unbootable hard disk

[Janina Sajka]

Argh. No fun at all! Just when you thought you could enjoy a new
computer.

I am most certainly out of my depth here, but I suspect all this mention
of RAID. First off, I don't understand why you would need it. Second, I
would be suspicious that some on board componants are managing it, which
could definitely be a problem. 

Many of today's hd's have aa hidden partition for system use that caan't
easily be overwritten. The bios won't permit it. You might want to look
aat your hd with paarted to see if there's a mysterious 7mB hanging
around unexplained. That would push lilo up off the MBR, I think.

But, as I said, I am out of my depth.


Charles Hallenbeck writes:
> From: Chuck Hallenbeck <chuckh at mhonline.net>
> 
> Hi Kirk,
> 
> Lilo never executes. I have a 5 second timeout specified and a
> control-G placed in a boot message, but there is not sign that
> lilo ever gets run.
> 
> As for the kernel options, I am using the stock speakup.i kernel
> from the Slackware 8.1 distribution which seems to have those
> choices included on other systems, but I can check the config
> file to see for sure.
> 
> As for raid hardware, I don't remember seeing anything about that
> in the specs, and I sure don't need any raid hardware, but that
> too I will check out.
> 
> The kernel by the way is 2.4.18.
> 
> Thanks for the ideas. Hope you are getting along okay.
> 
> Chuck
> 
> On 18 Jan 2003, Kirk Reiser wrote:
> 
> > Hi Chuck:  Boy frustrating and confusing.  I can't tell you what it is
> > but here's some more data to collect which may help resolve the
> > problem.  First of all lilo.  Can you hit a shift key after the boot
> > up beep and get a boot prompt using the hard drive?  This test is to
> > test if infact it is seeing the drive at all?
> >
> > It almost sounds like an addressing problem between linear block
> > addressing and the older style.  Is lba mode turned on in the advanced
> > bios settings?
> >
> > What do you have compiled into your kernel?  Is dma and udma used by
> > default when available compiled in?
> >
> > Is there raid hardware on the new mother board?  I have heard of folks
> > having problems with raid hardware but nothing specific.
> >
> > Well, that's it for now.  Check those out and see what you have.
> >
> >   Kirk
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> The Moon is Full
> So visit me sometime at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh
> 
> 
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175