[SOLVED] Install fine, GRUB in MBR throws error 2.
(I hope this is the acceptable place to post this, despite using the latest MeanPUP.
Also note that I got the exact same result with the latest two Puppy proper versions.) Trying to bring some life into an old laptop (Fujitsu Lifebook C, 64Mb RAM) I have now reinstalled MeanPUP from CD countless times, always ending up with GRUB not working, throwing an error 2 (after stage 1.5). I boot from CD, all is fine. I run the Universal installer, full install to HDD. The GRUB install also runs fine, installed to MBR. On reboot, the said error occurs. I noticed that initrd was not copied over, so I did that manually and added it to menu.lst. Still the same. Latest, I tried manually copying over the pup_202.sfs session file from the CD, still same error... on top of that, even when booting from live CD, it now mounts the HDD and run thats .sfs file. In order to have a live CD run again, I must manually delete this file. I actually managed to get all this going just once, with Puppy proper, but I reqally do not remember any difference to what I am doing now... just that it was a lot of work! The installer should really be able to handle this automatically. I have searched, googled and re-tried and I am getting somewhat cross-eyed by now, and - to be honest - real tired of this, so if someone has and extra hand and a few suggestions, please chip in! Cheers! CJ |
I am not sure about MeanPUP but I installed a version of pup on a computer last week and set it up to chainload and had no problems. You might try chainloading by making a separate partition (2 meg) for grub. If MeanPUP has grub2 disregard above advise.
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Puppy works much better in a frugal install.
So, instead of a full installation, try a frugal installation variant following these directions. http://www.puppylinux.org/main/index...-English05.txt If you still get the same error, please post the content of your /boot/grub/menu.lst |
anything special about the hard drive
boot options? |
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Also, this is not a question about Puppy working better, as it works fine... it's the irritating grub error that ends the joy. Quote:
With the danger of repeating myself, I did get this to work once. I had to copy vmlinuz and initrd over manually, but this is not enough in itself. Another indicator that the fault is not with the OS or the PC as such is that e.g. DSL can run and install fine. Hm, would there be a way I could boot into DSL and get that to set up grub for Puppy? I will give it a go. So, at the risk of sounding ungrateful, I'd prefer not to have workarounds on a fresh install but rather see if I could get the problem solved. After all, it's just the boot-up that's at fault, or... Thanks for your suggestions and help, much appreciated. Cheers! CJ |
For completeness, here is my menu.lst:
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timeout 4 |
try root=/dev/sda1
or use labels (do it from a live cd) |
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Error 11: Unrecognized device string I have attempted to run the manual grub commands from another live CD (DSL-N) and it too give me errors. For instance, trying to use Grub>setup (or grub-install) says it cannot find the stage1 file. I then did a chroot to mounted system, this time it could fine stage1 but gave me an error about stage1 not being in the right format (sorry, I do not remember the exact error). Googling, I got as many - conflicting - answers as results as to what the error meant. The most authoritative I could find was that the error was misleading and it normally indicated a mismatch between the file systems (I assume from the run CD and the HDD). I have tried installing on both ext2, ext3 and ext4, no difference. When opening stage1 in a text editor, it just says 'kH_' (the underscore is actually an 'upperscore' in as much as it is a line from the top of the H). So, is the stage-files corrupt? If yes, can they be copied from another, functioning setup? Cheers! CJ |
From an install/live CD do a "file" command against the (hard-disk) /boot/vmlinuz (initrd too - why not).
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vmlinuz: x86 boot sector CJ |
Hmmm - that don't look right. Hence the "error 2" maybe. This is my (obviously) Fedora12
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/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32.11-99.fc12.x86_64: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage, version 2.6.32.11-99.fc12.x86_64 (mockb, RO-rootFS, root_dev 0x902, swap_dev 0x3, Normal VGA Last time I ran it everything (except wifi IIRC) worked out of the box. |
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vmlinuz-2.6.33.2-pclos1.bfs: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage, version 2.6.33.2-pclos1.bfs (root@local, RO-rootFS, root_dev 0x805, swap_dev 0x1, Normal VGA Cheers! CJ |
Hm, just had a thought: Could the fact that I had to copy initrd.gz manually from the live CD have anything to do with this? I have checked the permissions (root), but could there be anything else that might be affecting this?
I copied the file from the CD to /boot by simply dragging it from one instance of Rox to another, selecting copy. Cheers! CJ |
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Go to the puppy forum, click the search box, type: full install.... type: catdude for author. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/vie...8540782#201565 2.02 is quite old and may not have enough hardware support for you. |
Bobbio, thanks for you reply.
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And once again I mention that other distroes (e.g. DSL, DSL-N) install grub fine and working. Cheers! CJ |
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