install hangs @updating fstab

Hey neubu, please provide us with more information on your hardware. I believe, from previous posts, that you are using Mepis 6.0 right? Are you using the same DVD/CD that worked correctly on your previous install? I just want to check to make sure that the disk itself is good.

If that's fine, what about the hardware? What kind of computer are you trying to install on this time? Brand/model, desktop/laptop, number and max. size of hard drive(s) and what type of drives are they? Are these older IDE drives or SCSI or SATA?

Oh, and is the hanging occurring just during installation or do you have the same symptom when you run the Live CD?

Jon

Hi Jon.

I apologize for being so terse in my initial response but I was and am bewildered by this problem.

The computer is a home built one with an ASUS motherboard (I don't remember the model number but it was built in 2003). The CPU is an Athlon 64 3000+. The machine has both a SATA and an IDE drive but I've never been able to get the bios to recognize the SATA drive.

The CD is the same one I used to install MEPIS on this system. After encountering the problem on the other computer I put it back in this machine and it booted fine from it. We swapped out the existing Samsung CD ROM drive for a new Plextor drive (which the BIOS does recognize) but that made no difference.

The CD hangs before I can even get to the desktop so it is booting from the CD that isn't working. We tried installing MEPIS the day before on this same machine and at the end of the install we got an error message: "unable to create user directory". Since then we haven't been able to boot the computer at all. At boot up it says:

grub loading stage 1.5
grubloading please wait...
error 17
Below the last line is a flashing cursor.
-

I hope this is enough info for you to be able to provide some help.

thanks
neubu

Thanks neubu for more "stuff". Allow me to give you a pointed stick to poke in your eye so you'll enjoy more pain

I'm sure others will chime in to help out. But my first thought would be to isolate the troubling hardware. I'm assuming that the IDE drive is being used as your boot drive? If so, can you temporarily remove the SATA drive and see if the system boots? If it does, reverse the situation (remove IDE, install SATA) and see what happens.

I'm not an expert on 64-bit systems. I know that Mepis WILL RUN on a 64-bit system even if it's not "optimized" for 64-bit, so I doubt that's the problem.

Am I to understand that you replaced the CD drive because the one was not being recognized (properly) by the BIOS? But now the new CD drive is working? If so, that's good. I recall reading on some other posts that when there are some strange installation problems, especially with "homegrown systems" that one thing to check is whether there are any BIOS upgrades. Have you checked at Asus's website to see if there are any firmware updates for your mobo?

Another thing to check, using the Live CD, would be a memory test. Start the CD and choose Memory Test and let it run for a while to see if there are any problems there.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. But I'm sure some of the "Hard Where Goo Roos" will have some better ideas

Jon

Hi Jon, and thanks.

I really appreciate your help and sense of humor. Earlier tonight, my partner--the person who's computer we're talking about--suggested that we take the Kunbutu disk we have and see if it would boot. We did and it did. This led me to conclude that your suggestion of disconnecting one of the drives was undoubtedly right. So I disconnected the SATA drive and tried again with MEPIS. Still no go. This led me to believe that one of us did something during the initial install which was causing the problem. We then installed Kubuntu, which wouldn't configure a driver for his invidia card and we got a screen full of multi-colored lines. I then put the MEPIS CD into the drive and rebooted and this time it loaded and we continued with the install. It went flawlessly. We are now both running MEPIS and are logged onto our network, something we could never manage to do with SUSE. I am so glad that the formation of MicroVell provided me with the poke I needed to finally dump SUSE and install MEPIS.

Thank you Jon and thank you MEPIS!
neubu

Great news neubuseternus! I'm glad I was able to help you and your friend. I hope that you have lots of fun and learn lots of good stuff. Let us know if we can be of any more assistance.

You realize of course, that if things continue this well, then you shall eventually have to change your name to something like geekuspotensus

Jon