Slackware 10 booting sporadically
 

Hello All,

Okay, here is the scoop. I just moved my Averatec notebook from SuSE9.1 to Slack10. The problem I am having is that sometimes when I choose "Linux" from the lilo boot menu, it starts, but then the screen goes totally blank. Other times it boots with no problem. Has anyone else experienced this? I have googled all over the place regarding this problem. I did just notice that under the lilo.conf it does say boot=/dev/hda Should that say /dev/hda2 ? hda1 is my swap, hda2 is my root. Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time,
Bruce T.

My System:
Averatec 5110h
Centrino 1300mhz
40GB
CD/DVD-RW
512MB RAM
No floppy drive!!


Here is my partitioning scheme:

/dev/hda1 - 1024MB Linux Swap
/dev/hda2 - remainder of HD! - ext2 format
---------------------------------------------------------
Here is my lilo.conf file: (boot is set to MBR) (I removed all the VGA options for the sake of this post)

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
append="hdc=ide-scsi"
boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda2
label = Linux
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
----------------------------------------------------------

Re: Slackware 10 booting sporadically
 

Bruce,

I have a PC that does that. If I just let it boot, it always boots
fine. If I enter at the LiLO screen, it alternates between returning
the black screen and booting. I asked and searched for months
last year and no one could help. I have some ideas, but none that
have been substantiated. I have 3 more boxen here running Slack
and none of them do it.

Sorry I can't help except to say that I've experienced the same
phenomena.

You are correct to have "boot=/dev/hda" in LiLO. That points LiLO
to the MBR of the master drive at IDE0.

Bruce H.

Bruce H.,

Thanks for the reply. That is exactly what happens. I am going to change the selection time in lilo and see if it still works if I shorten the time under 2 minutes. That aside, there has to be some logical reason for this happening.

Thanks again,
Bruce T.

Though I don't know the answer, that's not it. This happened to
me with Debian first, and now with Slackware. Here's my LiLO

All,

Thanks for the reply's. I booted with the 1st install cd, got back to the lilo option screen and selected expert. From there I just built the lilo file from the menu options. I told it to boot after 5 seconds.. now it works like a charm!! I am not sure, but I think the custom lilo.confg file did the trick.

Regards,
Bruce T.

All I can say is, "I stand corrected." Live and learn...

I've seen in some posts that the append="apm=power-off" line
gives some hassle.

Maybe that is the problem...

Who knows...

I rebooted the machine this morning and tried entering
directly, and now it boots straight off. So who in this world
knows why? I would suspect only one of the kernel
developers, and they're too busy for me to bother them.

Hey, my wife wants to know why you chose that nick?

All,

Okay, well I spoke too soon. I just upgraded the Kernel to 2.6.9, and I get the ever popular CRC error --System Halted about 50% of the time. I just keep rebooting the machine until the boot process works. I am getting so frustrated with this. SuSE / Fedora never gave me those problems. (and since those are super GUI distro's, "I" must be doing something wrong. ) Well if anyone out there has any further suggestions, please let me know. Here are the method's I have tried to solve this problem:

Standard lilo file built by Slackware
Expert lilo file configuration (from slackware install CD)
used standard XORG.conf file
Created xorg.conf file using 'xorgconfig'

2 partitions on my drive....
/dev/hda1 - SWAP
/dev/hda2 - ROOT

I boot from the MBR.

Respectfilly,
Bruce T.