Guest tamamanquitaime Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 (edited) Hello everyone, First of all, please excuse my english, which is not my natural language. I'm experiencing problems trying to install either a Mandrake 10.0 or a 10.1 on a laptop, and I would sure use some help. I'm gonna say what I did, and in which order it was made, so that you can understand everything. I once installed a FC2 on my laptop. Due to the geometry issue, which I was not aware of, GRUB did just freeze when initializing. I tried to install a Mandrake over it, but LILO then just had the same problem. I could not reinstall Windows over : when booting on the CD, I could see the message "please wait while Windows examines you configuration", and then, blank screen ! I guess this is due to apic, but somehow it only appears when the MBR is corrupted by a bad geometry Linux installation. Finally, I managed to get my MBR back by booting on a CD and running a fdisk /mbr. After that I could boot on the Windows CD normally. Recently, I tried to install a Mandrake 10.0. I did not pass the argument linux hda=C,H,S at the beginning, and that did not cause any problem. I was pretty happy with my configuration, as I spent quite a lot of time to configure my Wifi LAN. But Windows had a problem, which I had to fix by reinstalling it. And that was not a good idea since I would have to set LILO back in place. In order to do that, I tried to boot in rescue mode, and use the "restore boot loader" option. That didn't work at all. I had an error message, and nothing else. I tried another way : I used a Knoppix CD to boot, mount my Linux partition, set it as root partition, and run lilo -r. It didn't tell me anything, but that did not work either. I decided to save my homedir, and to install Mandrake over. I chose the 10.1 this time, just having downloaded it. Bad idea : first I had to launch it with the noapic option, in order not to get a blank screen just after the F1/enter message. The 10.1 seems to also have the geometry problem, and my LILO was corrupted. I tried to reinstall it using hda=C,H,S but that didn't fix the problem. I tried to install a 10.0 over it, but it seems to behave exactly like the 10.1 on these to points. I guess corruption of the MBR is what makes the 10.0 not to install, whereas it did just fine before. So I just booted on a USB key with fdisk, removed the mbr with fdisk /mbr, and tried to install again. This time fdisk had not entirely set the MBR back to normal, as when installing 10.0 or 10.1 in any way, the problems rises, and WinXP CD would give me a blank screen. I finally fixed this problem the following way : it installed Mandrake 10.1 on the whole disk, completely removing Windows. Somehow it fixed the MBR. After that, I could boot on the Windows XP CD, not experiencing a blank screen. I reinstalled Windows, and then installed 10.1 using the C,H,S parameter : it worked just fine on that point. But I had a problem with some Gnome packages (the isos where corrupted I guess), and X would not start. I decided to install my 10.0 instead, and to upgrade it by hand, I thought since it worked now I would not experience any problem. This is why I installed 10.0 with hda=C,H,S. That made LILO feel bad again. This is where I am now : I have an installed copy of Windows XP, Linux Mandrake 10.1 on another partition, and a failing LILO was just removed by a fdsik /mbr. But my MBR is not properly back to normal, since I can't install Windows XP without getting the blank screen after the "veryfiying your computer" message at the very beginning, nor can I install Mandrake without getting LILO freeze. So here is my questions : first, is MBR related in any way to apic ? This would explain why I get a blank screen trying to install Windows over a corrupted MBR. Second, do you know any way to fix my mbr, more than fdisk /mbr does, without suppressing ntldr ? Let me recall that I can't use fixmbr.exe since I can't boot on WinXP CD. All I have is the possibility to boot on a USB key with Win98 a bootdisk image on it, and a Knoppix. Is the score of 116280,16,63 C/H/S that I get from fdisk -l /dev/hda credible, knowing I'm using a 1 year laptop 60 Gb hard drive ? (maybe that would explain everything). If not, I can I know it ? I'd be very glad to get some help on that. The ones that help me would get a nice postcard from France :D Thanks again, Stephen Edited November 18, 2004 by tamamanquitaime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devries Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 I think your problem has to to with a hidden partition on your laptop. Some manufacturers have a sort of copy of rescue windows preinstalled on the harddrive in case of an emergency. Try unhiding (maybe in the bios, or some program installed by the manufacturer. IBM calls it predesktop area or something like that) it and see what it gives. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tamamanquitaime Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 Thanks for your answer. Actually, I'm pretty sure there is no additionnal partition, as neither Ghost nor Knoppix see any. I have no particular software coming with the laptop (just the usual stuff, Nero, Office, and so on). I'm gonna Ghost my partitions and probably Install Mandrake alone over, that fixed the MBR on the last time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 18, 2004 Report Share Posted November 18, 2004 My suggestion is to install 10.1 alone, as that seemed to work, creating a partition at the beginning of the drive large enough for Windows. Then install Windows. To get lilo back, use the rescue mode of CD1, but instead of using the 'Restore Bootloader' option, choose 'Mount my partitions under /mnt' Then choose 'go to console'. At the prompt, type chroot /mnt lilo -v If that gives you an error, try lilo -v -M /dev/hda If you still have a problem, post the error message lilo gives you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tamamanquitaime Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 My suggestion is to install 10.1 alone, as that seemed to work, creating a partition at the beginning of the drive large enough for Windows. Then install Windows. To get lilo back, use the rescue mode of CD1, but instead of using the 'Restore Bootloader' option, choose 'Mount my partitions under /mnt' Then choose 'go to console'. At the prompt, type chroot /mnt lilo -v If that gives you an error, try lilo -v -M /dev/hda If you still have a problem, post the error message lilo gives you. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ok, I'm gonna try this. I'll here wether it worked or not. Thanks for you advice :) Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tamamanquitaime Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 (edited) The problem is still here : when installing Linux leaving some blank space for Windows, LILO freezes at the boot. I really think there is something weird with that 116280 number of cylinders on my 60Gb. I reinstalled again, not leaving any space for Win, and fdisk -l gives the following start/end cylinders : /dev/hda1 1 12190 /dev/hda2 12191 116280 /dev/hda5 12191 13205 /dev/hda6 13206 116280 From what it says, it looks like there is no problem, but from what I experienced I guess that LILO just doesn't find the starting cylinder of a partition if it's not at the beginning of the disk... What do you think ? Edited November 19, 2004 by tamamanquitaime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 Is it lilo freezing or does it freeze at a black screen after you select the choice to boot to? If it is the second case, hit 'Esc' at the lilo screen and type: linux noapic and see if you can boot to MDK. If you can, then edit /etc/lilo.conf with your favorite text editor as root, adding in the append= line 'noapic' without the quotes on all the append lines. After saving lilo.conf, open a terminal and su to root and run lilo like this: su <<hit enter>> <<type in your root password here...you won't see yourself typeing anything...hit enter>> lilo -v Reboot and hopefully all is well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tamamanquitaime Posted December 1, 2004 Report Share Posted December 1, 2004 Hello there, Lilo was already configured to boot in noapic mode, as I sometimes experience blank screens indeed. Now my problem is fixed : the problem was the size of my hard drive, as I wanted to install the first Linux partition too far from the first cylinder. I created a 10 Gb partition for Windows and everything is fine now. Thanks to you fellows for your help ! Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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