Arch Linux

BashfulBruce

Member

From: Milton Keynes,UK

Registered: 2003-11-22

Posts: 10

Getting Arch to boot on VMWare SCSI disk

OK, I am practicing installing Arch in VMWare before I try on a live machine and I am having the following problem.
In VMWare I have configured a single SCSI disk which has one partition with Win2k installed. I then create a 50MB boot partition (EXT2 part2), the root partition (EXT3 part3) and a 250MB swap partition (part 4).  The install works fine but when I reboot, no lilo (or grub Iv'e tried both) menu, just straight into Win2k.
If I boot off the CD and run vmlinuz_scsi root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3 then Arch runs fine.  I 've tried running lilo -M /dev/sda but this made no difference. I am assuming that as neither the Lilo (or grub) menu appears that this is not an issue with my lilo.conf, but I'll include it below.

boot=/dev/discs/disc0/disc
default=arch
timeout=50
lba32
prompt

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=arch
root=/dev/discs/disc0/part3
read-only

I'm fairly new to Linux, but I have got Arch running on VMWare (using an IDE drive with no MS OS) and was very impressed with the speed, and the package installation system.  I assume this is an MBR type issue but at this point I'm stuck.

Sorry about the long post, and thanks for any help.

Bruce

andy

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2002-10-11

Posts: 374

Re: Getting Arch to boot on VMWare SCSI disk

boot into your arch image and run lilo without the -M switch. just execute

lilo

the -M would install a *standard* MBR, and not the boot loader code. I.e. you will have the first active OS booted. If you don't give any flags, lilo will react according to your lilo.conf file, i.e. install itself to the boot= location.

Note, however, that your lilo.conf does not seem to contain a W2K entry - so you probably won't see a boot entry for your W2K partition. Add a

other=/dev/discs/disc0/part1
label=W2K

entry in your lilo.conf to get a W2K boot option.

BashfulBruce

Member

From: Milton Keynes,UK

Registered: 2003-11-22

Posts: 10

Re: Getting Arch to boot on VMWare SCSI disk

Doh !!!!

I knew it would be something simple, just like me to spend ages reading the man pages and miss the obvious.
Thanks  a lot for your quick response, much appreciated. I can now get the lilo menu up and it boots Arch & Win2k (I added the entries for that). Should the CD setup have done this for me, and is there an equivalent command for the grub loader?

Thanks

Bruce   

andy

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2002-10-11

Posts: 374

Re: Getting Arch to boot on VMWare SCSI disk

Normally, the installer should have installed either lilo or grub in either the MBR or another partition. The installer is not quite foolproof yet, and if you forgot to hit some "Done" menue entries, the installation could have been missed.

For grub : very similar. Install the grub code either via grub-install or the grub-internal "setup" command. You may have to copy the various boot loader images from /usr/share/grub/i386 (I think that's the path - typing from memory) to /boot/grub/ I have posted some instructions already into this forum a few times ;-) ...

phunni

Member

From: Bristol, UK

Registered: 2003-08-13

Posts: 770

Re: Getting Arch to boot on VMWare SCSI disk

I'm having exactly the same problem - except that I can't simply boot into my image and run lilo

If I try to boot using vmlinuz root=/dev/discs/disc0/part4 (my root partition) then I get a kernel panic

I have tried mounting my discs under arch-scsi and running:

/mnt/sbin/lilo -v /C /mnt/etc/lilo.conf

but this simply returns:

Fatal: sorry, don't know how to handle device 0x0100

The system seems to be installed - but nothing has been isntalled in the MBR

Incidentally, I have created a /boot partition - should I point boot to this or /dev/discs/disc0/disc in my lilo.conf?

It's ok - figured it out!