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#1 2010-04-08 20:23:29

CrunchyChewie
Member
Registered: 2010-04-08
Posts: 9

Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

Hello everyone!

First time post here. I am having an issue when booting Live CD's. Instead of getting the option to install/boot, I am greeted with this screen:


gVenn.jpg



This so far seems confined to Arch Linux Core i686 and x86_64 Live CD's, as well as the gParted Live CD. I was able to install from an Ubuntu Live CD with no issue.

I scanned the wiki and troubleshooting, although the installation troubleshooting seems a little slim. I tried some of what was suggested "root (hd0,0)", "setup (hd0)" etc.. but it keeps spitting back error 12, error 17 etc... 

What am I doing wrong?

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#2 2010-04-08 21:19:42

jurkan
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 23

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

This is the grub command line. As far as I know, Ubuntu Live CD uses SysLinux in place of grub, so using the arch isolinux-iso-image could probably solve the error.

Last edited by jurkan (2010-04-08 21:19:58)

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#3 2010-04-08 21:30:37

CrunchyChewie
Member
Registered: 2010-04-08
Posts: 9

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

Aha! I had not thought of doing that. Everything seems to refer to the "Core" install so I went with that. The strange thing is that it worked on an older machine.

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#4 2010-04-08 21:36:23

pseudonomous
Member
Registered: 2008-04-23
Posts: 349

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

A couple questions:

How many IDE/SATA devices do you have?  Do you have any idea in what order your BIOS sees them?

What OS (if any) do you have installed currently?  If it's linux-based, how is your hard-drive partitioned?

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#5 2010-04-08 21:42:32

CrunchyChewie
Member
Registered: 2010-04-08
Posts: 9

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

A couple questions:

How many IDE/SATA devices do you have?  Do you have any idea in what order your BIOS sees them?

What OS (if any) do you have installed currently?  If it's linux-based, how is your hard-drive partitioned?

The system has 5 total SATA devices. 2x 250GB Seagates in RAID 0 (FakeRAID via the ICHR9), 1x 750GB Seagate formatted as NTFS, 1x 250GB WD, 1x CD/DVDRW

HOWEVER, after the initial trouble I unplugged all but 1 HDD. edit: I mean to say I unplugged all HDD's but one, the optical drive is still active

Installed Ubuntu to that. It has a swap partition and the rest is for the OS. I assume that is /dev/sda0 and sda1?

Last edited by CrunchyChewie (2010-04-08 21:43:16)

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#6 2010-04-08 21:49:15

jurkan
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 23

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

The only difference between "core" and "isolinux" install is the bootloader of the image, the installation is the same so there is no need to use "core". However, there should also be a possibility to fix the error somehow using the grub-command-line.

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#7 2010-04-08 21:55:48

pseudonomous
Member
Registered: 2008-04-23
Posts: 349

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

CrunchyChewie wrote:

A couple questions:
Installed Ubuntu to that. It has a swap partition and the rest is for the OS. I assume that is /dev/sda0 and sda1?

Actually, linux enumerates from hard-drives starting with one, so you have /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2.

GRUB on the other hand, enumerates from 0, so (hd0,0) is the first partion of your first hard drive.

Now what I think is happening, is that you are booting of your Ubuntu partition, not the LiveCD, and that you're getting dumped into a grub shell because in which your BIOS is recognizing the drives is wrong, so grub can't find it's config files on your Ubuntu partition.

Try and check the order of your boot devices in the BIOS menu, if playing with this doesn't get you anywhere, let us know (I'll bet this is the problem).

If not maybe I can walk you trough booting from the grub prompt.

A word of warning:

When you disconnect and reconnect the hard drives, there's a good chance you change the order in which the BIOS enumerates the hard-drives, which may cause you to have trouble trying to boot with grub assuming you successfully install, fixing this shouldn't be too big of deal, and if we have to, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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#8 2010-04-08 22:21:08

CrunchyChewie
Member
Registered: 2010-04-08
Posts: 9

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

I checked the BIOS, the boot order is:

1) Optical Drive
2) WD HDD
3) Floppy/USB

Should I try the ISOLINUX as was suggested?

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#9 2010-04-08 22:26:33

Profjim
Member
From: NYC
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 658

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

CrunchyChewie wrote:

I checked the BIOS, the boot order is:

1) Optical Drive
2) WD HDD
3) Floppy/USB

Should I try the ISOLINUX as was suggested?

That's not the boot order people are talking about. That's telling the computer try first to boot from optical, next try from hard drive, and so on. What people are talking about is which hard drive will be named /dev/sda, which will be named /dev/sdb, and so on.

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#10 2010-04-08 22:29:46

jurkan
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 23

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

I just saw that the isolinux-isos are ftp-isos, which means all packages will be downloaded during installation process. So you will need an internet connection to install arch with this ISO.

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#11 2010-04-08 22:33:08

pseudonomous
Member
Registered: 2008-04-23
Posts: 349

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

Profjim wrote:

That's not the boot order people are talking about. That's telling the computer try first to boot from optical, next try from hard drive, and so on. What people are talking about is which hard drive will be named /dev/sda, which will be named /dev/sdb, and so on.

