booting trouble

[mimosa]

I've just spent a few frustrating hours unable to boot Maté Live (I also tried Slackel) either from USB or CD. It's difficult to disentangle what's going on because there are so many local things it could be, from a bad burn to an unfriendly BIOS.

However, after trying several combinations on three different machines, and having succeeded with Ubuntu and Slitaz on some of the same hardware, I am beginning to wonder if it *is* a local problem. So in the first instance, I wonder if anyone's had similar trouble?

I am currently writing from Maté live on a laptop. It only boots if both CD and USB are present, and then appears to work flawlessly (very nice too )

If only the CD is present, an error about "prefix" comes up, followed by a list of partitions and devices where something was not found, and the CD then dumps me in a prompt. The USB does so much earlier on, saying linux can't be found. If both are present, and I boot from the CD, the behaviour is the same including the list, but it looks as if whatever is being searched for is found on the USB - and Maté then boots. I don't think I tried the other way round, that is, booting from the USB with the CD in the drive.

I have successfully run Salix Live with the same hardware in the past (both the computers and the memory sticks). My main suspicion on that score is that one of the sticks may be a bit tired - it booted Slitaz, but with a lot less zip than the CD. However I did try another stick, also no good.

I have tried wiping the stick vigorously (new partition table, dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb, reformatting with a different filesystem then back to fat).

The next thing I might try is Xfce rather than Maté.

I have tried creating the USB by copying the files and running the install script, and also using LiveClone.

[Adys]

There are a couple of things you could also try/test.

1_ Check the MD5 checksum.
2_ Just for a test, set all your boot devices in your BIOS settings as NONE, except for the first boot device, which should be the correct USB type or optical drive.

If that doesn't work, are you able to boot a diferent computer using the exact same media (for example, the same CD) and the same exact data already burnt/copied (not re-building the USB media, but using the same exact data as already tried in your original system)?

[mimosa]

Thanks Adys. I've done those things, to no avail - though not quite in the same way with the BIOS. Essentially, some BIOSes boot sticks in different ways, and I went through the possibilities mine has.

My real reason for posting was that my trial and error was beginning to make me suspect a non-local problem. The clincher will be if Xfce Live *does* work - as it did in the past on this hardware.

[Shador]

Provide the output of boot-info-script? Is this a partitioned or unpartitioned (i.e. whole device fs) stick?

[mimosa]

Shador, please could you explain a bit more about boot-info-script?

This is a complex problem and as said above, I only posted when it started to look as though it might not have a local origin. I think I should try Salix 13.37 Live as the next diagnostic step.

In answer to your question though, the sticks are single-partition FAT.

It's perhaps worth emphasising that this appears to be also a problem with the live cd. I will create an image from it to check the md5sum and exclude the possibility of a bad burn. However, I've been using it for several hours (with the stick to help, in whatever capacity) and everything works.

[Shador]

Shador, please could you explain a bit more about boot-info-script?

What's much to explain? You grab that script from the repository or its website, run it with the stick plugged in and upload the file RESULTS.txt with the info it collected about your system regarding boot.

In answer to your question though, the sticks are single-partition FAT.

Sure? From your outline above it sounds like whole-device which should be no problem either but is different and there's less experience with it. When mounting the stick is it /dev/sd[a-z] or /dev/sd[a-z]1?

[Adys]

@mimosa,

As you said, the simplest test is to try to boot with a CD that you already know it was working before. Do it and report what happens. It should take you just some minutes to know if what you see is the same behavior as it used to be in the past with that same CD.

About the md5 checksum, check the ISO image you downloaded. An image of your CD might help, but there are some conditions for you to be able to compare it correctly using just a checksum.

Only if the simpler steps already described are failing...

... boot info script, download it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinf ... nfoscript/, extract it and then

Code: Select all

./bootinfoscript --update <filename>

and if necessary make the new script executable. Then run it and report here the results.txt.

[mimosa]

@ Adys

What I mean is I will download that iso and try again. If it doesn't work, the problem must be local. If it does work, something may be wrong with Maté.

@ Shador

I hadn't come across that tool before but look forward to putting it through its paces, should it come to that. However I'm still at the stage of ruling out local trouble. The fact that no-one has posted to report similar experiences speaks in favour of it being dodgy hardware, or else "olhado" That's (roughly) Brazilian black magic..

EDIT

In answer to your other question, yes - /dev/sdb1

[mimosa]

Some provisional results: Salix 133.37 Xfce Live works fine as a CD, but not on USB- at least, not this one. So I suspect hardware trouble there. But that doesn't account for the difference in behaviour between Salix Xfce and Maté.

This stick, I have given a sulphuric acid bath, and still it won't play. Here is a relevant-looking chunk of results.txt:

Code: Select all

sdb1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       vfat
    Boot sector type:  SYSLINUX 3.84 3.84
    Boot sector info:  Syslinux looks at sector 768 of /dev/sdb1 for its 
                       second stage. The integrity check of Syslinux failed. 
                       According to the info in the boot sector, sdb1 starts 
                       at sector 0. But according to the info from fdisk, 
                       sdb1 starts at sector 2048.
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        /boot/grub/grub.cfg /ldlinux.sys

[Shador]

We're not going through this the first time: The ingeniousness of the idea behind boot-info-script is that one simple application collects a lot of data needed to solve many booting problems straightaway. Now that is useless because you only added a small part of the data it collected. So effectively we are back again to looking for every part of information by itself.

So please, if I ask you for the RESULTS.txt, please, please. post the RESULTS.txt and the WHOLE of it!!!

But according to the info from fdisk,
sdb1 starts at sector 2048.

This could be a problem.

Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /ldlinux.sys

And this another one because there's no syslinux.cfg mentioned.

But I definitely need all results (they're formatted in a manner that allows me to easily find and select what I need). Afterwards I might know some more and can decide on further steps.