Mepis Won't run from CD on laptop
Hello all,
When I got my new laptop the mepis 3.3.1 disk would not boot. It would only go to a grub prompt. A seach of this site suggested using eg Smart Boot Manager or similar. This did not work for me.
After much trial and error I found this solution (see below) to work for me. I am posting it in case it will help others.
This solution used Knoppix 3.7 disk
1) Start Knoppix when the splash screen comes up - press F3
2) Remove the CD and replace with the Mepis disk
3) At the boot prompt type:
/boot/vmlinuz2 initrd=/boot/initrd.gz
4) Hit return to start Mepis vmlinuz2 can be replaced with vmlinuz depending on kernel
John Lewis
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Good Solution!
John, good solution to the problem! What are the stats on the laptop because I'm wondering why Mepis was able to get to the GRUB prompts, but go no further?
Jon
Laptop stats.
Hello Jon, The laptop is a Metabox made in china. 60gb hd 1.5 celeron processor,DVD drive. No documentation. came with xp installed and no xp disk but instead a ghost image of the installed drive. Did have a Ms "licence sticker"
I have seen mention by others of the same problem. You insert the cd and hit enter and it goes straight to a grub prompt.
If I use smart boot loader as others have sucessfully done I get "no operating system" error
I believe it must be something to do with grub as I think Knoppix uses Lilo. Then again it may be an anomoly in the dvd drive.
I'm wondering if I can istall Mepis alongside xp and have it run. I'll try later as there is nothing yet to lose on the laptop except reinstall time if it goes to "grubs".
John Lewis
Laptop Stats
Thanks John for the info. We can always use documentation on "unusual" hardware
I'm wondering, once you get some version of Linux running on it, even if using a Live CD version like Knoppix, you might check the hard drive partitioning. I'm wondering if there might be a "repair" or "help" partition installed when the system is built from the ghost image. I think Dell and Sony are famous for having a "don't delete this partition" partition and I'm wondering if that might be causing some grief on bootup 'cause that's the real startup partition. Just a guess on my part...
Jon
more laptop stsats
Hello Jon,
Just checked the laptop drive with Qparted. It shows the following.
Hda Partition /dev/hda1 Type NTFS Status active size 55.93GB used 4.46GB start .03mb end 55.93 GB
Partition Partition table status empty Label table
So perhaps this Hdc although it seems empty is the problem.
I didn't think though that the hd would have any effect when booting and running from the CD.
The Laptop has 512mb ram
John Lewis
Actually...
Hey John!
Well according to the partition info, it is 60GB but 55GB is being used. So the drive is almost full and it's only a single partition formatted for ntfs.
Drive /dev/hdc is your CD-ROM drive so it will automatically be mounted read-only. It will be from here that Mepis gets loaded to /dev/hda, the real hard drive
I think you'll need to get rid of some of the sh-- (stuff) from ntfs. Can you log into XP and delete heavily and then do a defrag? You'll then need to shrink the partition down so that it has room for Mepis and a swap area. That's assuming that you want a dual-boot system. If you don't need/want a dual-boot, then you can just blow the drive away
Let us know what you plan to do.
Jon
Partition Info
I think you may have misread my post Jon. Probably my poor explanation.
As I read it only a bit over 4Gb has been used. The laptop is new and I've not yet used it at all other than to try running Mepis from the CD.
I've not loaded anything at all yet.
John Lewis
I Stand Corrected
Thanks John for clarifying. Wow, a new install of Win XP that takes up only 4GB! I'm impressed
Well that gives you plenty of room to install a real operating system
Jon