Stupid question.. Installing SLack 8.1
 

When I use the boot disk, I get to the point where it says "Boot:" I click enter and then another menu comes up asking me to insert my "ROot disk" which i use the "color.gz" one.. I insert my root disk wich is "bare.i" the click enter and the following message comes up

UMSDOS: msdos_read_super_ failed, mount aborted

FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
Read_super_block: Can't find a reiserfs filesystem on (dev 01:00, block 64, size 1024)
Read_super_block: Can't find a reiserfs filesystem on (dev 01:00, block 8, size 1024)
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 01:00

Now what does this mean?.. DO i have to first set up my file system to be ext3?
Righ now I have WIndowsME on the computer.. Any suggestions?

it sounds like you are using the wrong install boot disk

did you boot bare.i first or what?


bare.i is the boot disk, color.gz is the root disk. when asked for the disk put in the color.gz disk

If that's what you have then it would be the root disk was created incorrectly.

I fix it now.. But when I get to the point where I have to use Cfdisk or fdisk, when I type cfdisk it says "FATAL ERROR: cannot open disk drive press any key to exit cdfisk" and when I try using fdisk, I write fdisk /dev/hda .. It says unable to open /dev/hda.. ANy help?

look here

http://www.slackware.com/install/bootdisk.php


one of these images should work

it sounds like the bare.i will not work with your harddisk

is the drive ide? you might need to give the drive parameters at the boot prompt. make sure the bios is configured correctly and turn off plug and pray, see if it helps

WHich one do you suggest? I have an IDE HD, and CD-ROM...

Yes.. THe drive is IDE... And I even tryed all the others choices and none of them work...

SHould I partition my HD with the Redhat partition and then just mount the installation to that partition?

you might need to give the drive parameters at the boot prompt. make sure the bios is configured correctly and turn off plug and pray, see if it helps

hd="cylinders,heads,sectors"

hd="967,13,31"

you an get the parameters from the stickers on the drive. You can use the bios but it might be wrong, I would look at the drive to see.

does the bios use auto detect at boot?

I think that I will give up for now... I'll stay with Redhat, and try to install Slack on the weekend once again... I did the partitions with the Redhat CD, and formated them with the SLack menu, but when I get to the part where I have to install the packages, the following error comes out, ah and I have to say, that when looking for the source of packages i select CD-ROM and it finds the packages no problem.

Mount Error

Your source device cannot be accessed properly

Please be sure that it is mounted on /var/log/mount/slackware, and that the slackware disks are found in the subdirectories of /var/log/mount/slakware like specified

ANy suggestions?,, I really want to try SLack...

boreo..
hey i installed slack like two days ago..

u r much better off with bootable cd..
(less hassle)

just burn the iso like u would do for other distro..

you need to partition before install slack..
if u have ntfs file system, i would recommend partition magic8.

with my 30gig hard
i gave 8gig to xp, 2gig fat32, 20mg /boot, 3g /, 4g /home, 520mg swap, left to /usr/local
good luck!

I noticed that you're only using the one root disk. You should have one boot floppy (bare.i) and 5 root disks (color.bz). Perhaps this is part of the issue.

Also, WinME relies heavily on the plug 'n play utility in the BIOS--get rid of it (WinME that is ;)). Seriously, turn off PnP in the BIOS as suggested by DavidPhillips. You should also follow doublefailure's advice and use partition magic to shrink down your WinME partition.

I know that I installed and reinstalled Slackware about 6 times before I realized that I had a badly burned CD. Also, after I got the right CD I reinstalled about 6 more times with a good CD due to my own stupid errors.

You can also try using the Slackware Book which might be of use. Hope this helps.:D

THanks to everyone here... My CDROM is not working, thats why I was unable to boot from cd or find the source for the installation... The machine I'm talking about is a P-Celeron@300 Mghz with 4GB... Now I have to buy me a new CD-ROM. or maybe I'll uninstall one from my other machine and install it there till I finish the SLack Setup... But now I'm planning to add a partition to this machine that I use (Redhat 8, P-Celeron@566 Mghz and 20GB).. SO I'm reading the HOW-TO parted, I want to make 2 partitions or even 3, since I also plan to install Debian, but I'm kind of confuse about having the 3 OS use the same /boot partition.... BUt if I encounter any trouble I'll post it here. Thanks to everyone for your help... Or if you have any suggestions on how to make 2 partitions without having to format the redhat partition, you know like make this partition smaller without loosing any data... Feel free to let me know.. Thanks once again.

if u use compile kernel yourself, i don't think there's a problem of sharing /boot(where kernel is) .. otherwise i'm not sure..

also u can share /home partition, i think

and if u install program from source on /usr/local (and i don't think rpm goes anywhere under /usr/local) you might be able to share that too.

for any distro 2.5-3g seems enough for / if u seperate /home and /usr/local

i recommend partition magic for any partition handling.

I never done this before..... ANd I don't think that I could use Partition Magic to partition Redhat since this is the only OS running on this machine.. I don't have Windows here, I had it on the other machine.. BUt yesterday it was formated.. Thanks for your post.

i think there's *nix partition handler that can do resizing..
maybe fips. you might want to search board with 'resize partition'

by the way, about /usr/local sharing, i think sometimes some programs don't work together if two different gcc were used to compile.
(eg, mozilla, galeon)
then i would get source gcc and install it under /usr/local =)
(never done this, hope someone else clarify it)

/home should be fine.
and /boot directory doesn't take much (3-10mg) i wouldn't worry about wasting that.

I have had this same problem with cfdisk.
I try to reinstall slack 9 on vmware 4.
The second time around installing i got this fatal error.
I thought it may have something with the MBR.
After a few atempts still not luck.
//k-9u

if you have other machines you can do a net install by booting by floppy. The server needs to share the files on the cdrom


you can have a lot of distros on one /boot partition, no problem.

just put all the kernels there. I would install without a boot partition and then mount the boot partition somewhere and copy the needed files there naming them something like this

vmlinuz-rh-2.4.20-9
vmlinuz-sw-2.4.20

etc

then be sure to have a lilo.conf with all of the images in it, /boot would be a logical place for it.

copy the lilo.conf to /etc on each distro if you want to be able to run lilo on them.

then you should add /boot to your /etc/fstab and set it to not automount

/dev/hda? /boot ext3 noauto,owner 1 1


this will prevent the /boot partition from being damaged. you can mount it as needed

If you check your bios, the only option for me for Boot Options that CD-ROM would pop up on is option1, and it took me 3 months(well, I kindof did other stuff during that time) to realize that I didn't have to update my BIOS(I had all of my disks ready, and was REALLY close to updating it, but I decided to check through my BIOS and all of its settings....
So check the first option in Boot Options in your BIOS and doublecheck that you can or cannot boot off of your CD. Booting off of CD's is so much better and easier than off of multiple floppies....

Thanks i some how came right.
I changed the iso name and the directory that it needs to install in.
I allso chaned the location were i was installing.
Reinstalled vmware4 and chaned the hard drive setting in vmware.
Some how it let me install. Thanks for the feed back guys.
//K