install completed but system won't boot to HD - Page 3

nonamedotc · #31 20th January 2012, 03:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foampile

i do that, however, i still don't get the BIOS option

What do you get if you select the default setup? Was that the /boot/efi thing?

I select 'Use All space' and select 'review and modify partitioning layout' and this is what I get.

sda1 1MB BIOS BOOT
sda2 500MB /boot ext4
sda3 **** swap
sda4 **** / ext4

How is yours?

foampile · #32 20th January 2012, 03:39 AM

i can get into the shell and have figured out how to use fdisk/parted to manipulate partitions. but when i get back into the GUI installer, it sees the changes i've made as something like unworkable and wants to wipe out HDD. which tells me that i am not partitioning the drive correctly, in terms of division of partitions and their type. is there a cookie cutter way of setting this, e.g. how many partitions to make, what size, and which filesystem to use?

---------- Post added at 03:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:25 AM ----------

i get the same as you but EFI instead of BIOS

nonamedotc · #33 20th January 2012, 03:53 AM

[QUOTE=PabloTwo;1547918
I'm also assuming you're not installing onto a UEFI enabled system.[/QUOTE]

Just making sure - You are not using UEFI enabled system right? If it is a UEFI enabled system, this has to be followed ...http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...oot_Media-UEFI

and here is the download link referred to in the document.

foampile · #34 20th January 2012, 04:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nonamedotc

Just making sure - You are not using UEFI enabled system right? If it is a UEFI enabled system, this has to be followed ...http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...oot_Media-UEFI

and here is the download link referred to in the document.

i think it is. but your description assumes that you can boot and get to cmd line, which i can't -- remember, i can't get into the system after install is reported as successful...

so, at which stage do i do what these instructions say?

---------- Post added at 04:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 AM ----------

how do i mount the ISO file if the system is not installed? i am installing from a liveUSB, that's all i have and a wiped out HD

nonamedotc · #35 20th January 2012, 04:19 AM

Wait. Do not bother about that. Restart your computer and do the following.

BIOS setup ---> Startup ---> UEFI/Legacy boot

In this step, see what is selected. If you wish, change it to "BOTH" or "Legacy" (I really hope you will have this option)

Next, same window (Startup) ---> UEFI/Legacy boot priority ---> Change the priority to Legacy boot.

Save all configurations and restart and then try to install. I should have thought about this long back. This might be the solution ... hopefully.

foampile · #36 20th January 2012, 04:32 AM

i have never in my life seen more convoluted instructions than that UEFI install on doc.fedora...

---------- Post added at 04:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:20 AM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by nonamedotc

Wait. Do not bother about that. Restart your computer and do the following.

BIOS setup ---> Startup ---> UEFI/Legacy boot

In this step, see what is selected. If you wish, change it to "BOTH" or "Legacy" (I really hope you will have this option)

Next, same window (Startup) ---> UEFI/Legacy boot priority ---> Change the priority to Legacy boot.

Save all configurations and restart and then try to install. I should have thought about this long back. This might be the solution ... hopefully.

i changed it to "Legacy Only" but then i was unable to boot to USB

nonamedotc · #37 20th January 2012, 04:36 AM

Try both ... Mine is both.

foampile · #38 20th January 2012, 04:45 AM

did both, Legacy first. now installing and the partition stage did not look any different, i still had EFI

nonamedotc · #39 20th January 2012, 04:50 AM

If you are able to, go ahead and install with whatever it says and see if the system boots. Since bios setup has been changed, it might boot ...

If that does not work, the only suggestion I have is making a bootable USB with the img file that was referred to in my earlier post ....

Good luck.

foampile · #40 20th January 2012, 05:41 AM

my LiveUSB already had that image file included

---------- Post added at 05:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:57 AM ----------

same as before ... DAMN IT !!

kension · #41 20th January 2012, 06:30 AM

Not sure if this will help but I have 3 hard discs all sata and boot on sda1 which has 3 other primary cylinder aligned partitions. Sda1 is boot (grub) and windows ntfs-30gb, sda2 is a 4gb swap (I have 2gigs ram), sda3 is root (/) 30gigs ext4, and sda4, home, is the rest of my disc and is ext4 also. I did this with a flash drive too with a fc16 xfce iso image, gparted, and the built in installer and found out it would not boot afterwards (black screen only) if i was not using a vga cable. Only after installing nvidia drivers and in the process removing noveau was I able to go back to digital dvi cables (no hdmi here and my card is using the pci-x 1.0 slot). I've noticed quite a few live distros that do this with my hardware. LinuxMint was practically the only one I've tried that did work. All I want to to know is why does linux have this problem? strange-is this one of those gpl things?

Mind you the windows part (xp) was working already and I used either yumi or universal usb installer which are both windows aps. Not sure just what your trying to do but it was fairly easy once you understand partitioning a little.
With partitions you can create a max of 4 primaries and then you must use extended which then you can part again to create as many as you like. If you get a Hiren's boot cd, it also has gparted.

foampile · #42 20th January 2012, 07:36 AM

thanks, kension, i doubt that would help.

i posted this on RH:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=755226

kension · #43 20th January 2012, 08:40 PM

Laptops eh? Can't help with that. I would find the distros that do work on your hardware and simply pick one of those if you can. But like I said from my post, just the fact that 90+% of the ones I've tried fail to boot after install through dvi is rather pathetic imo. Having to swap cables just to boot is retarded. I went through about 4 or so distros before I began to suspect a hardware issue.
I'm sure you will get it eventually.

foampile · #44 23rd January 2012, 06:56 AM

interestingly enough, i downloaded the (supposedly) same ISO, at least by name and of very similar size (cca 3.5G) but from a different mirror (http://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirro...ra/x86_64/iso/) and recreated my LiveUSB. i could tell it was different from the one i was using before from the get-go because it had an initial screen instantly after booting that asked if i wanted to install or troubleshoot. the old one automatically went into the install.

more importantly, i was able to create a 2M partition with a BIOS file system.

the new install is going on right now. i will report progress. hopefully it works.

thanks everyone.

P.S.: is it possible that this latest ISO i got was different than the old one in that it contained bug fixes even though the name does not specify a fresher build. and is there a way (some sort of meta or manifest) within the extracted LiveUSB/CD that tells you which revision/build you are dealing with?

flyingfsck · #45 23rd January 2012, 08:34 AM

Howdy,

When you install and get to the partitioning, deselect LVM, go into the advanced options and select something like 'Force /boot to be a primary partition'.

Cheers,

F.