Nevermind about the fdisk and initial boot failure. I did a total re-install of SuSE on '/dev/sdb' and this time the final reboot, after Yast was done, went fine. Got a new and similar problem though. LILO cannot boot off of /dev/sdb1 now, I have to boot off of SuSE CD #1, load the SCSI modules and then select 'Boot Installed System', it queries me for the disk to boot from, I enter '/dev/sdb1' and everything is fine. I use PowerBoot boot manager to allow me to use the NT boot manager on '/dev/sda' and LILO boot manager on '/dev/sdb'. The PowerBoot manager is working on 5 other systems similarly configured, so I know I can eliminate it. Here is the contents of '/etc/lilo.conf' on /dev/sdb1 ========================================================================== # LILO Konfigurations-Datei # Start LILO global Section boot=/dev/sdb1 #compact # faster, but won't work on all systems. read-only prompt timeout=10 vga = normal # force sane state # End LILO global section # Linux bootable partition config begins image = /vmlinuz root = /dev/sdb1 label = suse_linux # Linux bootable partition config ends # ========================================================================== I successfully execute '/sbin/lilo' after modifying the '/etc/lilo.conf' file, yet during the boot LILO complains with: ========================================================================== You may be trying to booot from an unformatted diskette or hard driver partition Insert a bootable diskette into drive a. Press any key to boot ... ========================================================================== I even tried configuring through Yast, same results. Below is the output of fdisk /dev/sdb with option 'p' pressed: ========================================================================== # fdisk /dev/sdb The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 2048. This is larger than 1024, and may cause problems with: 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., LILO) 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK) Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdb: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 2048 cylinders Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 1920 1966064 83 Linux native /dev/sdb2 1921 2048 131072 82 Linux swap ========================================================================== Anybody got a guess as to why LILO won't accept booting off of /dev/sdb ?? John Griffin jpg@cv.hp.com
The partitioning of the disk looks to be the problem.
This system has two disks, the first disk at '/dev/sda1' is NT 4.0, and the second disk at '/dev/sdb[1-3]' is the SuSE Linux disk.
When I run 'fdisk /dev/sda1' and then press 'p' for print partition table it shows the size of the NT partition, that it is bootable and active.
Then when I run 'fdisk /dev/sdb1' and press 'p', no information is printed for the Linux partition. I get the standard banner for 'p' but no information about size, cyl, bootable, etc. is displayed.
The linux '/sbin/fdisk' doesn't seem to be able to change any of the flags associated with this partition. When I press 'a (Toggle bootable flag)' it then asks 'Partition [1-4]', in selecting any of the partitions 1 through 4, it comes back with 'partition [1-4] has empty type'. I then exit with 'w write table to disk and exit' and then reboot, yields no difference. I have no clue as to what it wants for 'Partition [1-4]' since I only have three partitions:
/dev/sdb1 -> boot /dev/sdb2 -> swap /dev/sdb3 -> root (/)
Also after successfully exiting Linux's /sbin/fdisk with a 'w' option, subsequent calls to 'fdisk /dev/sdb1' show no partition information (using 'p' option) for the linux disk.
I am not an MS/NT4.0 admin so I don't know if it even has fdisk to mark a disk bootable/active. And if it does, I wouldn't know where to begin looking for it. I tried the 'Start->Programs->Administrative Tools->Disk Administrator' tool, yet it doesn't seem to allow marking a partition active/bootable either. I also looked under the '\windows\system32' directory for executables that looked like an 'fdisk', but no luck.
Any other clues would be helpful??
John Griffin jpg@cv.hp.com
"John P. Griffin" <jpg@hpcvsjpg.cv.hp.com> wrote:
In the process of installing SuSE 5.3 on another computer (HP Kayak XU) and after successfully going through the complete install, Yast, and configuring LILO. Rebooted the system.
Everything looks good during the boot, up until right after the partition check, below is the console output during boot, at the point of failure.
===================================== Partition check: sda: sda1 sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly. Unable to open an initial console =====================================
At this point the system hangs. Any clues as to what went wrong with my install???
I had the same problem. Do you have the boot drive set up as bootable in fdisk ? Do you have a boot disk to check the lilo/kernel ?
I just added the bootable drive flag and I was OK.
-Dee
W.D.McKinney (Dee) deem@wdm.com Faith is acting on your passions & beliefs. - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e
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