Someone please help -- install issues

[trix]

First off I've read a bazillion threads here and no one seems to be having quite the same problem as me, except perhaps this guy.
Basically, when I get to the point of install where I reboot, GRUB gives me Error 17 then hangs. LILO won't work either, spamming 01 01 01 01 01 about 50 times then hanging.
This is my first attempt at a gentoo install, but not my first linux OS.

Relevent information:
Linux Kernel version 2.6.12-gentoo-r6
I have two hard drives. One 200GB with nothing but my attempted gentoo install, and the other a 6GB functional winxp install for certain games.
the 200G linux hard drive is currently /dev/hda with three partitions
/dev/hda1 (Main ~199GB "/" ReiserFS partition)
/dev/hda2 (Boot ~50MB "/boot" ext2 partition)
/dev/hda3 (Swap ~950MB linux swap partition)
and I have
/dev/hdd1 (Main 6GB Windows XP NTFS partition)

my grub.conf looks similar to this:

Code: Select all

default 0
timeout 10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel=/kernel-2.6.12-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/hda1

title=Winblows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Now, under the winxp part I first had "rootnoverify (hd3,0)" since the D in hdD is the fourth letter and whatever but running grub-install (and even in the relevent device map file) the hdd drive is detected and listed as (hd1). But in either setup I still get the Error 17.

In case you want to see my fstab it looks like this:

Code: Select all

/dev/hda2      /boot        ext2       defaults,noatime       1 2
/dev/hda1      /            reiserfs   notail,noatime         0 1
/dev/hda3      none         swap       sw                     0 0

none           /proc        proc       defaults               0 0
none           /dev/shm     tmpfs      nodev,nosuid,noexec    0 0

/dev/cdroms/cdrom0  /mnt/cdrom  auto   noauto,user            0 0

I also have reiserfsprogs and the relevent settings in the kernel menuconfig set, and I can mount the reiserfs partition fine from LiveCD.

I am at a complete loss as to what the problem could be.

If it matters I'm running an old E-Machines with a Celeron 500MHz and 256M of pc100 SDRAM. (my old much better comp got rained on, long story)

Any other info you need let me know, and help would be a godsend. I've tried everything I can think of and I gotta get this shit working. I really want to try this distro as it's come highly recommended by some geek friends of mine.

Thanks in advance,
- trix

[trix]

oh, and if it matters, i've tried reinstalling grub several times. then I uninstalled grub and tried lilo, when I got the 01 01 01 01 01 spamming I tried all I could think of, when nothing changed I removed lilo and went back to grub, recompiling it and everything, and same problem...

[syg00]

Erk - I wonder if you have a BIOS too old.
I always like to allocate the boot partition first on the disk - this makes sure you avoid any "1024 Cylinder" or "137Gig" issues with the BIOS.

Can't offer anything better - hopefully someone else can.

[nixnut]

Could be that your 6GB harddisk is seen as the first disk by grub. Can you change the order in the bios? If not check master/slave settings or switch them around from primary to secondary controller and vice versa.

[superk]

this may help a little, as far as the windows part goes

Code: Select all

title=WINXP
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader (hd1,0)+1

windows needs to be seen as the first harddrive
EDIT, i read again about the windows drive... its on the secondary controller as slave?
then replace (hd1) with (hd3) .... never tried that but it should work *shrug*

and

kernel=/kernel-2.6.12-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/hda1

typo?

Code: Select all

kernel /kernel-2.6.12-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/hda1 

hope that helps

also, from that other thread

bobulus,

Error 17 means grub cannot read your /boot partition. You really don't need reiserfs, or indeed, any journalled filesystem here. Having /boot past cylinder 1024 is only an issue for old motherboards, which cannot handle drives bigger than 8Gb anyway. Thats not your problem.

i know it would be painful, but if nothing else works, put boot first

which, it does recommend in the manual

[cyrillic]

My advice would be to unplug your Windows harddrive for now. Configuring GRUB is a lot less confusing when you only have 1 harddrive to deal with.

Once you have Gentoo setup so it can boot properly alone, then try plugging the Windows harddrive back in, and add a Windows section to your grub.conf (use what superk posted above).

[yinrunning]

Is the boot sequence at least getting to the grub splash, or is it crapping out before then?

[trix]

fixed the problem.

my computer is too old and needed the /boot partition first.
so I changed it and started from square 1 and did it all over and it now works.

Thanks for the help!

- trix