Boot failures

[David]

I have tried to install OpenSuSE 12.3 and Mageia 2 on one of my
machines. In both instances, even though I am mandating a fresh
install and formatting drives, the installation halts with a grub
error.

Open SuSE simply aborts at the reboot and enters grub for some sort of
rescue work. I can't get a file list since alls is an unrecognised
command.

Mageia 2 halts at the same point with a terse message about a missing
file but does not seem to indicate what file is missing or it gives
conflicting information. alls shows that files are present and those
that were supposed to be missing are, in fact, present and accounted
for.

My machine is AMD Kathleen 7750 dual core on a Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H
board and 4GB RAM. GT220 with 1 GB DDR2 nVidia card on a LG WS2343
Monitor on DVI-D interface at 1920 x 1080 Native resolution. Onboard
Sound card Realtek.

Storage is:

ATA ST2000DM001-1CH1 SDA (SDA1=30GB, ext4, /,
SDA2=8GB, Swap,
SDA5=1.84TB, ext4, /home/downloads)
ATA ST31000528AS SDB (SDB1=1TB, ext4, /home)
ATA ST2000DM001-1CH1 SDC (SDC1=2TB, ext3, /storage)

HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-H55N

Can anyone throw some light on this mystery, please? I am not a new
user but being totally unable to get to a bootable system is very
perplexing.
--
Regards
David Simpson
Thursday, 25 October 2012

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[DenverD]

Post by David
I have tried to install OpenSuSE 12.3

openSUSE 12.3 is in *VERY* early testing, the _first_ pre-beta release
(named Milestone Zero) was released just a few days ago and it is
severely unusable..

unless you are an experienced software tester ready to find and squash
bugs do not attempt to install 12.2 M0

instead fetch and try 12.2 from here: http://software.opensuse.org/
lots of download help and getting started hints linked on that page...

[David]

Post by DenverD

Post by David
I have tried to install OpenSuSE 12.3

openSUSE 12.3 is in *VERY* early testing, the _first_ pre-beta release
(named Milestone Zero) was released just a few days ago and it is
severely unusable..
unless you are an experienced software tester ready to find and squash
bugs do not attempt to install 12.2 M0
instead fetch and try 12.2 from here: http://software.opensuse.org/
lots of download help and getting started hints linked on that page...

Thanks, am downloading as I type this. Will let you know.
--
Regards
David Simpson
Thursday, 25 October 2012

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[David]

Post by David
I have tried to install OpenSuSE 12.3 and Mageia 2 on one of my
machines. In both instances, even though I am mandating a fresh
install and formatting drives, the installation halts with a grub
error.
Open SuSE simply aborts at the reboot and enters grub for some sort of
rescue work. I can't get a file list since alls is an unrecognised
command.
Mageia 2 halts at the same point with a terse message about a missing
file but does not seem to indicate what file is missing or it gives
conflicting information. alls shows that files are present and those
that were supposed to be missing are, in fact, present and accounted
for.
My machine is AMD Kathleen 7750 dual core on a Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H
board and 4GB RAM. GT220 with 1 GB DDR2 nVidia card on a LG WS2343
Monitor on DVI-D interface at 1920 x 1080 Native resolution. Onboard
Sound card Realtek.
ATA ST2000DM001-1CH1 SDA (SDA1=30GB, ext4, /,
SDA2=8GB, Swap,
SDA5=1.84TB, ext4, /home/downloads)
ATA ST31000528AS SDB (SDB1=1TB, ext4, /home)
ATA ST2000DM001-1CH1 SDC (SDC1=2TB, ext3, /storage)
HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-H55N
Can anyone throw some light on this mystery, please? I am not a new
user but being totally unable to get to a bootable system is very
perplexing.

...

I have tried Open SuSE 12.2 and the exact same problem occurs. It
installs, than fails to reboot stopping with grub running and, of
course, any error message cleared from the screen when grub starts. It
seems to be some sort of hardware problem since Mageia 2 does the same
thing. Any suggestions, please?
--
Regards
David Simpson
Friday, 26 October 2012

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[DenverD]

Post by David
Any suggestions, please?

well first: did you run md5 or sha1 against the downloaded iso to make
sure you got a good iso?

and, then once you made your install device, did you check to make sure
it was also good by selecting Check Installation Media, as you see here:
http://tinyurl.com/3qde66h

and, do i understand that you did the complete install and _then_ it
wouldn't boot?

if so i kinda wonder how far from the 'default install' you
wandered....hmmmm, download a quick Live CD, does it boot up to a
desktop environment?

so, if the Live CD runs you just need help with grub and you need to
find better help than i can give (i can spell grub and know there is a
grub1 and grub2, but that is about it for my usefulness there) so a
great place to find better help for openSUSE would be in the
opensuse.org forums and/or the usenet group alt.os.linux.suse [this
being the more generic linux rather than suse specific]

both of those 'better' places are available via nntp using your forte...

info on the how for the opensuse.org forums is here:
http://forums.opensuse.org/faq.php?faq=novfor#faq_nntp

that forum is also usable via http, but requires log-in in order to post...

don't worry, posting via nntp is easy, it is the way i participate there..

sorry i can't help more..

[David]

Post by DenverD

Post by David
Any suggestions, please?

well first: did you run md5 or sha1 against the downloaded iso to make
sure you got a good iso?

Yes.

Post by DenverD
and, then once you made your install device, did you check to make sure
http://tinyurl.com/3qde66h

Yes,

Post by DenverD
and, do i understand that you did the complete install and _then_ it
wouldn't boot?

Yes.

Post by DenverD
if so i kinda wonder how far from the 'default install' you
wandered....hmmmm, download a quick Live CD, does it boot up to a
desktop environment?

Pretty close actually. I use Magic PartEd to check results. It boots
to a gui with no problems. I can use the file manager of that to see
that the files are there.

Post by DenverD
so, if the Live CD runs you just need help with grub and you need to
find better help than i can give (i can spell grub and know there is a
grub1 and grub2, but that is about it for my usefulness there) so a
great place to find better help for openSUSE would be in the
opensuse.org forums and/or the usenet group alt.os.linux.suse [this
being the more generic linux rather than suse specific]
both of those 'better' places are available via nntp using your forte...
http://forums.opensuse.org/faq.php?faq=novfor#faq_nntp
that forum is also usable via http, but requires log-in in order to post...
don't worry, posting via nntp is easy, it is the way i participate there..

...

Thanks, I've been posting to usenet for years including the aols
group. I ran OpenSuSE 11.3 until my PATA drive crashed. Now I'm trying
to boot with an all SATA machine.

Post by DenverD
sorry i can't help more..

Thanks for the help so far.
--
Regards
David Simpson
Friday, 26 October 2012

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[DenverD]

Post by David
Now I'm trying
to boot with an all SATA machine.

the machine i had before this one was all SATA, so that shouldn't be the
problem....i have not googled your hardware to see, but maybe it is
really new? if so, maybe it is too new....happens you know...the "...and
Mageia 2 ... In both instances..[problems].." would point to that...

sorry i can't help more...suggest you inspect the logs and see if they
tell the tale of what went wrong..