Ok. I think I need to explain the situation a little more. Most of the
description I gave last time was background info that led up to my
problem. The problem I'm having right now is that when the install
process gets to where it initiallizes the cd-rom, one of two things
happens (randomly from what I can tell):
1. Shortly after the initializing cd-rom message appears, the
installation program comes back with a "mount failed: invalid argument",
then and error about mounting the ramdisk, and then the program dumps
out
2. The install program gets past the initializing cdrom, and displays
the loading second stage image message. After about another minute, it
goes back to saying initiallizing cd-rom, and the command options at the
bottom of the screen go away, being replaced with a white cursor. At
this point, you can type whatever. I've tried a control-C to kill the
process hoping to get to a prompt to see what state everything is in,
and I get back the following error: "Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount
root fs on 08:01"
There is one message during the linux boot that I find disturbing, and
which this may come back to. When linux is starting up the devices, it
gets to where it's starting up drives, and I see the following:
hda: WDC AC310100B, ATA DISK drive
no response ( status = 0x0d ) Resetting drive
Given that the drive works fine on the windows side, I don't see what
the problem is here, though I expect this is the root cause for my other
problems. Any help/suggestions?
Jason
Mike & Tracy Holt wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jason Dryer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 10:48 AM
> Subject: [newbie] Corrupted boot table
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Last night I was able to complete the Mandrake installation process, and
> > had setup lilo to boot the system. Unfortunately, I didin't create a
> > recovery boot disk.
>
> OUCH! Boot disks are our friends, they must be kept close at hand!
>
> > I started my computer up this morning, and after
> > post completed, the screen filled with the number 20 over and over
> > again. I then got BootMagic in place so that I could boot into Windows
> > again, and have been trying to go through the installation process
> > again. It seems that sometime during the installation process,
> > something wrote some data to the boot floppy which corrupted the disk
> > and made it unusable for a second boot installation. It gets to the
> > point where it's attempting to load the second stage image, and comes
> > back with a "mount failed: invalid argument" error. I've tried making a
> > new disk image, but the new image stopped mid process during the loading
> > second stage image and went back to the initializing cdrom message and
> > kicked out with a cursor prompt. Am I missing something here? I would
> > think having re-made the partitions and boot disk would have been enough
> > to clean out the last attempt at installation?
> >
> > Jason Dryer
> >
>
> If I understand you correctly, you're trying to use lilo from a boot floppy?
> And you're trying to dual boot Linux / Windows?
> If you're saying that the boot disk that came with your linux distribution
> is not working correctly now, I'm not sure why that would happen unless you
> overwrote something. At any rate, go to this address and follow the
> instructions for creating a boot disk:
> ftp://ftp.linux.tucows.com/pub/distributions/Mandrake/Mandrake/7.0/images/RE
> ADME
>
> This boot disk that you create will let you make an installation boot disk,
> not a recovery disk - you will have to reinstall your linux system. This
> time, make a recovery disk when it asks.
>
> Next, if you ever need to clean up your boot record (assuming you have a
> recovery disk for your windows partition), boot from your windows boot disk
> and at the prompt, cd to c:\ then type fdisk /mbr
> That will restore your boot record and at least windows will be able to
> boot.
>
> Good luck, Michael Holt
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
