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I have two identical Lexar flash drives. I put the install image on one, and my Intel D510MO booted properly from it. I installed arch to the other one. This one does not boot, whether I use syslinux or grub. I even tried copying the mbr code from the install flash drive to the arch flash drive but that didn't help (I put it back when I was done).
When I try to boot, the flash drive is the only drive in the system; no cdrom or anything else.
I checked the MBR on this system and it does have the grub mbr.
Here is my fstab:
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
LABEL=boot /boot ext2 defaults,relatime 0 2
LABEL=home /home ext2 defaults,relatime 0 2
LABEL=root / ext2 defaults,relatime 0 1
LABEL=var /var ext2 defaults,relatime 0 2Here is my menu.lst:
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 rw rootdelay=8
initrd /initramfs-linux.img(I tried both with and without rootdelay, and rw and ro. /boot is the first partition; / is the third.)
Here is my fdisk -l:
sh-4.1# fdisk -l /dev/sdc
Disk /dev/sdc: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
247 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1022 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15314 * 512 = 7840768 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 14 102400 83 Linux
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(0, 32, 33) logical=(0, 33, 3)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(12, 223, 19) logical=(13, 125, 16)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc2 14 288 2097152 83 Linux
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(12, 223, 20) logical=(13, 125, 17)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(273, 244, 35) logical=(287, 97, 20)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc3 288 836 4194304 83 Linux
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(273, 244, 36) logical=(287, 97, 21)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(796, 32, 4) logical=(835, 41, 28)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc4 836 1023 1436672 83 Linux
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(796, 32, 5) logical=(835, 41, 29)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(974, 250, 44) logical=(1022, 196, 44)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
sh-4.1# (Note, I aligned these partitions on 1MB boundaries with gparted to take it easy on the flash drive. This is sdc on my Puppy Linux, it would be sda when booting arch.)
One thing I noticed is that there is no volume boot record in sda1, the /boot partition - just all zeros. Is that right? I'm wondering how the mbr code finds the grub directory on sda1.
Last edited by PaulBx1 (2012-03-08 02:53:57)
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After reading some more I understand stage 1.5 is normally loaded just after the MBR. I looked there and could see one. Not sure which one because many of those stage 1.5 files appear to be the same, but at least it looks like the e2fs one.
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I was looking through the grub stage 1.5 source code and from the message, it appears stage 1.5 did finish (reading stuff from disk to memory). However I noticed the call to read the disk passed head, sector and cylinder information. The fdisk -l info I printed above shows some possible problem with that. It thinks this disk has 247 heads 62 sectors and 1022 cylinders. When I look at it with gparted in Puppy Linux it show the device with 255 heads, 63 sectors and 974 cylinders. So its my guess stage 1.5 is reading from the wrong part of the disk which is why this is hanging.
I created these partitions first with gparted. I guess I will reinstall and create them another way.
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No matter what I try I can't get past this error. I guess arch doesn't work on this hardware, or there is something screwy with the install. BTW I did check the install iso with md5sum. Guess I'm done here...
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I once had a long delay when grub would go to stage 1.5. It was because I disabled the floppy drive in the bios. Don't know why Grub hangs when there isn't a floppy drive but you could try to reset your bios.
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Thanks for responding.
I tried installing Debian, couldn't even get their install flash drive to boot. So another try of arch. Loaded the install flash drive with the core install this time, but got the same result.
I will try fooling with the BIOS but I don't see much to do with floppies there.
I have purchased an SSD SATA drive for the system and will try installing arch to it. Should be a lot faster anyway. Will report back later...
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All right, I received my new SSD drive and installed it, and installed arch on it rather than on a usb flash drive. The install worked this time. I don't know what happened with the flash drive install. Before anyone asks, yes I did put "usb" in the list of hooks, just after "udev". (By the way I found some place in the wiki saying I should put it there just after udev, but that info is missing from the beginner's guide. Don't know if the position in the list is important or not.)
Anyway I'm up and running again. Next line of business is X and system encryption...
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