On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, Seneca wrote: > On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 10:52:06AM -0500, Rebecca Riall & Jeff Melton wrote: > > Recently I tried to install Debian 2.2 on a system with Win98 (recently I > > had Red Hat 7.2 but got tired of some of the glitches). Never was able to > > get it successfully up and running, and decided to go with Mandrake 9.0 > > for the time being. For now, Mandrake is there and Debian is gone. > > > > My problem is that ever since the Debian installation attempt, during > > which I installed the "mbr" boot loader, I have been unable to boot > > properly into Windows or my now successfully installed Mandrake OS without > > using the Win98 CD. If I don't do this, I get a prompt that says > > "MBR1234FA:" or more recently "MBR1FA:" and the computer stalls at that > > point. > > Your computer stalls because it is waiting for your input. An exerpt > from /usr/share/doc/mbr/README: > 4.1 The boot prompt > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > The boot prompt looks something like this: > 14FA: > > This is the list of valid keys which may be pressed. This means that > partitions 1, and 4 can be booted, also the first floppy drive > (F). The A means that 'advanced' mode may be entered, in which any > partition may be booted. The prompt for this mode looks like this: > 1234F: > The only other valid key which may be pressed is RETURN, which > continues booting with the default partition
Thanks for writing. The documentation for Debian 2.2 actually does say there's an "mbr" boot loader, although I'd never heard of it until I got Debian. Anyway, the problem I'm having is that neither pressing enter nor pressing any of the other listed keys results in the system booting. This prompt is a leftover from when I had Debian (sort of) installed, apparently. > > Something seems to be stuck in my boot sector from the Debian > > install attempt that won't go away. I tried various things to fix the > > situation, including using fdisk/mbr from DOS to install the default > > Windows boot record. Nothing has worked so far. I tried re-installing > > Debian in hopes of changing the boot loader, but it seemed to want to > > install on top of my Mandrake partitions and didn't give me the option of > > installing it elsewhere. Am I stuck with starting boots from the CD > > forever, or is there a solution? > > Back in January, the MBR prompt kept coming up every time I booted the > system (logical partitions can be fun to boot from) and I got rid of it > by changing one line of my lilo.conf (I think it was the "boot=" line), > then rerunning LILO. Even if the prompt never stops coming up, you don't > need to use the CD. Instead, enter in the partition that you want to > boot from. There is also an article about clearing out the MBR in issue > 63 of the Linux Gazette. Right now that line from lilo.conf says boot=/dev/hda. Maybe that's the problem, since hda isn't the name of a partition? Should it say boot=/dev/hda5, my root partition for Linux? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
