can't boot...please help!!!

[drew_lucky_13]

I recently had MDK 8.0 on my machine, a friend of mine gave me the disc. But recently bought my own copy of MDK 8.1. Since I knew nothing about Linux when I installed 8.0 (and I feel like I don't know much more now), I decided to completely start over when I put 8.1 on my machine.
So I went through the installation, I erased the hard disk, repartitioned, reformatted, and reinstalled. Now when I boot up, when it gets to the part where it's an image in the middle of the screen and a few smaller ones below it (I don't know what this part of the boot up is, I'm not to good with the terminology yet.) But now it shows a little face with a frown on it (right around the time it displays "starting HardDrak," I don't know if that means anything.) Then it goes to a more text like screen with a pengiun at the top left and some text below it. And it just flashes this screen and doesn't do anything else.
Does anyone know what this is? I don't know what to do. I've tried reinstalling about 20 times doing something alittle bit different each time, but I can't seem to figure it out.

[error27]

Doesn't mandrake have a text boot option?

It may be called "advanced" or something like that... I'm not sure.

Try booting up that way and then copy the last couple lines of what it says and post them here.

Also you could try creating a boot disk and booting from that. That may have a text boot up also...

[drew_lucky_13]

Ok this may be a stupid question...

If I make a boot disk, does that mean I would have to have the floppy to bootup?

Also, I have three partitions as it is:

/, swap, and /home

When I started the install, '/' was set as hda1 and had note, something like,

"partition used for boot (boot for MS-DOS, not for lilo)"

So I deleted it, made it and extended partition (hda5), reformatted it, and it got rid of the 'not for lilo' note. But that didn't seem to do anything either.

I guess my question is, What type of partitions (ie. primary, extended) do I need to make.

I'm not running anything else on my machine, so there is nothing else taking up space.

[paulster]

When you say flashing do you mean you see something like:

localhost login: - < and the dash is flashing?>

If so when you installed you would have entered a root password and most likely a user password.

To log in at localhost login: - enter root then press enter it should now display Password: now enter your password. you should now be logged into root.

If the install was with X if you now type startx -- :1(That is a space two dashes and a space between the x and : ) or just startx I think then press enter it should start the default gui, say kde for example.

If you remember having created a user and remember its password use it instead of root for in root you can do a lot of damage. To log into a user its the same as above just substitute the word root for the users name you created and then enter the password.

[ 05 December 2001: Message edited by: paulster ]

[ 05 December 2001: Message edited by: paulster ]

[ 05 December 2001: Message edited by: paulster ]

[slapNUT]

But now it shows a little face with a frown on it (right around the time it displays "starting HardDrak," I don't
know if that means anything.) Then it goes to a more text like screen with a pengiun at the top left and some text below it. And it just flashes
this screen and doesn't do anything else.

Is is the ugliest penguin you ever saw before? If so then I would agree with paulster you are probably at the level 3 login.

The frown you see at harddrake probably means you have some hardware that is causing a problem at boot. You can probably view /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog and get more information about how your boot went.

[drew_lucky_13]

When I say flashing...I mean the whole screen flashes and I can't do anything.

when I had 8.0 on my machine everything was okay. And i could get to the login screen. But now it doesn't even get that far.

I don't think there is anything wrong with any of my hardware (except my modem, b/c it's a winmodem...i plan on buying a hardware modem) because everything was cool with 8.0. I think I have something wrong with my partitioning (but that's just a newbie guess.)

Does anyone know what it means when the whole screen flashes before it gets to the login?

[error27]

At this point I'm totally confused.

When did you make the changes to the lilo.conf? After it stopped being able to boot up? Before it the problem started? Why did you make these changes if it was working???

These flashing penguins and frowny faces are not really enough to describe the problem fully.

I don't use mandrake myself but can some one tell me if there is a way to see the actual kernel boot messages instead of flying penguins all over the place? Mandrake users?

[drew_lucky_13]

I'm sorry my descriptions are kinda bad...okay really bad. I don't mean to be a pain. Sorry about being confusing error27.

I'm currently reading "running Linux" to improve my knowledge.

