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Re: Compaq Presario 1245

Robert Aldridge wrote:


Hello list...
I'm attempting to install Debian (Stable) on a Compaq Presario 1245. The CD-ROM isn't working properly, so I'm installing via floppies. I 
followed the instructions using the Rescue, Root, 4 driver disks, and 20
base-install disks and successfully got it installed to the 3.2 GB
harddrive.  But, I can't get it to boot.  I have the HD (hda)
partitioned into 3 partitions, /dev/hda1 is to be mounted on /boot (~8
MB), /dev/hda3 (~3.1 GB) is to be mounted on /, and 128 MB at the end of
the drive is configured as Swap.  I got through the entire install and
when it asked if I want to make the system bootable, I chose the
alternate (Make a boot floppy).  After the boot floppy is created, I
chose the "Make the system bootable" menu item and wrote LILO to the
MBR.  After rebooting, the red LILO screen comes up with 2 options,
"Linux" and "Linux (hda1)."  The arrow keys don't appear to do anything.


Odd; they should work. Can you type at the boot: prompt?


If I let LILO timeout and try to boot the default entry, it just
recycles and starts counting down from 15 again.

If I boot with the rescue disk and type "rescue root=/dev/hda3", the
system appears to be coming up normally, but hangs.  The last two lines
on the screen are:

VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 152k freed

Then it just sits there.  Nothing else happens.
Try "rescue init=/bin/bash" and let us know the results. Even better, try "rescue single". 



When I try booting from the boot floppy, it says "Loading
linux.bin........." for a very long time (several minutes) and then
says, "Uncompressing Linux...

After a couple of minutes, it says, "invalid compressed format (err=2)

- - System haulted

Any ideas?
Bad floppy and/or floppy drive is one possibility. But since you can't boot from the hard drive either, I rather suspect that the floppy is not the issue.
I'm wondering if this might have anything to do with the limit that used to be in older versions of Linux about accessing beyond the first 1024 sectors (? bytes? MiB? something), but again, I somewhat doubt this.
You might try firing up the installation routine again, and early on just Alt-F2 over to the second virtual terminal, mount your hard drive, and look around to see if anything obvious hits you. 



On a side note, I think the CD-ROM drive is bad, but I'm wondering if
it may be IRQ conflicts or something.  Please help if you can.
If it can boot a Knoppix CD, or a Windows installation CD, or a Debian installation CD, that indicates the CD-ROM drive is at least partially working; if not, that indicates the CD-ROM drive (or cable, or controller) is probably bad. 


Thanks,

Robert
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