Bug#250536: Boot loader installation fails for both GRUB and LILO on hdb
Package: installation-reports
Debian-installer-version: beta4 from debian web page
uname -a: didn't get that far
Date: 23 May 2004 13:00 - 18:00 MEST
Method: Booted CD-ROM using 100 MB image
Machine: Custom built but fairly standard
Processor: P III 1.2 GHz
Memory: 512 MB
Root Device: IDE, INTEL on-board
Root Size/partition table:
/dev/hda1 80 GB -- Windows
/dev/hdb1 100 MB -- /boot -- ext3
/dev/hdb2 512 MB -- SWAP
/dev/hdb3 30 GB -- / -- XFS
/dev/hdb4 92 GB -- /home -- XFS
Output of lspci: didn't get that far
Base System Installation Checklist:
Initial boot worked: [0]
Configure network HW: [0]
Config network: [0] (see comment below)
Detect CD: [0]
Load installer modules: [0]
Detect hard drives: [0]
Partition hard drives: [0]
Create file systems: [0]
Mount partitions: [0]
Install base system: [0]
Install boot loader: [E]
Reboot: [E]
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Comments/Problems:
This is my second try (first was with beta3 here: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=240911 )
I still miss an ADSL option on network configuration (even if it would just skip the network configuration -- Having to put in bogus data that I know will later be replaced by my ADSL configuration is not "optimal")
I still have the same boot loader problems I had with beta3. I didn't try as extensively as last time (see above link for details) but the problem seems to be the same still:
- My setup contains a Windows partition on hda1, Debian is supposed to go on my new hdb hard drive using the XFS file system.
- I was unable to install a working GRUB or LILO on hdb or hdb1 (I want it there in order to dd the bootsector into a file and use that with the Windows bootloader -- this is the way I do it now with LILO and it works flawlessly)
- I tried all different combinations of GRUB and LILO with a /boot partition and without and with hdb1 and hdb as targets. I got some variants of L, GRUB, GRUB GRUB GRUB, GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB ... (<- these are the error messages upon booting)
- Yes, I did the dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=bootsectorfile ... (using KNOPPIX) and copied the file over to the windows partition every time. The booting works on the Windows side because if I put my old hdb back in and remove the newly installed hdb and do this procedure my current system boots just fine.
Observations:
- I inspected the generated lilo.conf in one of the tries WITH a /boot partition and noticed that it contains pointers to kernel and initrd.img in / (e.G. image=/vmlinuz). Now there are links to the correct files in the root filesystem but I wonder if lilo.conf shouldn't point directly to the files in /boot as the root filesystem is not yet accessible. I changed this manually in a chroot environment but that didn't do the trick either.
- If boot loader installation fails there is no way to boot the system. I would really appreciate a rescue image on the installer media. Then I could just try playing from within the running system to install a boot loader (as opposed to re-partitioning and re-installing just to try a new bootloader-approach)
Thanks for the hard work on the installer. Everything else works flawlessly and beautifully for me.
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