This might help.
Here's the events in chronological order:
1. have MDK 8.0 on my machine (everything seemed to run okay, but i didn't really understand what i was doing when i installed it...especially the part about the partitioning the drive)
2. so i buy MDK 8.1
3. install 8.1 (in the process, erase hard drive inorder to start from scratch)
4. install successful (so it seems)
5. attempt first boot
6. bios crap comes up
7. then a text screen, Linux is enabling things
8. then a graffics screen, says welcome in about 5 million langauges
9. then another graffics screen, this is where the sad face comes in
10. back to another text screen, this is the one with the penguin taking up the top left quadrant

This is the screen it gets stuck at and the whole screen flashes. There is some text below the penguin, I don't know what it is because it's flashing. But I think Linux is enabling more stuff. Then next should be the lilo graffical login screen but it never shows up.

Is there any Mandrake user that has any idea what I'm talking about?

[DMR]

...the part where it's an image in the middle of the screen and a few smaller ones below itThat is Aurora, Mandrake's graphical front-end to init. What it is doing is showing you the progress of the system initialization. Unfortunately, the text version of the process is usually more helpful in that you can see exactly where in the boot process the system chokes.

You've obviously got some major problem in your configuration, but it's hard to tell without some concrete error messages to go on. Try to start from your boot floppy and have a look at /var/log/messages to see if there are any clues there. If this is a fresh install, you might want to just reinstall again, paying careful attention to what you do at each step of the process (write it all down.).

If it still bombs, repost with as much specific information as possible. Be sure to include your full system specs (CPU type, RAM, video card, etc.), as it sounds like you have a hardware conflict.

[ 05 December 2001: Message edited by: DMR ]

[slapNUT]

OK you are stuck trying to get into run level 5.

If you have a graphical LILO prompt then press <Esc>
At your LILO boot prompt you need to type this:
linux single

This will get you to a point where you can edit /etc/inittab.

You'll need to need to use vi to edit the file as Mandrake by default does not install pico. So type this at prompt:
vi /etc/inittab

Now look for a line similar to this near the start of the file:
id::initdefault:5
NOTE: this is a guess as I am at work now and don't know the exact syntax of that line. Put your cursor after the 5 then <backspace> over the 5, now press <Insert> key and type 3. Now hit <Ctrl>+<c> now type :wq

The line should look like this:
id::initdefault:3

Don't be offended by the step-by-step on vi, the reason I did that is that it's a hard editor to use if you are fresh off the Notepad train.

[drew_lucky_13]

Could someone explain what this run level 3 or 5 stuff is? Acouple of people have mentioned this but i don't know what it is.

[crokett]

Originally posted by drew_lucky_13:
<STRONG>Could someone explain what this run level 3 or 5 stuff is? Acouple of people have mentioned this but i don't know what it is.</STRONG>

Linux has 6 different run levels 1-6. 1 is single user, prompt only, no network, basically the recovery run-level. 6 is halted (machine stopped). 3 is normal boot without x support (your windows stuff) 5 is normal boot with x support. 4 is for you to decide what you want to start and stop. 2 is single user w/network support. Linux uses a file called /etc/inittab. Among other things there is a default runlevel in it that you probably have set to 5. there is a line in it neear the top that looks like:


id:5:initdefault:

The number is your default run level. To keep from starting X automatically you can change that to 3. If you are getting far enough at boot, you can boot to run level 1 by entering "linux single" at the lilo prompt on boot. if you have text lilo, it should give you a "lilo" prompt with a blinking cursor. hit tab, then type linux single. if you have a graphical lilo, it will list the options you have to boot (mine are linux and dos). I can either choose one of those, or hit esc, then enther "linux single" to get to run level 1. That will leave a lot of services/devices not starting so one of those may be the problem. If it still won't boot to single user mode you have a problem with the install. If you can get to single user mode, check /var/log for the boot.log and messages files. They may indicate what is going wrong.

[drew_lucky_13]

okay...when i got to the blinking pengiun this time I typed "linux single" (i don't know if this was the place to type it but i did)

anyway...apparently it is saying

"INIT: Id "x" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes"

when it is blinking

but it let me login, momentarily. so i got to a command line, but i'm not very good with the terminal. does anyone know what the "respawning too fast" thing is?