no boot screen

[neighborlee]

hi there,

Installation ( livecd 64 bit )went fine, though I have no boot screen from which to chooose windows or linux, so I went in and did grub-install /dev/sda and got no errors,,rebooted and same problem ,- no boot screen so Im wondering if its either a current problem in alpha or if I'm not doing something quite right.

thx
lee

[stoat]

Hello neighborlee,

Is it possible that you chose the boot loader option "No boot loader will be installed" when you first installed Fedora? Maybe intending to boot with something else like another Linux or XP? Because that causes no grub.conf file to be created. Even grub-install will not create one of those.

If that is not it. Then what IS happening when you boot?

[neighborlee]

Hello neighborlee,

Is it possible that you chose the boot loader option "No boot loader will be installed" when you first installed Fedora? Maybe intending to boot with something else like another Linux or XP? Because that causes no grub.conf file to be created. Even grub-install will not create one of those.

If that is not it. Then what IS happening when you boot?

I dont recall choosing anything of the sort no, but then I might have accidentally I dont know ;(bah

I do have a grub.conf file in both /boot/grub and /etc/grub.conf, so I doubt I chose that option.

I was just saying that when I boot, I am not presented with a grub screen in which to choose linux or windows.

thx
lee

[stoat]

Okay. It was just a thought. A guess. What about the Fedora splash screen with the count down? Are you getting far enough along to see that? I don't mean to insult you, but if you are seeing the countdown, then you should press a key to see the menu. Surely you knew that, but how should I know what you know? And it's still not clear what IS happening. Is Fedora booting and you just don't get the splashscreen? Is it hanging and needing a reboot? Sorry, but none of that is clear yet (at least to me, anyway).

[neighborlee]

Okay. What about the Fedora splash screen with the count down? Are you getting far enough along to see that?

Nope all I see is a all blank ( blue'ish) screen and then it goes straight into booting to linux from there.

thx
lee

[stoat]

Maybe it would reveal something to look at the grub.conf. Boot with your LiveCD (or something) and see if it all makes sense vis-a-vis the splashimage and timeout commands.

P.S.: I'm sorry. You said Fedora is booting. You can see the grub.conf there.

P.P.S.: Just thinking out loud (FWIW)... Stage2 reads the contents of the grub.conf text file and uses that information to know from where to retrieve the graphic background image for the splash and menu screens (/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz). It then creates the splash screen and countdown page with the graphic image behind it. Pressing a key (or commenting out the hiddenmenu command) produces the menu with the graphic splash screen image still there behind it, too. If the splash screen image file is missing, the countdown and menu still appear but with a black (usually) background. The timeout command sets the start of the splash screen countdown to boot the default OS. If the timeout value is 0, then the splash screen is skipped and the default OS boots directly. There is usually a momentary flicker of the graphic image even when timeout is zero. If your grub.conf is still booting the kernel, then it is basically working. There will be an explanation for your splash screen and menu situation. Somewhere.

[neighborlee]

Maybe it would reveal something to look at the grub.conf. Boot with your LiveCD (or something) and see if it all makes sense vis-a-vis the splashimage and timeout commands.

P.S.: I'm sorry. You said Fedora is booting. You can see the grub.conf there.

Well, having a great need to get back into windows last night I had to fixmbr from windows CD . I see no way on recent fedora disk's to rescue anymore so I dont know what to do now, other than try a reinstall.

Issueing grub-install should have worked because its clear from /etc/grub.conf and /boot/grub/grub.conf that necessary files are in place, so I suspect something else is at play here .

thx for trying to help.
lee

[stoat]

Yeah, I agree with what you just said. And since it's a new system, a re-install is not a tragedy. But it would have been interesting to learn the answer to the puzzle.

[stoat]

You could try booting the Fedora with the busted GRUB with a Super Grub Disk (http://www.supergrubdisk.org/). Then re-install GRUB with the grub-install command in a terminal in the running system. It's the best place of all from which to re-install GRUB anyway IMO (the running system itself). It may make a difference. If it doesn't work, no harm done. You now have a Super Grub Disk.

P.S.: The Super Grub Disk itself can re-install GRUB in a master boot record.



Nevermind. You said Fedora IS booting. Sorry. I give up.

[neighborlee]

You could try booting the Fedora with the busted GRUB with a Super Grub Disk (http://www.supergrubdisk.org/). Then re-install GRUB with the grub-install command in a terminal in the running system. It's the best place of all from which to re-install GRUB anyway IMO (the running system itself). It may make a difference. If it doesn't work, no harm done. You now have a Super Grub Disk.

P.S.: The Super Grub Disk itself can re-install GRUB in a master boot record.



