Switching from xp (that has worked fine) to Linux got me into a major trouble: First, I installed Ubuntu that didn’t reboot. After a forced rebooting, it failed to recognize the CD-ROM. I installed then openSUSE that worked fine, except the broadcom wireless (and NDIVIA graphic) card. Several attempts to configure the wireless failed and the reboot problem returned. So I tried to reinstall openSUSE, but the installation broke down and now the system wouldn’t boot at all. I got the “grub rescue>” prompt. “ls” provides (hd0) (hd0, msdos1, 2, 3 and 5) (hd1) (hd1,msdos1, 2, and 3), but insmod with anything I tried provides only “unknown filesystem”. How can I resuscitate the system, wipe clean the hard drive and install the OS anew? I am new to Linux, so if you can help, please by step-by-step instructions.
On 2014-01-05 23:16, mgl wrote:
>
> Switching from xp (that has worked fine) to Linux got me into a major
> trouble: First, I installed Ubuntu that didn’t reboot. After a forced
> rebooting, it failed to recognize the CD-ROM. I installed then openSUSE
> that worked fine, except the broadcom wireless (and NDIVIA graphic)
> card. Several attempts to configure the wireless failed and the reboot
> problem returned. So I tried to reinstall openSUSE, but the installation
> broke down and now the system wouldn’t boot at all. I got the “grub
> rescue>” prompt. “ls” provides (hd0) (hd0, msdos1, 2, 3 and 5) (hd1)
> (hd1,msdos1, 2, and 3), but insmod with anything I tried provides only
> “unknown filesystem”. How can I resuscitate the system, wipe clean the
> hard drive and install the OS anew? I am new to Linux, so if you can
> help, please by step-by-step instructions.
Just boot the installation media, and when it asks where to install,
tell it to use the entire disk - assuming that you do not have anything
at all on that disk that you want to keep.
If you do want to keep things, well, then we will need details of what
you have, what you can destroy, what you want to destroy - based on the
output of “fdisk -l” from a Linux live system.
Mind: there is the possibility that your hard disk is old and has bad
sectors. This would be bad news.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Carlos, unfortunately, I cannot boot: Interrupting the boot process by F1 gives me 3 boot options: From SATA0, SATA3, or onboard or USB CD-ROM (as I have 2 hard drives). The last one, however, gives an error message: “selected boot device is not available, strike F1 to retry, F2 to setup and F5 to debug.” I ran into he same problem when I tried re-installing Ubuntu, but I was still able to access the CD-ROM and install the OS with the openSUSE DVD in the drive. Now I have the same problem with openSUSE and booting from the HD gives me the grub prompt. Thanks, M
On 2014-01-06 14:36, mgl wrote:
> Carlos, unfortunately, I cannot boot: Interrupting the boot process by
> F1 gives me 3 boot options: From SATA0, SATA3, or onboard or USB CD-ROM
> (as I have 2 hard drives). The last one, however, gives an error
> message: “selected boot device is not available, strike F1 to retry, F2
> to setup and F5 to debug.” I ran into he same problem when I tried
> re-installing Ubuntu, but I was still able to access the CD-ROM and
> install the OS with the openSUSE DVD in the drive. Now I have the same
> problem with openSUSE and booting from the HD gives me the grub prompt.
If you can not boot from external media, there is very little that can
be done.
If your machine is recent enough, it can boot from USB sticks, and that
is the preferred option. You can create a boot stick using the
downloaded openSUSE image using the instructions at
http://software.opensuse.org/131/en
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Download_help
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installation_help
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Carlos, I have no idea what happened, but I was able to reinstall openSUSE 13.1 from the dvd (i.e., I didn’t need the stick). Now I am concerned not to screw it up again, as the reboot problem and the crash was due to monkeying around with the wireless without understanding what I was doing. At this point I need advise how to get my broadcom 43222 and the NVIDIA G98 [GeForce 9300 GE] cards working. The latter is for the dual display that the system apparently recognizes, but is not working, as I guess the driver is missing. M
On 2014-01-07 02:06, mgl wrote:
> Carlos, I have no idea what happened, but I was able to reinstall
> openSUSE 13.1 from the dvd (i.e., I didn’t need the stick). Now I am
> concerned not to screw it up again, as the reboot problem and the crash
> was due to monkeying around with the wireless without understanding what
> I was doing. At this point I need advise how to get my broadcom 43222
> and the NVIDIA G98 [GeForce 9300 GE] cards working. The latter is for
> the dual display that the system apparently recognizes, but is not
> working, as I guess the driver is missing. M
Ok, each are different questions that must be asked separately 
First, there is a wireless network forum here, with a few stickies. You
have to read them, apply, and in doubt, ask in that forum. I think the
stickies or faqs tell you what information they need.
