* Mark Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [001226 02:16]: > My friend's Toshiba Tecra 8000 laptop won't boot. Previously it has > booted fine, but currently all it comes up with is a > > 3FA: > > prompt. Hitting return just causes this prompt to repeat itself. It > doesn't even seem to get to lilo. I can't think what is wrong, and I > couldn't find anything in the archives on it. > > Any ideas anyone? >
I don't know if this can help...; anyway, from the Slink debian guide: --------- Secure Boot NA 2.2 Those concerned about the security of their Debian system - if it is used by others - should be aware that, by default, the Slink system can be booted from a floppy even when booting is disabled in the BIOS and a password is given in /etc/lilo.conf. To so boot, press the Shift key when the system is booted (and before the default boot/lilo prompt appears) and you get a prompt similar to 3FA which indicates partition 3 can be booted (3), a floppy can be booted from (by pressing the F key) and Advanced mode is available (which enables booting from any partition). To boot the default partition, at this 3FA type prompt simply press the Return key. (See /usr/doc/mbr/README for more details.) To boot from, say, partition 2 - press a key followed by number of partition, here 2. To disable this facility, you can edit the boot= line in /etc/lilo.conf - for example boot=/dev/hda root=/dev/hda1 or probably best of all physically disable or remove the floppy drive. This mbr facility can be very useful - for example, if there is another OS on hda1, with GNU/Linux root partition on hda2, then simply pressing Shift+A+1 will boot this other OS, and Shift+A+2 will boot GNU/Linux. --------- And this is from a message in comp.os.linux.setup: --------- Debian uses a nonstandard boot loader chained before LILO. If you do nothing during system start, it will simply load the default operating system. To get a menu that lets you boot from another partition (i.e. Linux!), press the shift key while the computer is just beginning to boot. (It is sometimes tricky to get the timing right. You may want to hit the shift key repeatedly, starting during the RAM test, until you get the following result...) You will get a message such as "3FA:". (Exact numbers shown depend on your system.) Press "a", and it changes to "1234F:". Select the partition you want to boot from there. --------- HTH, -- David