Nevermind. You said Fedora IS booting. Sorry. I give up.

No biggie.

I was also asking about this on IRC as I was desperate to get into linux soon, and found out its a discussed issue on -devel list I guess as relates to pressing Control to get to a 'menu' , but that this is also a sollution I guess: see if "timeout" is set to 0 or 1 in /boot/grub/menu.lst, raise to 5 or 15 or whatever

Ill reinstall or look into that super grub disk you mentioned ( if I can find a good cdrw ), but I am curious why rescue mode was removed , as it was always a very handy thing. Space issues I wonder ?

thx
lee

[JohnsShadow]

there is no issue with the grub boot loader .....

the loading screen is missing durring boot is alll

i have this bug tooo

never happned when booting anything else ie.. ubuntustudio 8.4.1/ debian 4.r1 /

NOTE: the loading screen is missing in the live cd too

[snostorm]

Grub is fine just the dumd down boot graphic with the scroolin bar is gone. the scrooling bar in my case still appears but covers up text in random plases hitting escape key puts me back to text only.

I did see a hint once when other things were broken that lead me to believe that ist has to do with a missing graphic file some place but I missed the location and have not bee able to figure out where that file is.

[stoat]

Grub is fine just the dumd down boot graphic with the scroolin bar is gone. the scrooling bar in my case still appears but covers up text in random plases hitting escape key puts me back to text only.

I did see a hint once when other things were broken that lead me to believe that ist has to do with a missing graphic file some place but I missed the location and have not bee able to figure out where that file is.Hello snostorm,

To me, it sounds as though you're talking about a different matter. I think this thread started out talking about no Fedora splash screen from which to get to the GRUB menu. neighborlee was describing a situation where the computer started booting Fedora directly with no splash screen or menu.

You seem to be describing the Red Hat Graphical Boot screen which appears well after the GRUB splash screen and the GRUB menu. The Red Hat Graphical Boot screen is invoked by the rhgb parameter in the kernel command line of the grub.conf, and it functions to hide the classic scrolling text and debug spew with [OK] or [FAILED] while the kernel boots up. Right? The graphic images for that screen are located (or at least they were) in /usr/share/rhgb. And they can be customized. Anyway, the RHGB screen will revert to "Show details" revealing the scrolling text when one of the booting steps fails. It almost sounds like you are describing that. My apologies, of course, if I misunderstood.





P.S. for JohnsShadow from 8/30/08...

there is no issue with the grub boot loader .....

the loading screen is missing durring boot is alllHello JohnsShadow,

You're right. There wasn't anything wrong with the boot loader at the beginning of this. And maybe there is/was some kind of bug with the F10 splash screen and menu. But then neighborlee re-installed Windows. After something like that, as you know, GRUB has to be re-installed. That is why re-installing GRUB was being discussed.

[JohnsShadow]

im sorry im crazy
i apologise for sounding like a duchbag
but i do know what im talking about, when i actually spend the time to talk about it

i guess thats what i get for reading my email drunk

if anybody would like to get ahold of me
johnsshadow@gmail.com
im building freeware games and i could use some help :cool:

[stoat]

super, i was right.... i love how nobody has a fix for it... ohh well guess it dosent matter now

i already removed fedora from my system
ubuntu studio worked too well for me to deal with the f10 beta

hope f10 (not beta) is more worthy of my system

still looking for a i686 optimised system to throw at my system...why is this so hard to find>?

will fedora ever susport a non synaptic update manager?

i forgot what i was thinking.....Hello again JohnsShadow,

Your reply to me sounds almost sarcastic. All I wanted to accomplish by addressing you was to explain to the readers of this thread why GRUB was being re-installed. Your previous post seemed to portray it as a misguided tactic aimed at the original issue. It wasn't. GRUB had later been removed from the MBR by Windows and was being re-installed. But then you chose to continue on with the apparent real reason for replying to me: a rambling venting about your experience with Fedora. Yet, you installed a pre-release version of Fedora. In fact, most versions of Fedora do not settle down until a month or so after release. The rest of what you said was nonsensical until you mercifully forgot what you were thinking. I think you did the right thing to remove Fedora from your system and shove off. Accept my sincere best wishes with Ubuntu.

[Axklor]

I experienced something similar on my alpha install, installed to HDD from liveusb.

I get a blank screen on boot but it boots fedora fine on grub timeout.

Pressing up/down will bring you to the OS menu where you can boot back into windows.

I'm running fedora exclusively so this isn't a problem.
My only thought is that this disk was previously setup for EFI GPT, so it's likely to still be using it, possibly causing wierdness with GRUB.