If you don’t have it clear, ask them
And, about the video, well, there is a wiki page at openSUSE that
explain an “easy” way and a “hard” way:
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA
I use the easy way. Basically, you add the nvidia repo from the list of
community repos in yast, and it automatically adds the appropriate
packages if your card is on the list.
Again, if you don’t understand the doc, ask, but in the install-login
subforum here.
Each time give your question an appropriate tittle so that the people
that know about that subject can easily find it and help you.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
I resolved both, the wireless and the graphic driver problem. With the system now up and running, I have the problem of software installations. In particular, after a few failed installations, the system slowed down noticeably. Any suggestion how to troubleshoot the problem? Maybe I started background processes that should be killed permanently. How can I identify and remove them?
On 2014-01-10 04:46, mgl wrote:
> I resolved both, the wireless and the graphic driver problem. With the
> system now up and running, I have the problem of software installations.
> In particular, after a few failed installations, the system slowed down
> noticeably. Any suggestion how to troubleshoot the problem? Maybe I
> started background processes that should be killed permanently. How can
> I identify and remove them?
Well… Typical candidates are:
A process taking a lot of cpu. This can be found, for example, by
running “top” in a terminal. The busiest processes are at the top of the
list, with the percent of cpu they use.
Another candidate is a process not taking a lot of cpu, but crawling the
disk to find out what you have stored in there, so that you can later
quickly search for files either by name or by content. These are more
difficult to locate. I’m sleepy now, I don’t remember if there is an app
to find them out easily.
Another one could be that the graphics are complex to draw and you are
not using the proprietary nvidia driver. Worst case would be that you
were using the framebuffer or vesa fallbacks.
In any case, it is usually best to start a new thread specifying in the
title that your system is too slow.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Carlos, this is part of the learning curve: The sluggishness turned out to be the result of replacing my Dell wired mouse by a Logitech wireless one. It has never been a problem with Windows. Do I need a keyboard/mouse driver for Linux? How about bluetooth keyboard/mouse? Thanks, M
On 2014-01-11 02:26, mgl wrote:
> Carlos, this is part of the learning curve: The sluggishness turned out
> to be the result of replacing my Dell wired mouse by a Logitech wireless
> one. It has never been a problem with Windows. Do I need a
> keyboard/mouse driver for Linux? How about bluetooth keyboard/mouse?
Ugh. I would stay away of anything bluetooth in 13.1, for the moment.
KDE is broken regarding bluetooth on this release, and this is explained
in the release notes. Today I learned that it is also broken on XFCE
(and the release notes say nothing about this). It works in Gnome, they say.
I have never used bluetooth mouse or keyboards, so I can not guide you
on how to use them.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Carlos, never mind the Bluetooth, as I can live with wired keyboard and mouse. However, I am wondering whether my Logitech USB M510 mouse and Y-R0015 Keyboard would have a dedicated driver for 13.1, as these are pretty standard. Thanks, M
On 2014-01-13 17:56, mgl wrote:
> Carlos, never mind the Bluetooth, as I can live with wired keyboard and
> mouse. However, I am wondering whether my Logitech USB M510 mouse and
> Y-R0015 Keyboard would have a dedicated driver for 13.1, as these are
> pretty standard. Thanks, M
Sorry, I don’t know that. Have you tried them?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Pairing with Solaar (http://software.opensuse.org/package/Solaar) did the trick, but only the keyboard is working properly, as the mouse is still sluggish.
Carlos, a brand new problem: I tried to mount windows drives following this description: http://www.tweakhound.com/2013/12/01/opensuse-13-1-tips-tricks-and-tweaks/ I substituted the red names by my values, except the “default” in the fstab. It didn’t work and now after rebooting the system wouldn’t start, as the new windows partition causes some conflicts. I get an error message at boot time and don’t know how to recover. Any suggestion other than reinstalling? Thanks, M
On 2014-01-15 03:36, mgl wrote:
>
> Carlos, a brand new problem: I tried to mount windows drives following
> this description: http://tinyurl.com/kb8he2c I substituted the red names
> by my values, except the “default” in the fstab. It didn’t work and now
> after rebooting the system wouldn’t start, as the new windows partition
> causes some conflicts. I get an error message at boot time and don’t
> know how to recover. Any suggestion other than reinstalling? Thanks, M
Well, you have to boot any rescue CD you have available, mount the
system partition, edit that fstab file, and write a ‘#’ at the start of
those new lines you wrote. This disables them.
