syslinux is not booting [solved]

wolfdogg · 2012-03-13 05:04:23

for some reason my hard drive decided not to boot yesterday. It uses syslinux boot loader. when the pc boots, it just lands at the boot: prompt.
i tried some of the things on the wiki to no avail. One thing i noticed is there was no syslinux.cfg file there, did it get deleted? or are there some instances where its just not created? on the boot parittion i now have have both ldlinux.sys (i believe it is), and the new syslinux.cfg that i created.

PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 50
DEFAULT arch

LABEL arch
        LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
        APPEND root=/dev/sda3 ro
        INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img

is the file path "../" correct?
my drive setup is arch default;
sda1 /boot
sda2 swap
sda3 /
sda4 /home

Edit: oh yes, i also loaded cfdisk to make sure the boot partition was active. then i tried to install a .mbr not being sure if it needs one, because i was thiking that it was using the /boot partition to load

# dd bs=440 conv=notrunc count=1 if=/usr/lib/syslinux/gptmbr.bin of=/dev/sda

i do remember how it happened now, i shutdown the pc, hooked up an ide drive to the secondary position of the primary ide cable inline with the already existing ide dvd drive. i did this so i could copy the files off the disk. the mobo has only one ide cable, the rest are sata. my primary drive is sata, and has always been sda, but i think when i hooked up the other drive, there was a role reversal, and the sda became sdb for the time the ide drive was hooked up. So what could have happened here?

Last edited by wolfdogg (2012-03-14 05:26:59)

wolfdogg · 2012-03-13 06:50:19

ok, i went as far as i could, and it couldnt find the kernel still. so i installed grub, and it too cant find the kernel,

filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 ro

Error 15: File not found

wtf? is my kernel missing, or do i need to set some flags on the partitions? or do i have a mbr and a partition boot record conflicting?

Edit: ok, so the kernel is definetely missing, and so is the initramfs, after comparing with another arch system over here. i had forgotton what dir the kernel resides in. where is a back up located so i can copy it back over to the boot? I guess ill aim for the install cd and copy it over.

Last edited by wolfdogg (2012-03-13 07:23:00)

Gcool · 2012-03-13 07:20:36

I think your best option there would be to boot from a livecd, chroot in and simply reinstall the kernel.

wolfdogg · 2012-03-13 07:23:35

I have to chroot to do that?

ok, i copied /arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz to /boot/vmlinuz-linux and /arch/boot/x86_64/linux.img to /boot/initramfs-linux.img and /boot/initramfs-fallback-linux.img
now its getting stuck in udev. Of course i forgot to unmount the chroot before rebooting. So when comparing file sizes to another installation i realize that all the file sizes are off and so are the permissions.

I took a stab at it, it wont pass udev, so where is the documentation on copying kernels over from installation media? i would like to know if i did it wrong, or if i just got the files from the wrong location.

Last edited by wolfdogg (2012-03-13 07:52:45)

Gcool · 2012-03-13 08:22:30

I actually meant reinstalling the kernel through pacman. Depending on which cd you're using; the kernel on it might be quite dated. So boot from the cd, chroot and then run:

# pacman -Syu
# pacman -S linux
# pacman -S mkinitcpio
# mkinitcpio -p linux

wolfdogg · 2012-03-13 14:31:15

ok thanks. ill have time to do that tonight. I had used 2011.08.19 install media.

Once i boot with live cd i will have to setup my network im guessing too. I forgot the commands for that. i tried a couple ip commands to no avail yesterday. So i will need to get an ip using # ip then copy over my resolv.conf wouldnt I?

Last edited by wolfdogg (2012-03-13 14:34:55)

Gcool · 2012-03-13 19:01:05

wolfdogg wrote:

Once i boot with live cd i will have to setup my network im guessing too. I forgot the commands for that. i tried a couple ip commands to no avail yesterday. So i will need to get an ip using # ip then copy over my resolv.conf wouldnt I?

This section in the install guide pretty much covers that. But if you have dhcp available and your nic is detected etc, it should be as simple as:

# ip link set eth0 up
# dhcpcd eth0

And making sure that you have the correct nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf.

wolfdogg · 2012-03-14 02:38:39

Success! worked like a charm. One of us should put this together in a wiki. thanks a bunch!

Arch Linux

#1 2012-03-13 05:04:23

syslinux is not booting [solved]

#2 2012-03-13 06:50:19

Re: syslinux is not booting [solved]

#3 2012-03-13 07:20:36

Re: syslinux is not booting [solved]

#4 2012-03-13 07:23:35

Re: syslinux is not booting [solved]

#5 2012-03-13 08:22:30

Re: syslinux is not booting [solved]

#6 2012-03-13 14:31:15

Re: syslinux is not booting [solved]

#7 2012-03-13 19:01:05

Re: syslinux is not booting [solved]

#8 2012-03-14 02:38:39

Re: syslinux is not booting [solved]

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