boot issue....cant find more suitable forum...

Hello all!

I have installed Suse 9.2 with few hiccups. Now that it is installed, I went into my bios, and reset the boot order so that the computer first attempts a hard disk boot. Now, when I restart the computer, it refuses to boot from the hard drive initially. I must first boot from the DVD drive, then it takes me to the installation menu, where I am presented with the option to "boot from Hard Disk". Clearly this isnt a huge problem, but I dont like the idea of having to boot from the install DVD every time I want to reset the computer, only to have it go ahead and boot from the hard disk. It is a stupid redundant step. When I start the computer, I get the following error message:

Intel® Boot Agent FE v4.1.17
Copyright © 1997-2004, Intel Corporation

Intel ® Boot Agent PXE Base Code (PXE-2.1 build 084)
Copyright © 1997-2004, Intel Corporation

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.
No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key

ok, so as I understand it, first the computer runs its bios boot program, which directs it to the MBR on the hard disk (supposedly) and then Grub is initialized which allows me to boot linux (I only have linux on the PC).
Clearly the Intel boot program fails to initialize the MBR. However, when I tell it to boot from the DVD disc, and then the DVD disc install program tells it to boot from the hard disk, its all good in the hood.

What am I missing here? Has anyone had a similar problem? Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Brian

it sounds to me that the SUSE install did not install the lilo boot loader onto your MBR.

boot the pc anyway you can, and research a lilo installation. That might get you down the right path..

I checked the boot configuration in YAST. There was GRUB installed, but to see if it would work, I installed LILO. Same problem as before. I made sure that the boot loader program installed on the MBR and YAST says it did. Again, it wont let me boot from the hard drive, until the DVD boot program tells it to boot from the hard drive. I just dont understand this. I am beginning to think, due to the plethora pf problems i am having with this install, that my computer is too "new" to be running suse 9.2 pro...perhaps I would be better of with a newer distribution that would have more native support for my newer/more modern components. Any thoughts?

thanks,
Brian

I would suggest a simpler solution. Go back into the BIOS, and set the BIOS to poll devices other than hard disk first (such as floppy, cd/dvd, etc), and poll the hard disk last. You will see one or two messages about 'no media found' in regards to the floppy/cd/dvd, but the hard disk should boot.

I'm using SuSE 9.3 with that setup, and have no problems.

PS: I have it set up that way, so that, IF the hard disk fails to boot (usually because of something I've done), I can still boot Knoppix from the cd drive to un-fix what I fixed to cause the problem in the first place. (See my sig to understand how that could happen).