HD installation doesn't work?

**SmallLinuxUser** · 04-02-2005, 11:13 AM

Hi,

I don't know whether anyone asked this question before:

I got an empty hd and I created two partitions just like in the manual. After that I booted into the Knoppix 3.7 cd-rom and installed linux with "sudo knoppix-installer". By then everything worked without problems and the installation finished without any errors. I said lilo should be installed to the mbr and after all I rebooted my pc. But my computer told me that no operating system is available. What have I done wrong?

**SmallLinuxUser** · 04-02-2005, 08:15 PM

Someone an idea? It won't work

**OErjan** · 04-02-2005, 08:20 PM

hmm, sounds like it afailed to write the botloadre OR the install failetd at some point.. retry and take note of ANY messages during boot.

**SmallLinuxUser** · 04-02-2005, 09:13 PM

That's what I wonder about. There is no message at the terminal over the entire installation. I choose my options, it copies all files and configures it, I decide where the lilo will be written to (I tried both mbr and root partition) and it finishes without any errors. After rebooting my computer just tells me "no operating system"

I also tried to install Mandrake 10.1 but it failed cause of "missing" a specific file on cd. I can't believe that because it works fine at other pcs. I believe my computer doesn't want linux

**OErjan** · 04-02-2005, 09:27 PM

sounds like you have an older CD reader. that and a CD burnt at higher speed can sometimes do things like this. burn slowly (2-4X) and try to use a diferent brand of media.
and some old CD readers can NOT read the full 700M of a knoppix CD.

**SmallLinuxUser** · 04-02-2005, 10:08 PM

I know what you mean but I install from a new dvd-rw burner and it hasn't really problems reading the cds...

It seems mandrake has some problems catching the irq of the hd. What does it mean? May there a general problem?

**fingers99** · 04-03-2005, 02:18 AM

Two things I can think of:

some bioses have a boot sector blocker which is labelled as an AV package. Effectively this prevents anything writing to the mbr. Make sure it's disabled. (historically most viruses were actually planted on the boot sector, so this was once a good idea

)

Try booting with the CD and doing

sudo /sbin/lilo

you could even try sudo /sbin/lilo -b /dev/fd0 (that's zero, not o) with a floppy in the drive which should give you a bootable floppy. man lilo for other ideas.

Let us know how you get on.

**SmallLinuxUser** · 04-03-2005, 11:25 AM

some bioses have a boot sector blocker which is labelled as an AV package. Effectively this prevents anything writing to the mbr. Make sure it's disabled. (historically most viruses were actually planted on the boot sector, so this was once a good idea Smile )

Hm... I got an amibios and it doesn't offer an option protecting the mbr or something like that

Try booting with the CD and doing

sudo /sbin/lilo

I tried it and that was the answer:

Code:

Unrecognized token "! Please edit /etc/lilo.conf before running lilo!" at or above line 20 in file '/etc/lilo.conf'

What can I do? I hoped to install Linux this weekend and nothing won't work till now. Mandrake doesn't start installing because of "missing" a file, the Knoppix installation doesn't really work after setup and I can't try more Linux distributions ...