SliTaz Forum

olpink

Member

Registered: 2012-02-07

Posts: 2

Slitaz won't boot

Brand new fresh installation. Laptop boots, GRUB loads fine, one option:

"SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz)"

Choose this. Laptop displays:

Booting 'SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz)'

root hd(0,0)

Filesystem time is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz root=/dev/hda1

[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x3000, size=0x21a850]

And hangs.

Sounds very similar to this problem: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-kernel-70/machine-hangs-on-boot-kernel-or-initrd-not-loaded-747650/ but I can't find a suitable initrd.img installed, and there are no BIOS options I can change that make any effect.

Quick fix, please?

Trixar_za

Administrator

Registered: 2011-03-29

Posts: 1,506

Re: Slitaz won't boot

All the grub entry doesn't tell us that you installed SliTaz 3 and that you probably booted in with the LiveCD and used the installer. This probably means your system has atleast 192MB of RAM.

The trouble is that we need to know where it hangs to figure out what might be causing it. What is the last thing it shows on screen before it hangs? Could you also tell us your system specs and how it's setup? Do you more than one Hard drive or partition on the Hard drive? Did you install SliTaz on an ext3 formatted disk or partition?

olpink

Member

Registered: 2012-02-07

Posts: 2

Re: Slitaz won't boot

Booting 'SliTaz GNU/Linux (cooking) (Kernel vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz)'

root hd(0,0)

Filesystem time is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz root=/dev/hda1

[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x3000, size=0x21a850]

is the last thing displayed before hang.

Installed on the first partition of a freshly formatted hard drive. Made a tiny 200MB swap file afterwards.

relic_tinkerer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-17

Posts: 6

Re: Slitaz won't boot

I had something like this happen to me too, and I think it was because I mistyped the root command.

In this case, make sure the "hd" is inside the parentheses:

root (hd0,0)

Also, in the root= option, I've been finding that Slitaz (and the 2.6 kernel in general) likes to call drives "sd" instead of "hd", so if you run into a problem with root=/dev/hda1, try root=/dev/sda1

Trixar_za

Administrator

Registered: 2011-03-29

Posts: 1,506

Re: Slitaz won't boot

That is probably bad advice. Stick to hd instead of sd. SliTaz uses the prior while most new distros uses the latter. My guess, since our friend doesn't to give any information beyond grub entries, is that he has two partitions or harddisks and installed it on the second one. Either way, SliTaz's grub expects to be on the first drive and first partition. If it's not, it won't boot.

relic_tinkerer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-17

Posts: 6

Re: Slitaz won't boot

Interesting - on my own Slitaz installations (one VM and one ancient laptop), they've both had their drives labeled "sd". But then, I've only used 3.0, whereas the OP is using "cooking", so I can't speak to the newest version. In any case, I agree that "hda1" should be the first attempt, and only suggest using "sda1" instead IF it has problems booting with "hda1".

But the immediate issue is the hang, and for that, I stand by my suggestion that the root syntax may be an issue. Assuming olpink is correct in the assertion that it's installed on the first partition, I believe that it will need to be: "root (hd0,0)" instead of "root hd(0,0)".

tzontag

Member

Registered: 2012-03-29

Posts: 3

Re: Slitaz won't boot

It wont boot at all...I tried it on 2 different computers and a virtual machine and it hangs...I even tried re-burning the iso form 2 different versions 3.0 and 4.0 and no dice

I also tried switching out the ram and increasing and decreasing it and still all I get is hangs...

any advice?

aniguenni

Member

Registered: 2011-12-18

Posts: 153

Re: Slitaz won't boot

maybe on some reasons your harddisk can be named hdc instead of hda (like it is on mine).

if you can boot from the live cd, start gparted and look, what it says to the name of the harddisk.

tzontag

Member

Registered: 2012-03-29

Posts: 3

Re: Slitaz won't boot

no it hangs on the live cd...it wont boot from that...and I have burned a few copies on low speed as well

Somewhat Reticent

Member

Registered: 2012-03-05

Posts: 35

Re: Slitaz won't boot

[Disclaimer - I'm new here] How does the boot-manager see it? Does this version of GrUB4dOS have command-line mode? What key (insert?) gets to single-step mode, and the geometry command?

michaelbischof

Member

Registered: 2012-01-20

Posts: 536

Re: Slitaz won't boot

@aniguenni

,,if you can boot from the live cd, start gparted and look, what it says to the name of the harddisk."

As gparted takes some time it is easier and quicker to do it like this:

Open a root konsole. Just type ,,fdisk -l" - from the output you will learn how this particular kernel ,,sees" the harddrives.

In case you boot another Live-CD of another distri with another kernel on the same machine this output of fdisk will be different.