Jim Osborn wrote:
I didn't get very far trying to upgrade my VA Research VARstation 28 from SuSE 5.3 (which came preinstalled from VA); the first attempt, after inserting the 6.3 bootdisk and doing "init 6" after the usual shutdown messages, I got the colorful linuxrc screen, and in a text area below the color, a message said "initdisk.gz..." or something like that. Then after maybe ten seconds, the next message was:
"SYSLINUX 1.48 0x3812e44a Copyright (C) 1994-1999 H. Peter Anvin
Boot failed: please change disks and press a key to continue"
All subsequent attempts have gone straight to the syslinux message without any of the linuxrc screen. I only saw the "initdisk.gz" message the first time. Maybe that sequence is useful info; I don't know.
The box is a SCSI system, using a Symbios 8951 Ultra-2 controller, and in the /boot directory are a bunch of kernels named things like "va-generic-2.0.35-3.single.vmlinuz" and "va-monolithic-2.0.35-3.single.vmlinuz" and corresponding config and map files. The working kernel, vmlinuz, is a symlink to that generic kernel mentioned above.
Can someone give me a clue as to the meaning of the error message, does it mean my floppy disk is damaged, or that I need a special kernel on it to upgrade this box? I can read an old ext2-formatted floppy with this drive, so I assume the drive is ok. Is there a backup disk image I can dd onto a new floppy on the 6.3 CDs somewhere, and if so, where? The manual hints at being able to supply "SYSLINUX (supplied bootdisk)" with kernel parameters, but I don't seem to be offered a prompt, or any other obvious place to enter parameters.
I damaged the 5.3 YaST on this machine by suffering a power failure while YaST was running, so I was hoping to use this upgrade process to get a new, working YaST into the system. But if I can't even boot from the floppy, that plan seems kaput. I suppose now that SuSE 6.4 has been announced, I've dawdled around with 6.3 too long to get real, official installation support.
If I need to compile a special kernel, and build a special boot disk with linuxrc and YaST and who-knows-what-all on it, I really don't know quite where to begin.
Well, I would try creating a new boot disk. The boot disks can be found in the disks/ directory on the first CD. There's a README file there to tell you what they all are (you should normally only need the eide1 disk image). Bye, Chris -- Sorry everybody - all the servers at the ISP I use for email have been down for the past four days. They've come back up again, so now I have to catch up on all that mail... __ _ -o)/ / (_)__ __ ____ __ Chris Reeves /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / ICQ# 22219005 _\_v __/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/