Help, please!

I just installed Linux 7.1, kernel 2.4.2 with LILO in the MBR. After I boot, I get the "L" on the screen and nothing else. When I installed Linux (Red Hat), before rebooting I received a warning about hdb not being the first disk.

The result is that I can boot off of the floppy, but not off of the hard drive. I have an 8 gig drive partitioned as follows:

/dev/hdb1 1 1014 8144923 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 1015 1027 104422 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 1015 1027 104394 82 Linux Swap

I can't figure out why the drive is not hda other than the fact that it's a compaq using cable select instead of normal master slave.

I checked lilo.conf and it seems to be referencing hdb properly but I don't know for sure.

Any ideas? I'd be happy to supply more details but this is an entirely new operating and file system and I don't know even where to begin to look I can't wait to start exploring linux but booting off of the hard drive seems to be an important first task

Thanks in advance!
Valerie

the first thing i would check( and you may have already) is the boot order in the bios. make sure it is c only, or c,a,cdrom. if the hard drive and cdrom share a cable, it's probably looking for lilo on the cdrom drive.

In order to boot from hard drive, I believe the partition has to be at the beginning of the first hard drive, or MBR©

This means you need it to be /dev/hda, and not hdb© /dev/hdb is the slave drive on the primary harddrive controller©

You need to jumper the harddrive as the master and cdrom as slave or move the cdrom to the secondary controller©

Then you will have to set lilo to boot=/dev/hda and also root =/dev/hda?

Just change any hdb to hda the numbers will stay the same©as they are now©

¥see my lilo file below¤

You will have to run the lilo command to update lilo after changing it manually© You should be able to change it and then shutdown and change jumpers, and / or cables around©

My bios does not matter, but my lilo is installed to MBR on the master drive, /dev/hda©

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot©b
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
linear
default=linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2©4©2-2
label=linux
read-only
root=/dev/hda5

Here's a snip you have have a look at. Your 'boot' should be /dev/hda - this is where we'll write the MBR. Your 'image' should point to /boot/your_linux_kernel. Your 'root' should point to /dev/hdb1

boot=/dev/hda

root=/dev/hda1
if your existing root has a different number on it other than 1 use that number©

run lilo command to update lilo

shutdown and move jumpers on hard drive and cdrom, make cdrom the slave and the harddrive the master©

Boot up and go into bios and auto detect ide devices©

Make sure the first drive is your harddrive©

You already have lilo on MBR but it has to be the master drive©

Hope this helps©

David

I'm learning that the problem is with compaq's unique way of handling hard drives. They use cable select so I can't set the hard drive as the 'master'. The jumper has a special setting.

Secondly, Compaq writes something to the diagnostic cyllinder on their drives which helps their bios recognize the hard drive, so I can't play with bios settings - at least not where the drive is concerned (Very long story short).

So I guess I have a new question...

Has anyone ever gotten Red Hat Linux to run successfully on the presario 5441? Anyone have any suggestions on how I can maybe force Lilo into seeing the drive as hda?

Thank you, everybody, for your responses. I'm new to Linux and once I finally get a system running, I'm sure I'll be posting more questions. Thanks, all, for you help!

Valerie

Oh. The Compaq diagnostic partition. The <F10> thingy.

I don't think the diags use the mbr. They live at the end (beginning) of the hdd. all you should have to do is tell lilo to use hda for the MBR (boot = /dev/hda) and tell it that the root filesystem is on /dev/hdb1. Then run lilo (/sbin/lilo) and you should be good to go.

I don't think the diags use the mbr. They live at the end (beginning) of the hdd. all you should have to do is tell lilo to use hda for the MBR (boot = /dev/hda) and tell it that the root filesystem is on /dev/hdb1. Then run lilo (/sbin/lilo) and you should be good to go.
---------------------

mccleodnine,

The problem is that linux seems to be naming my one and only hard drive hdb instead of hda. It's connected to the correct connector on the cable, but Linux still identifies it as hdb. When I run fdisk, it sees hdb1, hdb5, etc... As long as it's seen as the second hard drive, lilo won't load properly. The cdrom is on an entirely separate cable so I don't believe that the system thinks the cdrom is drive a, but who knows.

It's really screwy...

Val

Oh. Bummer.

Bummer indeed. Compaq uses more than just the diagnostic cylinder; they have a special "system partition" which they use to store some of the boot code. This has caused some problems for Linux users, but i don't think it should cause your drive to appear as hdb. For more info on this, go to google and enter "Compaq Linux partition" (no qoutes) as your search criteria.

I would re-check your cabling to make sure that the hard drive is really plugged into the Primary IDE channel, and not the Secondary channel. If for some reason the CD-ROM's cable is plugged into the Primary channel, your hard drive will be identified as hdb. There may be something marked on the motherboard to help you determine which connector is the Primary and which is secondary, but if not just try switching the two cables, it won't hurt anything.