Actually, that was (at least last time) what I was talking about; I didn't believe he was really booting of the CD.

Sure, you can try the isolinux .ISO, it can't hurt, or you can try and boot from the grub prompt.  I'll post basic instructions in  a second

Edit: these instructions were moved to my next post, because the original instructions were inaccurate.

Last edited by pseudonomous (2010-04-08 23:29:01)

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#12 2010-04-08 22:46:34

CrunchyChewie
Member
Registered: 2010-04-08
Posts: 9

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

I'll post basic instructions in  a second

Looking forward to it! I appreciate your assistance.

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#13 2010-04-08 22:55:58

CrunchyChewie
Member
Registered: 2010-04-08
Posts: 9

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

OK:

telling grub
Code:

root (hdx,y)

tells grub where to look for the second stage bootloader files, you need this stuff to load an OS.

If were luckier, we'd know where these files were, we don't so we'll look for them by trial and error, try:

Code:

root (hd0,0)

grub shell does tab completion so try and type "cat /", then hit "tab".  If you see a file called "archlive.sqfs" you found the right file, if you don't see it, you didn't find the right partition yet.  Try:
Code:

root (hd1,0)

and keep repeating.

OK, after you've found the right drive. tell grub what kernel to boot, then tell it what initial ramdisk to use, then tell it to boot:
Code:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 ramdisk_size=75%
initrd /boot/archlive.img
boot

those directions are based on a CD from 2008 ... I should probably check a newer CD.

Awesome!  Thanks!

I have to go get dinner, but I will return shortly and give this a try.

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#14 2010-04-08 22:58:08

jurkan
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2010-04-03
Posts: 23

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

Adding some information to the last step of the instruction above:

In my ftp iso, names of initrds are some others, so I guess they will be in core-iso too:

- "archiso_ide.img" for IDE CDROM
- "archiso_pata.img" for SATA CDROM

Simply pressing TAB after typing

initrd /boot/

should show you the files, all with the suffix *.img are suitable.

Last edited by jurkan (2010-04-08 22:59:08)

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#15 2010-04-08 23:27:55

pseudonomous
Member
Registered: 2008-04-23
Posts: 349

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

Ok, my directions were a bit off ...

Probably this is what you should do:
   

root (cd)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 ramdisk_size=75%
initrd /boot/archiso_pata.img
boot

if you type

root (

, and hit "tab" grub should list all the devices it sees, a cdrom device should show up as "cd", if it doesn't ... something's wrong.  At that point all I think you can do is try another disk, either try the isolinux isos ... if those don't work, grab the 2008 disk, see if that works, or maybe try the Chakra installer disk.

If anybody else knows why grub might refuse to load off of a CD feel free to jump in here and enlighten us.

Edit:

- "archiso_ide.img" for IDE CDROM
- "archiso_pata.img" for SATA CDROM

I don't think this correct, the difference is that one is the "legacy IDE" initrd, the other uses the standard boot options, this has to do with having different drivers in the kernel for accessing IDE/ATA/PATA devices, it doesn't matter what kind of device your CDROM is.  The standard option should be to boot with the "archiso_path.img" image, if this doesn't work you can try to boot with:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 ramdisk_size=75% ide-legacy
initrd /boot/archiso_ide.img
boot

I'm pretty sure this should only be required for some older machines, machines without any SATA controller, and buggy virtual-machines.

Edit again:

As much fun as it's been for me to work at the grub prompt on the Arch install CDs, I'm really tending to think this probably won't work and it will be necessary for CrunchyChewie to use alternate install media; he's got his BIOS set right ... so if he's running grub off of the mbr from the CD, then grub should source menu.lst and load to the boot menu we're all familiar with ... so I'm pretty sure he's getting dumped into Ubuntu's grub prompt, I don't really know what's happening though.  On the other hand, even if he's getting dumped into the Ubuntu grub prompt, I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be able to load the kernel from Ubuntu's grub ... well I guess the only to find out would be to try.

Last edited by pseudonomous (2010-04-09 04:06:22)

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#16 2010-04-09 04:41:33

CrunchyChewie
Member
Registered: 2010-04-08
Posts: 9

Re: Issue when trying to boot from LiveCD

Ok, after a long process, I am typing this from an xfce4 desktop. cool

That being said, I had to use the ISOLINUX based CD with netinstall.

When hitting "tab" to complete root ( I was only given the devices of fd0 and hd0. For some reason that live CD would not recognize my optical drive.

However the ISOLINUX booted right up and I was off to the races.

Fairly painless install. The only 2 issues at the moment are:

1) Scrolling through pages in FireFox reminds me doing so in Windows XP before you loaded proper graphics drives, it is SLOW, not smooth scrolling.

2) I was not able to get sound via Alsamixer. I have an Asus Rampage Formula MB (X48) with the SupremeFX sound daughter board. Alsa indentifies it as "Intel HDA AD1988B" I attempted some of the fixes in the Wiki but to no avail.

Otherwise things are good, thanks for all your help!

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