On Fri, 19 Nov 1999, RAVIKANT K RAO wrote:
>Aloha,
> I've been using RedHat 5.2/6.0/6.1 and am now into Debian 2.1 for the
>past 2 months... Now I tried installing RH 6.1 in a friend's machine that
>has /dev/hda -> CDROM , Primary master and /dev/hdb -> 4.3 GB SeaGate HDD
>
> I made the linux native/swap partitions , 1.2 GB / 130 MB respectively.
>
> The system config is : Pentium 200 MMX , 32 MB SD RAM , 4.3 GB HDD , 40
>X Creative CD-ROM Drive , One Serial Mouse (Logitech) and a keyboard...
>The entire setup is about 2 years or so old...
>
> I boot off the CD [ RH 6.1 ] and perform the installation ... It goes on
>fine until it installs some 700 odd MB that I choose to install of a
>custom install and finally , it reboots with 'congratulations , rebooting
>now ... " [not the exact messages, but very similar ] and it unmounts the
>filesystems fine and then on rebooting , this is what happens...
>
>The BIOS detects the HDD/CD-ROM etc and does some routine boot up work and
>just before the point I should get the LILO boot: prompt, screen fills up
>with 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 and so on , and scrolls down all the
>way forever [ or atleast , for 5 whole minutes after which my patience
>didn't hold out ] ...
>
> I had to reboot with the boot floppies and then tried using not only the
>RedHat 6.1 CD , but also the Debian 2.1 (Slink) cds to re-write the MBR
>with LILO since I assumed the MBR was corrupted or something... but the
>message I got was "Write to MBR Failed!" and I don't know why...
The reason is simple, LILO installs itself to /dev/hda's MBR in your
situation it cant install lilo on the cdrom.
Swap the cdrom to slave boot from the floppy, when the prompt appiers
from the floppy type;
mount root=/dev/hda1 (note hda1 must be the partition where you
installed the "/" {root filesystem})
Edit /etc/lilo.conf make it point to /dev/hda
change the "image" section to point to the root filesystem.
Rerun lilo and reboot, that should help.
> My questions are:
>
>1] why do i get a bunch of 0s and 1s?
Because there is no MBR found.
>2] what can/should i do to fix the problem?
As per above.
>3] would the problem get fixed if I formatted the machines HDD
>completely? - not feasible since the win95 partition has important
>stuff.
No need.
>4] would installing debian alone work ?
Also no need.
>
> Thanks in advance and have a nice day.
>
>- Ravi
>
>PS : Don't bother cc-ing the reply to me since I am subscribed to the list
>itself . :-)
A very good idea, thats normal what i do execpt when folks insist on
cross posting a message to several different lists.
>
> ---
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Regards Richard
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://people.zeelandnet.nl/pa3gcu/
