Fedora 2 boot fails at swap partition

[texmansru47 0]

I just loaded Fedora 2 on my PC (Anthlon, AMD 1.2GHZ, 512MB RAM, 20GB HD, Radeon 64 DDR VIVO Graphics, DVD, CD-RW drives), and the installation went fine. The problem is during the first boot after the installation, the boot halts (goes to never-neverland since the PC is not locked up, the script for boot just seems to stop) athe part after the main partitions are loaded and the swap partition is being reviewed, setup, turned on (what that portion of the install is trying to accomplish).

 

I get no errors... just it sit there forever! I let it sit overnight (12 hours) and I came back to the same screen. I cannot remove the grub bootloader to setup another version of Linux (I have slackware 10, Peanut 9.6 and Vector Linux but they all use lilo as the bootloader and I cannote ses the partitions). If Fedora 2 cannot work, then I want it off (completely... bootloader and all). I have no means of generating a win98 base bootdisk with FORMAT (to run the format /mbr) so I have a problem:

 

1. I would like to resolve the booting problek in Fedora.

2. Get Fedora completely off my PC (if it will not work) and load something that will.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Texman

[matttah 0]

It's been a while since i've really seen/used fc2, but as i recall it defaults to run into the X server...If you say the boot is fine..then it goes black, but doesnt seem to have frozen...try switching outta x(ctrl alt backspace) or switch to a terminal(ctrl alt fkeys 1-6)...if taht doesn't do anything....replace the disk into the drive and try reinstalling..i know when i used the fc's i somehow sometimes did get bad installs, it was weird but it happened..not sure if it was just how i did stuff, but it happeend.

 

If you wanna just rid fc and what not and get down into linux(i reccomend this)..try slackware..its inbetween redhat's linux and more hardcore...the install isn't too bad...if you want to rid the mbr, i believe its fdisk -M /dev/hda(or whatever hd it is)....I think thats the right syntax, but you might want to check...if you want to get a really nice distro, but takes a while to set up try gentoo..install is a day or two depending on what stage you use, but after you get it installed its lovely....

Daum

[texmansru47 0]

The FC2 load/boot is in terminal mode (not X). I actaully see the place where it stops... it states something like "entering swap partition but nothing else.

 

On the fdisk command, can I run that from the disk 1 of the slackware 10 CD? Again, I have no means of generating a windows based (at least WIN98) bootdisk to run fdisk, so I hope that I can do this from the SW CDs.

 

I like SW, and I have used 9.x and 10 before. the Fedora was a shot in the dark. What is crazy is that my acient laptop (Dell CPi D266XT with 64MB RAM and a 2GB HD)loaded fine... with nothing on it, but it worked.

 

Thanks,

 

Tex

[Lotus 0]

As far as getting the source to make a bootdisk...go here: http://www.bootdisk.com/

 

I hope that is of some assistance.

 

regards,

- Lotus

[danleff 0]

Yikes! Before you try a win 98 boot disk, what version of windows do you have on the system?

 

If you have Windows XP. where is the FC2 partition relative to the windows partition. In other words, what is the partition structure on the hard disk for the distro installs that you currently have?

 

You were using lilo as the botloader? Which distro is using lilo to boot your system? You may still be able to recover lilo as the bootloader.

 

I assume that you did not make a boot floppy disk for FC2?

[Dapper Dan 0]

danleff, you know I've installed FC 2 four or five times now, and I swear I can't recall it ever asking to create a boot disk. I did an FC 1 install recently and it does ask. Can anyone here substantiate this, or am I losing it?

[danleff 0]

I should have been more clear. When I installed FC2, it asks where to install Grub/lilo. At this screen, you can pick where it should go. Since I already have grub from another distro, I choose a floppy. This way I can test the install and if it works well, I add FC2 to my grub list.

 

Most folks, or course, choose to install to the MBR, which is expected. But when they get grub or boot errors, recovery is a pain, as this user is finding out.

 

The other issue, or course, is the ntfs problem. Once Grub is installed and fails, due to the geometry issue, well you know!

[Dapper Dan 0]

Does FC2 give the opportunity to create a boot disk as a separate operation from installing grub? Seems like we had someone else recently who mentioned he wasn't given a chance to create a boot disk in FC2. I could be imagining all this...

[danleff 0]

Not durng the install, you are correct.