Then it requires a power off and reboot to an operating system not found error. This is 13.1 KDE on a ThinkPad A31p with remanufactured hardware whereas Windows XP Pro was functioning perfectly beforehand.
I am d/l’ing the distro again and will burn to a different media tonight to eliminate that as an error however, I was curious if anyone had seen such an error before and what a possible resolution may be but for what I am doing now. I had a similar error with Ubuntu on my present Linux box where it just would not install which, coincidentally, is why I’m on OpenSUSE 13.1 now with this present box. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Basically you could use your live session to take control of what has been installed. Mount the partitions as shown
Become chroot
Then run the grub installation
Aha! There was a READ error on my new DVD so I’m using a different machine and program to make it again. Am seeing something of a slight hang around the check for Linux partitions section of the install that has been concerning me and I’m seeing it again with this new media but it could be normal in the process. Once I see the complete process through to the end I’ll know if it was just the media OR if it was the d/l of the distro file, which I am beginning to suspect. There was trouble with the primary d/l site this afternoon which seems now to have cleared but I get suspicious when I see those types of events.
Your suggest procedure seems a bit over my head but with the instructions I may be able to accomplish the install in that manner but I’m so anal retentive that I like the process to complete successfully making me feel much better about it. I’ll get back after a while to advise of my progress and thank you for your time.
something of a slight hang around the check for Linux partitions section of the install
I have seen this in 12.3 installs, but only some, usually where more than one HDD were in place. But it only ever happened on some installation I did.
Not seen this at all on 13.1 yet.
Well, I’m again at the same point of the stall right at 72% where the kernel-default is being installed. I’m thinking that the d/l’d distro file is the problem and will try again tomorrow.
The installation routine will proceed to about 97% from here but at a real slow pace and then drop to a dead system as mentioned earlier. I am frustrated and going to bed now and will try it later. Thanks for the hand holding.
Do you have a floppy drive?
If not, disable it in the BIOS settings if possible.
Otherwise the installer might try to access the non-existing drive, which can cause long hangs until it times out.
OTOH, such hangs can also happen if your hard drive has bad blocks (i.e. it is dying). That would also explain the system freezes you asked about in the other thread.
Try to check the SMART data by booting to a LiveCD (or the Rescue system on the installation DVD) and issuing:
Well, it failed at exactly the same spot as before and I suspect that I will find a media error of exactly the same kind as before. So, I’m of the opinion that the d/l’d installation file is the problem.
No, no floppy drive, only a CD/DVD drive in the laptop bay. The hard drive is only a few months old and was working perfectly on the Windows XP installation as it had been since I remanufactured it a couple of months ago with a new motherboard, etc.
And, this is a second machine that I had lying around which I wanted to bring up with Linux seeing the success I had had with the old box I’m presently working on. Still haven’t gotten the niggles out of it but I’m planning on reinstalling it once I get the laptop up and running.
My question is how does one look for error reports of broken installation d/l files of the nature which I am experiencing? I’m going to again run a media check to verify my suspicions and will report back once done. Thanks for your suggestions.
Well, well well. The installation media is without errors so it looks like I’m going to have to manually perform the GRUB2 procedure outlined yesterday for me. I’m creating the KDE Live CD just now and should have it available shortly. We’ll see what happens and if I am able to follow instructions and get this done for my laptop.
OK, I’ve booted to the KDE Live CD now and it is telling me that I’m running low on /home disk space, only 173MB left. But I don’t know what to do at this point or how to do it. Could you help again please?
Yes, that’s exactly what can cause problems.
The BIOS may tell the kernel there is a floppy drive even though there is none, but trying to access the non-existing drive causes long hangs.
So again, check your BIOS settings if there is a possibility to disable the floppy drive, or try to add the following to the boot options when booting from the installation DVD:
brokenmodules=floppy
And it cannot harm to check the hard disk’s SMART state as I suggested before.
Sorry to have you repeat the instructions. I thought I was going to have to enlarge the /home partition is why I asked for help. I’m booting again to the Live CD and will follow your instructions to see if I can get the boot loader reinstalled. Wonder why this failed on this machine this way?
No. It’s just the LiveCD’s /home partition that is “too small”.
Well, I wanted to repeat the instructions anyway, since they are not 100% correct for 13.1. “mount /proc” and “mount /sys” as written there will not work with 13.1 anymore because /proc and /sys is not in the /etc/fstab any longer.
My above post was for the running of the SMART utility that you suggested.
OK, I’m running the boot to hard drive now and just saw an error: Fast TSC calibration FAILED. Not sure what that means but I’m now into the Automatic Configuration process and it’s proceeding along what appears to be nicely. And am now at the desktop. Am awaiting a reboot to see if things have been cobbled together well.
I’ve just applied the one new update and will see what happens on this next reboot. What would happen if I were to again try to reinstall from the media since GRUB2 has been installed now? Would the installation complete properly? I’m just that way about liking things to proceed normally without having to intercede and making things happen like this reinstallation of the boot loader.
