Guest ASelkirk Posted November 20, 2004 Report Share Posted November 20, 2004 Hi everyone, I have just installed Mandrake 10.1 Community on one of my PC's (Celeron) and it doesn't boot. The install went well, I selected all the default options (including placing the bootloader on the first sector of drive (MBR) and using grub) but when the PC rebooted after completing the installation, it goes immediately to grub command prompt and doesn't go any further. As I am new to linux, I don't know what commands to enter to continue from there, but then again, I shouldn't really need to (it should work straight away). I have installed two other distributions on the same PC (Suse 9.0 and Fedora Core 3) and not have had any problems booting. But when I installed Mandrake over the top (complete installation, erasing hard drive contents), it didn't work. I would like to use Mandrake, as it is suppose to be more user friendly than the other two. Has anyone had the same problems? Is it as simple as Mandrake 10.1 not being compatible with the Celeron processor (OK, so I'm guessing here). Any thoughts would be appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted November 20, 2004 Report Share Posted November 20, 2004 It has nothing to do with your celeron You say 'grub command prompt' ...do you mean this? grub> If so, run this from there; find menu.lst what does it say? Do you only have one harddrive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 20, 2004 Report Share Posted November 20, 2004 If you were able to install the two other linux OSs on this machine then you can be certain the problem you are having IS NOT caused by Mandrake. Yes you are correct that Mandrake has the reputation of being the easiest of all to install and it has proven it is. At this stage I think you would be advised to check that your CDroms are not corrupted . You can do this by checking their md5sums. If they prove to be okay then I suggest you do a fresh reinstall and let Mandrake do the basic install for you instead of using the expert mode. Once you are in to Mandrake then you can start to experiment to learn. Welcome to MUB. Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ASelkirk Posted November 20, 2004 Report Share Posted November 20, 2004 (edited) Thanks for both of your answers. I have not checked the files against the MD5 figures, but I believe that the original install CD's are OK. I have tried to install Mdk 10.1 CE twice, first using the cover CD's off the latest Linux Format magazine, second doing a download and iso burn onto my CD's. Both have come up with the same problem, not getting past the bootloader when the PC reboots after the install. Although it is intereting to note, that the Linux format magazine CD's used the GRUB bootloader as the default loader and the CD's I downloaded installed Lilo by default - interesting. Grub prompt is 'Grub>' (from what I can remember from the first to install), Lilo prompt is 'boot:'. I typed in 'find menu.lst' at the Lilo prompt. Response was 'No such image. [Tab] shows a list'. I have only one HDD - 20Gb. To try and keep it simple, I haven't worried about configuring any partitions, dual boots or anything like that. The whole HD was formatted during the Mandrake install (using the 'Erase entire disk' option). Edited November 21, 2004 by ASelkirk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 It would appear that you do not have the bootloader installed on to the MBR. Even though you are not dual booting and do not have another windows system or any other system on your hard drive, you still need to install your bootloader onto the MBR. I think the fact you get no grub menu list indicates that the boot loader is not installed there. In that menu, even with no windows you would still at least have the Mandrake and the failsafe items. Put in your first CDROM and do a "pretend upgrade". Follow it through right through to the settings section and treat it the same as if it were an install. Namely recheck ALL the settings and in the second last one is the part about the boot loader. Select GRUB once again and select MBR (it will be the uppermost choice) then follow through to the reboot button. Hopefully this time you should get a start menu where you can select your mandrake and be away. Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 umm, from what i see, the kernel-images are not properly written into the bootloader. so, boot your pc with the 1st mandrake cd inserted, at the first screen, type f1 for advanced options. then type at the prompt "rescue" and reinstall the bootloader. if that doesn't help, your bootloader packages is borked but in case you have a live cd (like knoppix), it can be fixed manually (=editing the lilo.conf or grub.conf and correcting the path to initrd and vmlinuz). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 Reinstalling will reinstall as it it because it will read the current lilo.conf. This is assuming it is wrong but you can try it. no need for a livecd. -boot cd1 and at the splashscreen press F1 -type rescue and hit Enter -choose Mount your partitions under /mnt -choose Go To Console -type chroot /mnt and hit Enter - edit with vi vi /etc/lilo.conf if you can't get the paths correct then move the current mv -f /etc/lilo.conf /etc/lilo.confDEF then reinstall lilo lilo -M /dev/hda and/or reboot to cd1 rescue and choose reinstall bootloader Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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