When you edit fstab, do not reboot. Try mounting that new entries you
add first. If there is an error, the system will not boot.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Please don’t forget that I am a novice! The installation disk got me into rescue mode. What is the mount command, if I installed the standard partitions given by the installation disk? Then how do I find the right fstab file? (I never used vi, but I can look it up to change it.) Muchas gracias, M
On 2014-01-15 15:56, mgl wrote:
> Please don’t forget that I am a novice! The installation disk got me
> into rescue mode. What is the mount command, if I installed the standard
> partitions given by the installation disk? Then how do I find the right
> fstab file? (I never used vi, but I can look it up to change it.) Muchas
> gracias, M
Well, you said you edited fstab yourself. You have to try it out before
rebooting!
Suppese you added this line to fstab:
/dev/somedivece /mnt/mountpoint sometype someoptions x y
Well, you have to try on a terminal:
sudo -v /mnt/mountpoint
If it works, then you can reboot. If it doesn’t work, correct the line
and try again, comment it out, or remove the line - otherwise your
system will not reboot.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Carlos, I am lost, as after I mounted the windows drive at the HPFS/NTFS point as recommended by the TweakHound website, I added these two lines to the fstab:
/dev/disk/by-id/XXXYYY-part2 /home/tweakhound/windows/backups ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/XXXXXX-part1 /home/tweakhound/windows/docs ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
First, I don’t understand what it did, and second, I suspect that the first “defaults” is a variable that I should have substituted by my own value, but no have idea what it would be. In this case what are the steps after I get the rescue prompt?
Thanks, Michael
On 2014-01-16 16:46, mgl wrote:
>
> Carlos, I am lost, as after I mounted the windows drive at the HPFS/NTFS
> point as recommended by the TweakHound website, I added these two lines
> to the fstab:
A comment.
Please use code tags for printouts and commands (the ‘#’ button in the
forum editor).
View this post and the next
I’ll redo your entries here.
> /dev/disk/by-id/XXXYYY-part2 /home/tweakhound/windows/backups ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
> /dev/disk/by-id/XXXXXX-part1 /home/tweakhound/windows/docs ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
First, I don’t understand what it did, and second, I suspect that the
first “defaults” is a variable that I should have substituted by my own
value,
No.
Actually, the “defaults” above does absolutely nothing. It is used when
you have no option to write, and then you fill the space where the
options would go with “defaults”:
>
> /dev/disk/by-id/XXXXXX-part1 /home/tweakhound/windows/docs ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
The lines are basically correct, but the device (the first “word”) must
exist, and the mount point (the second word) must be an empty directory.
The rest is correct as it is.
If those parts do not point to the actual device and mount points,
booting will crash. If the partition indicated as the device is not of
the correct type (ntfs in this case), boot will also crash.
but no have idea what it would be. In this case what are the
steps after I get the rescue prompt?
Just edit /etc/fstab. I suggest you use:
joe /etc/fstab.
and add a ‘#’ character at the start of those two lines you modified,
like this:
> #/dev/disk/by-id/XXXYYY-part2 /home/tweakhound/windows/backups ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
> #/dev/disk/by-id/XXXXXX-part1 /home/tweakhound/windows/docs ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
Notice: if you see a “>” symbol at the left of the lines inside my CODE
sections, please ignore them. It is a side-product of how I post and I
can not avoid it. Don’t write that char into fstab!
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
I would say, just remove those 2 lines again (or put a ‘#’ at the beginning of both) then your system should boot again.
Then, those directories marked in blue by me have to exist.
You said you copied this from the “Tweakhound” website. But is your username actually tweakhound? I guess you just copied that verbatim without changing anything.
So if your username is “mgl” f.e., those should read /home/mgl/windows/backups and /home/mgl/windows/docs respectively. But again, you would have to create those directories first.
And another question is, do you really have /dev/disk/by-id/XXXYYY-part2 and /dev/disk/by-id/XXXXXX-part1 in the fstab? That won’t work of course.
You would have to replace those with your real partition ids or device names.
I think the easiest would be to just use YaST->System->Partitioner to create those fstab entries… 