Installer CD issue, and installation finishes but doesn't install grub

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Installer CD issue, and installation finishes but doesn't install grub

(15 posts) (7 voices)

Started 11 years ago by mat619
Latest reply from Jan
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mat619

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Member

Hey there,

I tried to install 4.0 on my girlfriends' old crappy Gericom laptop (Celeron M, 512 MB RAM) from CD yesterday, since its BIOS can't boot from USB devices other than floppy, and encountered a number of problems:
First the installer comes as far as starting the installation process, but then complains after a few seconds that it couldn't mount /dev/cdrom (what exactly does it think it was loaded from?!). So far so bad, but I happened to have a 4.0 live stick around, so I used that as install source. That worked, the install completed, no errors - but I was left with an empty boot sector: Grub just didn't install, even though the box in the installer was checked and it reported success installing in the log!

Any hints how to fix that? My only idea would be that grub wasn't installed on /dev/hda (the IDE HDD) but rather on /dev/sda (the USB thumbdrive), but since you can't select where to put grub in the installer, I've no clue how to work around that if it really were the case.

Kind regards & thanks in advance,
Matt

Posted 11 years ago #
gdesilva

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Member

Did you try "grub-install /dev/hda" (as root, of course)?

Posted 11 years ago #
Trixar_za

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Key Master

Did you format the drive to ext3?

Posted 11 years ago #
mat619

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Member
To follow up on the CD issue: Yesterday suddenly installing from CD worked two times, then not for a few times again...
```
Warning: /dev/cdrom: Mount failed
Error 3 Invalid source
```
@gdesilva:
Yes, I did. Resulted in:
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.

Just for fun I tried...
grub-install --root-device /media/disk /dev/hda
... which resulted in "/boot: No such file or directory".

That made me curious, so I took a look into the mounted /dev/hda1, where I installed Slitaz on several times before, and what the heck:
```
root@slitaz:/home/tux# ls -al /media/disk/
total 20
drwxr-xr-x   3 root   root   4096 Nov 21 21:51 .
drwxr-xr-x   6 root   root    160 Nov 22 06:39 ..
drwx------   2 root   root   16384 Nov 21 21:51 lost+found
```
Well how did that happen, several installation attempts in a row, and not a single file of Slitaz to be seen on the HDD?!

@Trixar_za:
First ext4, then tried ext3. Didn't lead to any different result.
Posted 11 years ago #
gdesilva

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Member

@mat619, I had a similar experience with an old Toshiba laptop where I could not boot using LiveCD. Tried all sorts of things but nothing worked and then I used the proverbial sledge hammer approach - took the HDD out and installed Slitaz on it using another machine. This is of course slightly different to your situation but it is an option you may want to try.

If your machine will let you boot from LiveCD, then another option may be to download and install unetbootin (you need to install mtools and p7zip-full packages also) and try to install Slitaz using unetbootin.

Probably not the answer you are looking for but thought of mentioning this just in case.

Posted 11 years ago #
mat619

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Member

@gdesilva: No, this is not really a possible solution for me, since I have no other laptop using IDE HDDs around at the moment and I want a regular, full install, not a live system put on the harddrive. But thanks for the input, if all else fails this will probably be the last straw.

Posted 11 years ago #
Anonymous

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Unregistered

Hi mat619

Judging by the specs, that machine will not read cdrw discs, if that is what you tried, best burn an ordinary cdrom. If it doesn't like your drives after trying that, I would remove & re insert the drives a couple of times to clean the contact areas, in case it's just old age & dirty contacts.

I'm new to this distro, (yesterday), but I burned to a dvd-r & used that to create a live pendrive, so I guess the distro works OK.

HTH

Posted 11 years ago #
mat619

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Member

Hi HTH,

don't wanna be rude, but did you really read what I wrote in my original post? I mentioned the machine can't boot from USBs, and that I therefore burned a CD to start the installation process running it from that.
The problem regarding the CD that is mentioned in the thread title originated from the installer complaining it couldn't mount the CD - even though the whole system has been booted from that very CD.

No offense, really, I just don't like it if people only read the thread title, but not the post itself.

Matt

Posted 11 years ago #
mojo

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Key Master

I always run Check media from orange menu to verify file integrity and ability of optical drive to read disc.
The issue is the installer is unable to mount the cd to SOURCE_ROOT which is /media/source
All operations as root user:
Make mount point directory for SOURCE_ROOT:
mkdir -p /media/source
Find cdrom drive name with this command:
cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info | grep "drive name" | cut -f 3
mount -t iso9660 /dev/drive name /media/source
Verify cdrom is mounted:
ls /media/source
README boot index.html md5sum style.css
Rerun install.
If that fails copy iso to a flash drive,plug-in/mount flash drive with iso in laptop.
Provide full path to slitaz iso on mounted flash drive for install source.
Rerun install.

Posted 11 years ago #
Anonymous

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Unregistered

@mat619
Yes I read your post more than twice; not very clear what you did & what didn't work.

I'll try not to offer you my help in future.

Posted 11 years ago #
mat619

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Member

@fatmac:
As I said, sorry, no offense intended, and I'm always glad for help but I thought my post was quite understandable:
I wrote "I tried to install 4.0 [...] from CD yesterday [...] and encountered a number of problems:
First the installer comes as far as starting the installation process [...]", which states clearly that I had the live system up and running since I was able to run the installer.
That's why I couldn't really understand why you thought the machine wouldn't even boot and were a little irritated.

@mojo:
That sounds promising, thanks, will try all of this. Do I have to redefine SOURCE_ROOT, or does it already point to /media/source?

Posted 11 years ago #
mojo

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Key Master

@mat619
SOURCE_ROOT=/media/source is predefined in /usr/bin/tazinst
tazpanel/Installer is cgi front end for /usr/bin/tazinst
leafpad which tazinst
Options/Line_Numbers
Line 30 => SOURCE_ROOT=/media/source
The instructions for mounting cdrom are from:
Line 382->385

Documentation for tazinst :
Offline:
Xsession
Applications/Documentation/TazInst Manual
Console
man tazinst
Online:
http://hg.slitaz.org/slitaz-tools/raw-file/bc51645286a4/doc/tazinst.en.html

Posted 11 years ago #
Jan

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Member

Hi, same problem: Error 3 Invalid source when trying to install from CD room to HDD.

Tried to find the CD rom drive with (mojo advise):

cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info | grep "drive name" | cut -f 3
hdd

Then with

mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdd/media/source
mount: can't find /dev/hdd/media/source in etc/fstab

Please note this is my first time install! I appreciate a step-by-step approach.

Thanks, Jan

Posted 11 years ago #
Aleksej

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Coder-hobbyist
Jan,
I can't help you more. Just see one error: you mixed up two paths into one:
```
mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdd/media/source
```
Must be
```
mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdd /media/source
```
Posted 11 years ago #
Jan

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Member

Thanks, found the problem.

I have two cdroms, hdd did not work but hdc did work.

Jan

Posted 11 years ago #

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