Not booting after sucsessful install. Bootloader won't kick.

[espenw]

The system is an AOpen XC Cube EZ18 (nVidia nForce chipset), flashed with BIOS 1.12b, equipped with Sempron 2400+ processor and Geil 512MB RAM. Harddisk is a Maxtor DiamondMax 40GB

Installing Gentoo from a LiveCD was no problem. Last step installing boot loader went without problems.
After rebooting, the system won't boot from the harddisk.

The harddisk is correctly discovered, and set as 1. choice boot in BIOS.
I'm able to access it from LiveCD (Install, and "rescue")

I've tried installing both LILO and GRUB bootloaders, trying different known good config. I've looked at the boot sector of the harddisk in raw mode (dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/stderr count=512), and there is a bootloader there. (Either LILO or GRUB, depending on which I try.)

If there were some problems with the bootloader, I'd presume I'd see it complaining on the screen, but the system just jumps to the next boot alternative instantly.

I've also tried clearing CMOS data, and flashed the BIOS from 1.12 to 1.12b.

Am I doing something wrong? Have I forgotten a step?
To me, it looks like the bootsector is uninteresting, or the harddisk is unformatted.
Any input is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Espen Wang

[active]

I didn't understand...
where is your error? do you see the bootloader prompt?

bye,

[bet1m]

when you do particions do you set your boot paritcion 'bootable' ?

[bet1m]

boot with live cd and

Code: Select all

fdisk -l 

and list here output.

[active]

when you do particions do you set your boot paritcion 'bootable' ?

If the system has only Linux the 'bootable' flag isn't really necessary...

[bet1m]

i think yes, becouse lilo/grub is there.
if /dev/hda1 is boot it mus be tagget as bootable

[espenw]

Thanks for the replys.
I'll try to add information:

After BIOS I get nothing of a bootloader prompt. It skips right over to CDROM (or presents me with a "INSERT SYSTEM DISK"-thingy if I set only boot from C: in BIOS)

The disk is partitioned like this:
hda1 32MB /boot
hda2 512MB swap
hda3 rest /

I tried both with and without hda1 marked bootable.
I should mention I also tried installing both bootloaders in MBR and bootblock of hda1 without luck. Ofcourse not both at the same time.

Sincerely,
Espen Wang

[espenw]

Shortly thereafter, the computer died. No screen, no error beeps. Just the fans and a small light on the mainboard.

The seller and I agreed it probably is a faulty mainboard. It is now returned for test & repair.

Thanks for all help.

Sincerely,
Espen Wang