Compugen

I was able to install UBUNTU to external disk. Its done. Figured out why mandrake is not booting from USB disk. I have to make a new initrd image which loads USB modules and sleep before reading everything from the disk. But when I do this it says "No space left on device..." Second, is it possible to install 2 linux on same drive? I want that /root should be common to both OS. I mean cant i create /root/Mandrake during installation? So that the system knows where to take things from? Or is there any other way to it?

I dont think it can get worse anymore. I wiped off my hdd and then did partitioning. I was thinking that the first partition as FAT32 might be creating problems. But then i swiped it off. Now I am having following situations:: sda 1 ---> Root, Reiserfs Sda 2 - --> fat32, (last part of the drive) sda 3 ----> Swap Sda4 ---> home. I have taken off the boot this time. Now the issues. Linux went flying as I attached hdd to primary ide. Opened linux as root, changed fstab,menu.lst, lilo.conf and device.map to sda from hda. Now I tried compling new initrd image since I read over the net it might be the fact that USB devices communicate over the ide channel at a burst rate; and also if the device is left idle for a second or two then it takes couple of seconds to transfer the thing back and forth since it doesn't get hooked to the RAM. For this they have a simple structure where in they load the USB modules first and then after mounting file systems they reread the partition table by "/sbin/sfdisk" and before this they let the sys sleep so that USB device can be mounted... they use "/bin/sleep 5". Now problem is during this procedure I get error "CP: filename, No space left on the device". Meanwhile I am on track to install UBUNTU since it can easily support laptops. Secondly, mandrake doesnt verify my laptop's screen that is wide screen 15.1 inch. Laptop Make : HP 2136

It was done using IDE and then later connected USB. Selected UPGRADE option and then it was loaded using USB only...the last screen is after all this process. Just a thought stuck me. Now i wiped the drive. Starting from scratch using another HDD. After install i ll select upgrade by connecting the drive to the USB. Secondly, i ve done the following sda 1 ---- 2GB ---Boot sda2 ---- 5gb --- root sda3 ---- 800mb ----swap sda4 ---10gb ---- home.. However, i am planning to wipe off sda4 and have 15gig of root instead. Any suggestion? The reason is earlier sda1 was a vfat partition. And also m selecting Primary partitions this time under expert mode and not Logical drives. After all done am planning to put up UBUNTU in for my laptop... so ide connect would be for the desktop and for rest it would be USB... Ubuntu. Then i ll try figuring out what UBUNTU is having for booting from external disk.... gosh!!!!! Hell pain in here

i checked everythin.. :(

what should i do now? suggest me some other distro pls...i ll load it on same disk. Will load mandrake on desktop by connecting it to ide and on laptop the new distro:)

It is having "/" but after a space The system is not able mount the root filesystem, if i am nt wrong. what could be the possibility? Any idea? Can you send me the image of the one you are using? I'll change the fstab accordingly...if its possible. Might be there is just a minute prob which we are unable to look at ??? I think the only issue is with the sleep thing. Might be the USB devices are a bit slower and thats why it is happening....

The last screen of halt... md: autorun ... md: ... autorun DONE. RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0 VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem). Red Hat nash version 4.1.9mdk starting Loading reiserfs.ko module Mounting /proc filesystem Mounting sysfs Creating device files mounting tmpfs on /dev starting udev Creating root device Mounting root filesystem with flags notail mount: error 6 mounting reiserfs flags notail well, retrying without the option flags mount: error 6 mounting reiserfs well, retrying read-only without any flag mount: error 6 mounting reiserfs pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot, /sysroot/initrd) failed:2 umount /initrd/sys failed: 2 umount /initrd/proc failed:2 Initrd finished. Freeing uinused kernel memory: 200k Freed Kernel Panic. No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel. My guess was that there is a lag between USB2.0 External and the init. Thought putting /bin/sleep 5 command but for that i need files in LIB folder of the image. When i try to copy i get error "No more space left on the device". Any guesses where am I going wrong? If anyone suggests any patches to do the thing... or if I can get this kindda image from anyone or anywhere which i can copy to the root folder?? :unsure:

I am sorry ian. It was a typing error. It is hd0,4 only. I tried with all options but none is working :(

If someone could reply back as to what was done to resolve the problem, it wold help others having similar problem.

FSTAB /dev/sda5 reiserfs notail 1 1 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /deb/sda7 /home reiserfs notail 1 2 /dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0022, user, iocharset=iso8859-1, codepage=850, noauta,ro,exec,users 0 0 none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0, fs=ext2:vfat, --, umask=0022, iocharste=iso8859-1, sync, codepage=850 0 0 /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows vfat umask=0022, iocharset=sio8859-1, codepage=850 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/sda6 swap swap defaults 0 0 Menu.lst timeout 10 color black/cyan yellow/cyan default 0 title linux kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 devfs=nomount acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6 splash=silent vga=794 initrd (hda0,4)/boot/initrd.img title windows root (hd1,0) map (0X81) (0X81) map (0X80) (0X81) makeactive chainloader +1 title 2681-10 kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 devfs=nomount acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6 initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img title linux-nonfb kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 devfs=nomount acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6 initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img title failsafe kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 failsafe acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6 fs=nomount initrd(hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img Device.map (hd0) /dev/sda (hd1) /dev/hda

Ok its not working still. I am completely dead right now. Bootloader got installed, grub, shows those menus and stuff. But it is still not working. Says Kernel panic. pass init= option. Before that /sys image is not mounted. This is what i saw... any help?

LONG LIVE IAN :) :D was just praying you to reply. That init prob is still there. Checked device.map where hd0 = sda; fstab is having sda entries,. lilo is fine too... still m getting problem getting pass with kernel panic. It says mount problem for sysimage just before that kernel panic...

Stuck again..... Finally!! Here is what i did:: i booted the laptop with new dvd that i burnt for mandrake and chose the option to upgrade the Linux on usb drive. Worked.. checked the packages and installing bootloader. Now the heck prob with grub in installation itself: This is the Menu linux ---> boots at sda5 Root partition on usb Windows ---> laptop hdd 2048-381 ---> /boot/vmlinuz on sda6 linux-nonfb --->/boot/vmlinuz failsafe --->/boot/vmlinuz alt-win --->sda fat partition windows 1 ---> /dev/sda1 again fat partition why do i have these many copies???? Can i delete them?

How do i install grub from rescue? I have mounted device to bash. Did grub-install /dev/sda and then it says "/dev/ram3 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive." I went to grub prompt and typed root (hd0,4) and then setup (hd0,4) Now what should i do?

Ok...It worked till bootloader part. then it shows a blue screen with codes and all. So back to square one. I'll stick to your way. Let me reinstall and re do everything you said and then i ll update... If installation is this tough I am scared what will it be like