Suse 8.1 wont reboot w/o the CD! (?!?)

heyho · 01-11-2003, 12:24 PM

Hi there,

I've now installed SuSe 8.1 twice, and each time i have the same problem: right after the install, i enter suse fine... everything is working. i can log out, and log in again.

BUT, then i shut the machine down. then started it back up. Here's what i get:

Not found any [active partition] in HDD
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

a message like i get when i've just formatted the hard drive. i know suse is on there cuz i was just in it... but for some reason the computer isn't recognizing the partition or something??

I can get into linux by using the cd, but i'd rather not have to boot from the cd. i found my grub.conf file, here it is:

root (hd0, 1)
install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) /boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 (hd0,1)/boot/grub/menu.1st
quit

and i've tried installing/writing it using the YasT2 utility, which was pretty easy, and tried all the installation options: install into master boot record of /dev/hda; boot sector of boot partition; boot sector of root partition... nothing worked.

any ideas? thanks in advance!

bulliver · 01-11-2003, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Not found any [active partition] in HDD DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

What gives you this error? Your bios? Grub? Seems to me that your bios may not be searching your HD for bootable media...

heyho · 01-11-2003, 12:57 PM

yeah... this comes right after the POST screen... its not booting anything. its like it cant see a system on there.

bulliver · 01-11-2003, 01:36 PM

Make sure that your hard drive is in your boot order...usually 1. floppy 2.CDrom 3. Hard drive is a good choice, but make sure it's there

ovi.ro · 01-11-2003, 01:49 PM

do you run also windows?if so try to see wich partition is active
and change it to the root partition.

heyho · 01-11-2003, 04:47 PM

ok..... figured it out. it had to do with the MBR and linux's boot partition (boot order was fine, and i'm not dual booting).

BUT, i do have another question:
is there a way to modify the time it gives you to make your selection at boot time? I have 3 choices: boot to floppy, Linux, or Linux Safe Mode (default is Linux), and i have about 30 seconds to choose one. I'd like it to time out quicker. is there a way to change this?

bulliver · 01-11-2003, 04:55 PM

Yup, edit grub.conf (usually /boot/grub/grub.conf) and change the timeout= line to whatever you want in seconds.

heyho · 01-11-2003, 05:47 PM

but i dont have any timeout line in the grub.conf

is there a way around this?

Here it is:

root (hd0, 1)
install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0, 1) /boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 (hd0,1)/boot/grub/menu.1st
quit

bulliver · 01-11-2003, 06:08 PM

Hmm, good question. That doesn't look anything like my grub.conf Are you sure it's grub that gives you that menu, and not some SuSe app?

grub.conf should look like this:

Code:

default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-14bigmem)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14bigmem ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
        initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14bigmem.img
title linuxbot (2.4.20)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /linuxbot ro root=/dev/hda6

And the "title" is what you see in the menu when you boot up...

heyho · 01-11-2003, 08:04 PM

wow, that is pretty different.

that's the only grub.conf there is, and i get to it by doing a search for it. it finds grub.conf in the /etc directory, then i open it up in a text editor (KWrite) and thats what i get.

any ideas?

heyho · 01-11-2003, 08:21 PM

HEY, i did it!!!

the timeout thing wasn't in grub.conf... in fact, i dont know what file it's in. But i changed a file in the Yast manager under advanced/expert configuration... a file that looked a lot different than grub.conf, and that had the timeout line. so i just changed that and saved it.

thanks everyone for your help! MUCH appreciated!