Sarge install -- complete failure (long)
Yesterday I attempted (several times) to install Sarge with the beta 4
installer (single 110 Megabyte CD). This went badly, to say the least.
Fortunately I was able to recover my Windows installation with some
work, but I was never able to complete the Debian installation.
There are several factors that may have complicated the situation for
me, so I will describe them before going into details about what went
wrong with the actual installation.
First, the system (a home-built PC, Athlon XP) was initially a dual-boot
Win2k and Mandrake 8 (I think) system. I've never really used the
Mandrake OS, though. In fact, I never really used this system for
anything other than games up until recently. So, my intent was to use
the space that the Mandrake install was using and keep the Windows
installation intact.
The Windows installation itself is kind of screwy. I had an
ill-conceived idea of using separate partitions for Windows itself, my
files, and programs (there may be ways of making this work well, but in
my case it seems to have been a mistake). In Windows I had the "Files"
partition mounted as a separate drive and the "Programs" partition
mounted in the C: file system as C:\Program Files\more.
The partitioning goes like this: 1 primary partition containing Win2k, 1
extended partition with several logical drives, 2 for the Files and
Programs partitions (all 3 of these partitions used for Windows are
NTFS), then 3 for Mandrake. The Master Boot Record was as Windows leaves
it -- boot loading was done via NTLDR. LILO was (I think) on the
Mandrake root partition's boot sector.
So, getting to the installation itself. I booted from the CD with no
problems, and the first steps went fine. At the partitioning step, I
deleted the last 3 partitions (logical drives containing Mandrake) then
selected the option to automatically partition the space. I chose the
option that puts everything except swap on one partition. The result was
that the swap partition was created as a logical drive in the extended
partition, and the root was created as a primary partition after the
extended partition. This was also set as the "active" partition (not
sure if that's the right terminology). The lightning bolt arrow icon was
placed on it, instead of the Windows partition. I don't really know what
this means, but I got the impression it was not what I wanted, so I set
the Windows partition as active again, then continued.
The GRUB installation is where I started to get concerned again. First
it failed to detect Windows and said something along the lines of "It
appears Debian is the only OS on the system. In that case, you should
install GRUB on the Master Boot Record." According to what I had read,
this is one option for dual booting, but I wanted to leave the Windows
stuff as untouched as possible and boot with NTLDR (as I had with the
Mandrake installation). To do this, I wanted to install GRUB on the boot
sector of the Debian root partition (if I understand correctly).
So I answered "No" to installing GRUB on the MBR. Next it asked me where
to install it. I had no idea what to enter. The default was (hd0). I
reasoned that I /did/ want it on that disk (in a boot sector of a
partition that I was hoping I could specify later), so I accepted that
default. And it apparently installed on the MBR, making it impossible to
boot Windows. I had to use a recovery disk and fdisk /mbr to get back,
and then things were screwed up. First, Windows said something about
installing new hardware, then my "Files" and "Programs" partitions
weren't mounted correctly anymore, and I had to manually restore them.
After that things seemed OK.
I had no idea what to do at the GRUB installation, so I sought help from
#debian on irc.debian.org (I was using the nick "ThisGuy" for anyone who
might have been there and/or wants to check the logs). First I was told
to try giving it the partition I wanted instead of (hd0), and was told I
could find out the "name" for that partition by using Ctrl-Alt-F2, then
"fdisk -l /dev/hda". I re-ran the installation up to the GRUB
installation portion, and tried this. It didn't report anything back at
all. I tried examining sizes of partitions with fdisk -s, and I think it
said that /dev/hda didn't exist (I certainly couldn't see it with 'ls').
So, I tried to guess what the "name" for the partition would be. In the
partitioning part of the setup, it was labeled as #4, so I figured it
would be (hd0,3) or /dev/hda3. I think I tried the former. It didn't
complain, but eventually when I tried to boot Debian (after using
bootpart as described on this page:
http://www.aboutdebian.com/dualboot.htm), it failed. I don't remember
the exact error, but it sounded like there was no boot loader, and it
froze with some random pattern on the screen.
I returned to #debian to seek more help. This time I got the impression
from someone there that the GRUB installer would /only/ install on a
MBR. It was suggested that I should use a console to install GRUB
manually. After looking at the manual, I didn't feel very good about
this, but decided to give it a shot anyway. When I reached that phase of
the installation again, I switched to the console and tried to run grub,
but it wasn't found. Apparently it wasn't in the path, and I had no idea
where it might be. At this point I threw in the towel, returned to
Windows, and ran bootpart to remove the Debian option.
The fact that I was utterly unable to complete the installation (at
least not without trashing Windows) reflects rather poorly on the
installer, I think. The fact that GRUB was installed on the MBR after I
explicitly said that I didn't want it there is even worse. It's also
pretty bad that the installer didn't notice an existing Windows
installation, and that the GRUB installation screen is extremely
unhelpful (a list of options, instead of just the (hd0) default, would
be nice, as would some explanation of what all that means -- I only have
a vague understanding).
If anyone can explain what went wrong, and/or what I might do
differently the next time I try, I'd like to hear it. I can't make
another attempt right away because that machine is about 100 miles away
now, but maybe when I return in a few days I'll give it another shot.
Thanks.
-Kevin
Reply to: