Linux install failed - Now can't boot - Need suggestions!

[gawer]

Hmm, this one's new for me.
I got 90% through the install and it failed so I had to reboot. Disk 1 of the install wouldn't work to boot it up. A windows disk won't work. And not even my various rescue disks worked. I must have fubar'ed the MBR pretty bad(it used to be GRUB / dual boot'ed with Windows). I did a clean install and erased the Windows so it would only be Linux(Fedora Core 7). I'm just trying to erase the entire disk so I can start over, but I can't even get Dos floppy's to boot! What can I do??

[katzdvd]

Can you boot from cd & run GParted (partition manager) to format the drive? (ext2 file system) You mentioned Disc 1; Isn't the install only 700 mb. on Live CD? I wonder if the Fedora disc is bad. I would try burning another disc, preferably CD & install from that. (Live CD)

[MilesAhead]

gawer if it won't even boot the Dos floppy it sounds like the
boot sequence might have been hosed in the BIOS settings. Can you get
into the BIOS Setup program? If there isn't a message on the startup
screen telling you what key to press check the manufacturer web site
or your user manual for instructions. Some of the Linux installs
can hose the system when they auto detect the hardware.

[katzdvd]

Miles - you're saying that the attempted install could have changed the BIOS settings? Wow, I wouldn't have expected that, although that is always a good place to check for problems such as this. So you're thinking that the pc is trying to boot directly from the HD instead of looking at the CD first...

[MilesAhead]

Miles - you're saying that the attempted install could have changed the BIOS settings? Wow, I wouldn't have expected that, although that is always a good place to check for problems such as this. So you're thinking that the pc is trying to boot directly from the HD instead of looking at the CD first...

The memory on CMOS can be written to. When he said he couldn't boot
a Dos boot floppy either the CMOS settings got corrupted, or the hardware is temporarily hosed. I can remember doing Linux installs where the autodetect locked up my system so that I had to do a total power cycle before I could boot again.

Depends on the symptoms. If the floppy access light is lighting but it won't read the disk, then I'd say the hardware is confused. If there's no access light at all then I'd guess it's no longer in the boot order(or it coincidentally just decided to die at that moment. Stuff happens)


But it's not that uncommon for Linux install autodetect to scramble a system's brains. It used to happen a lot more a few years ago before
PCI won the bus wars.

[katzdvd]

But it's not that uncommon for Linux install autodetect to scramble a system's brains. It used to happen a lot more a few years ago before
PCI won the bus wars.

I see...glad I got involved after all that happened. I'm having enough issues just getting the sound recording to work. Thank God my install was a piece of cake, even a 4 way partition.

[MilesAhead]

Heh. Just when I was all happy that I had something called a Front Side Bus
that's way faster than the old ISA Bus I used to run on my 486, I see that the
new AMD Quad Core CPUs are going to use something called HyperTransport.
Now I can't buy an Intel Quad Core because I have to wait and see what this HT
stuff is all about. Dang!!