13008 6095250 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 13009 13424 196560 82 Linux swap

Bert · 08-30-2002, 01:53 PM

When you use a boot disk, you don't have to type linux, just enter - in fact, the boot disk should boot staright into linux. Can you give some details about what you actually see when you put the rescue floppy in the floppy drive?

These issues will be solved very easily if you install grub onto your HDD or a floppy.

install the grub rpm from your install cd, and do a:

# /sbin/grub

... checks your disks ...

# grub install '/dev/fd0'

to install it on your floppy. And you have a boot disk.

hairysocks · 09-19-2002, 01:15 PM

I have an AMD machine and am running RH 7.1 I have tried to upgrade to 7.2 and subsequently 7.3 but neither of them boot successfully from the CDs.

My suggestion, then, is to try RH 7.1

jetblackz · 09-19-2002, 09:55 PM

Ensure BIOS boot order is CD, FLOPPY, HD
Remove cable select jumpers on the HD's. Make Win HD1 and Linux HD2.
Install either Grub or lilo as boot loader on HD1
Panic usually means the kernel doesn't have support for the file sys. i.e. generic kernel to boot journal fs.
L usually means lilo points to an non-existent Linux partition.

krazycow1 · 09-20-2002, 01:17 PM

thanx!