Sidney Brooks wrote:
That's the default on Debian. Redhat and friends pre-configure different run levels, whereas Debian leaves this for the administrator to do as he sees fit.1) I am not sure how it happened, but /etc/inittab is now set at run level 2. Therefore, I boot into text mode.
2) I have Windows XP, Mandrake, Redhat, and Debian partitions. Everything but Debian works. The boot loader is Mandrake lilo. HOWEVER, I CANNOT TAKE LILO OUT. In what may or may not be a related problem, if I uninstall lilo, when I reboot, at CDROM (order is floppy, CDROM, Hard Drive) I get L followed by an endless string of 99 unless there is a disk in the drive. Even here, I have a peculiarity, I can boot any bootable disk except my Windows XP disk, which starts with the message that it is checking hardware and then freezes. I am begining to think that Mandrake lilo may have somehow corrupted my BIOS. However, nothing that I do with the BIOS setup cures the problems.
No, your BIOS is okay. When you removed lilo, you left an "empty" (not really, but humor me) spot on the boot sector. When the BIOS tries to boot the system, it reads part of the gunk left over in this sector, and then starts spitting out the 99s. This is perfectly normal (although undesired) behavior.
You'll need _some_ sort of boot loader. WinXP's is designed only for Windows, so it's not really a good choice (although I understand it can be made to work). lilo or grub are probably your next two best choices, and whereas grub is more flexible, most folks are more familiar with lilo, and lilo is still the "standard" for booting Linux, so I'd stick with lilo. It doesn't matter if lilo is installed from Mandrake or Redhat or Debian, so long as the /etc/lilo.conf file is properly configured.
WindowsXP freezing is likely less of a problem with the boot sector; in fact, it's not related to the boot sector at all, or it wouldn't even be getting as far as it's getting. If it's getting to the point where it can say it's checking hardware, then the WinXP CD _is_ booting; it's just failing a bit further down the line. This points to either a bad CD (scratch?), or something wrong with your hardware (RAM? hot CPU? bad spot on hard drive?). Since you had so much trouble with Debian earlier, I'm about 72.37% leaning toward some sort of hardware problem on your machine.
To test RAM you can download memtest86 (either run it off a floppy or "apt-get install mem86" and then configure lilo to offer it as a boot option). If you can run Mandrake/WinXP/Redhat/Knoppix without any problems (compiling a linux kernel is a pretty good test of RAM), then chances are your machine is okay, and the problem is in the WinXP CD itself.
Excellent! That means that all that is left is to get X working. What happens when you run "startx"? You'll likely get an error about "no screens found", but that's a generic error that means nothing. Look higher up in the output for lines marked with EE or "No pointing device found" or "No resolutions usable", etc.3)Booting from the Debian floppy now results in a working text mode.
4) To summarize, I have three problems which may point to a BIOS problem: Debian, I cannot boot the Windows CD, and the fact that I must keep the Mandrake lilo or I cannot get into Windows.
1) Debian - Debian is booting now; it's just not running X. Realize that X sits on top of Debian, unlike WindowsXP in which Microsoft wants you to believe the Graphical User Interface (GUI) _is_ WindowsXP. In the Microsoft world, if you're not looking at the GUI, you're not looking at Windows. But in the GNU world, if you're not looking at the GUI, you're not looking at the GUI, and that's all. You're still in Linux, just in text-mode.
2) Can't boot WinXP CD - Sounds like either a damaged WinXP CD or a hardware problem on your machine.
3) As mentioned above, you have to have _some_ sort of boot loader. WindowsXP can't be booted off an external disk as far as I know; although the WinXP CD should allow you to reinstall/repair XP. So, yes, you must keep lilo (from any of the distros, or alternatively grub or something similar) on your drive or you won't be able to get into Windows. Or you could reinstall the Windows boot code, but then you won't be able to get into Deb/RH/MD.
Yes, but someone having the same problem three months from now after I've been run over by an out-of-control shopping cart at Super Wal-Mart and am no longer available won't be able to search the archives for any help if this thread is not archived. I'd still recommend keeping this on-list.5) I am sending this to you directly because it is detailed and you are the only one showing an interest in the problem.
-- Kent