Problem booting new Slackware 11 install

onehitter · 11-11-2006, 08:30 PM

Linux newbie here. I installed Slackware 11 on an old PC I had (PII 300 MHz 192 MB RAM). I have one IDE CD-RW drive, three IDE hard drives, and one SATA hard drive. My goal is to create a file server, accessible via Samba to several Windows PCs on my home network.

hda: CD/RW
hdb: Maxtor 30GB
hdc: Maxtor 40GB
hdd: Samsung 120GB
sda: Hitachi 500GB

I created partitions as follows:
hdb1: root (this partition was marked as bootable)
hdc1: /share03
hdc2: swap
hdd1: /share02
sda1: /share01

I know it is considered better to place certain files on independent partitions but I wanted to keep things simple for now.

I went through the whole install procedure without any errors. I don't plan to boot any other operation systems on this machine, so I selected to NOT install LILO (not absolutely sure if this was the right move).

I have set my BIOS settings to boot first from the hard drive - it allows me to specify the order of the drives, so I selected the drive on hdb as the first device on the list.

When I try to boot from the hard drive I get: "Error loading operating system". I tried booting from the boot floppy I created during the install, but it prompted me to mount root on hdb, which did not work. I then tried mounting root on fd0, which appears to have hosed my boot floppy because now it won't boot.

I can of course boot from the install CD, but I'm not really sure what to do next. I ran fdisk -l after booting from the CD and the results were:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot Start     End     Blocks  Id  System
/dev/sda1          1   60801  488384001  83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdc: 40.9 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot Start     End     Blocks  Id  System
/dev/hdc1          1    4863   39062016  83  Linux
/dev/hdc2       4864    4982     955867+ 82  Linux swap

Disk /dev/hdd: 120.0 BG, 120060444672 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 232632 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot Start     End     Blocks  Id  System
/dev/hdd1          1  232632  117246496+ 83  Linux

disk /dev/hdb: 30.7 GB, 30735581184 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3736 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot Start     End    Blocks  Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *      1    3736  30009388+  83  Linux

Any assistance troubleshooting this problem would be greatly appreciated!

thanks

Penguin of Wonder · 11-11-2006, 10:01 PM

If you didn't install LILO then you having to boot with. Your BIOS can't boot the OS it only turns on the hardware, after that it is your bootloaders job to actually boot the operating system. Windows works the exact same way. All you need to do is install LILO or grub and you should be ready to go all things considered.

onehitter · 11-11-2006, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Penguin of Wonder

If you didn't install LILO then you having to boot with. Your BIOS can't boot the OS it only turns on the hardware, after that it is your bootloaders job to actually boot the operating system. Windows works the exact same way. All you need to do is install LILO or grub and you should be ready to go all things considered.

Given the state I am in now, is there a way to do this without re-running the whole setup process? It seems that the setup program assumes you are starting from scratch and doesn't really have much "restartability" built in. I tried going in and just running the "Configure" part of the setup but it doesn't do anything.

I can't remember the exact wording but I thought I selected the LILO option that the setup program termed the "safe" choice...

Penguin of Wonder · 11-11-2006, 11:06 PM

You definatly didn't install the safe option. Actually installing Lilo would of been the safe option. I don't know if you can do it from the install disk or not. The disk should allow you to create a boot disk on a floppy though. After you boot the floppy you can easily install lilo from there.

duryodhan · 11-12-2006, 01:48 AM

Boot from your install disk. Then type setup and just select "run slackware installation scripts again" .
infact you can just do "pkgtool" after booting and select run Slackware installation script. Then do lilo config correctly. You would have to..
install lilo on /dev/hdb #this is important cos lilo will try to install on /dev/hda
root is at /dev/hdb1
thats it.

**Cat** · 11-20-2006, 01:15 PM

hey lads..
been getting problems with booting as well...
situation: slack 11 up and running.
booting problem: when I just let him boot, he will boot my system on winxp.
I use the cd to boot up on linux, log in to root, work as a charm. When I run lilo or liloconf... I get the message:

Quote:

Warning: Partition 3 on /dev/sda is not marked Active
Added Windows*
Added Linux

thing is... I have the same partition schemme on my dear lappy as well.. and here everything works, not a problem.
Ideas lads?
**Cat**

Penguin of Wonder · 11-20-2006, 01:37 PM

Did you make the partitioning scheme yourself or did you let another distro do it for you?

Is your problem just making Slackware the default boot option?

duryodhan · 11-20-2006, 10:29 PM

pls post fdisk of your disks and the lilo.conf file.

**Cat** · 11-21-2006, 05:44 AM

got it... late at night though...
thing is, on the lilo.conf I had boot=/dev/sda3 with sda3 the partition where the kernel was...
I changed it to boot=/dev/sda and it worked...

have no idea why... strange thing is that slack configured the lilo.conf like that. This is my 3rd slack instalation and on the previous two I didnt had this problem...

And to answer all questions posed... I used partition magic to get my HD organized. Same thing as with the other 2 instalations :P
cheers lads
**Cat**