On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 08:04:09PM +0100, sunbeams wrote:
I installed linux 7.1 on to a new, second hard disk, several weeks ago. I was able to boot to linux using a floppy disk with no problems, but then had problems with my bios which I had sorted out professionally - a jumper had detached itself (!) from the motherboard and the bios was resetting to defaults (including the time and date) every time I switched on. It now boots to windows, but when I try to start linux the process gets stuck at 'setting up CMOS clock'. How do I get it to boot? I am relatively new to computers and brand new to linux. Thanks.
Prepare yourselves... this is a long post ;-) I presume you've left it for quite a while to see if it just stops for a while before continuing? If you haven't, let it sit for a while. If that still doesn't fix it, then the first thing we should do is disable it so that we can boot into Linux normally (since I can't really tell you what the problem is). To do this, boot off the CD or DVD or whatever you installed from, and at the 'boot:' prompt, type 'manual'. This should start up YaST1. Answer the questions until you are given the Main Menu. If you need to load any modules (usually only if you have a SCSI hard disk, which you probably don't) then choose the Kernel Modules option and select the necessary module. Moving back to the main menu, select Start Installation / System, then choose Start Installation / Update - when asked for the source media, choose CDROM or DVD (although there may not be a DVD option, in which case choose CDROM). One piece of information you need to know is which partition contains the /sbin subdirectory. This is probably your / (root) partition. If you don't know which is your root partition, do the following to find what the possibilities are: Choose YaST1, then Installation Using Expert Mode. Choose Installation Settings, and then Configure Hard Disk Partitions. If you had a simple setup, you're just looking for a partition that has type 83 (Linux Native). If the partitioning is more complicated, make a note of the device names of all of your linux native partitions, which should be on the far left (e.g. /dev/hda1). Select abort, then abort again (because you don't actually want to do anything to them). Now you want to press Alt-F5 (the Alt and F5 keys at the same time) and you'll get to a very basic 'command prompt'. What we need to do now is to mount what we think is your root filesystem - if we're not sure which one it is, we'll mount them all. What we want is a command of the form: mount /dev/hda1 /mnt but change the /dev/hda1 to whatever you think your root partition is. If you don't know which is your root partition, mount the first Linux Native partition on your list, then type: ls /mnt to list the contents of that partition. If there is not a directory entry called 'sbin' when you run the 'ls /mnt' command, then we want to unmount that partition again with the command: umount /mnt There is no spelling mistake, the command is actually umount - no 'n'. Repeat the mount, ls, umount process on all of the 'Linux Native' devices, until you find one that lists 'sbin' when you type 'ls /mnt' - this is your root partition. Once you've found the correct partiton, type: joe /mnt/sbin/init.d/boot Look for the line that says something like '# set and adjust the CMOS clock'. This should be around line 361 (you can see this at the top of the screen). Now you want to put a '#' character at the start of each line, from the line beginning with 'echo -n Setting up the CMOS clock' to the line 'rc_status -v -r'. That's about 20 lines (in my file that's from line 362 to 378). Then type Ctrl-k (the Control and k keys at the same time), then press 'x'. Finally, type: umount /mnt Go back to SuSE install screen (by pressing Alt-F1). Press escape a couple of times and a message might flash up. If it does, press OK and you should reboot (make sure you remove the CD/DVD). If no message appears, either eject the CD and reboot, or just reboot (using the menu) and eject the CD as the computer restarts. Now you want to see if Linux can boot up properly. If it can, then you can go about trying to find out what the problem was. Either way, let us know. What I've described here is kind of long-winded - can anyone suggest a better method? I don't think the Rescue System is any good, because it tries to run the very same CMOS clock setting commands, as does booting into init S or init 1. Anyway, this should work... Chris -- __ _ -o)/ / (_)__ __ ____ __ Chris Reeves /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / ICQ# 22219005 _\_v __/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\