Salix Forums

Hi,

I followed the how2 upgrade instructions.

All went fine but update-grub (update-grub2 is unknown) resultet in a failure.
A required file could not be found (lost the exact message).

Now on reboot the system starts up on a command line showing How to get back to my Salix64bit XFCE?

Thanks for any hint to get away from there.

Use any Linux Live (such as Salix Live 13.37) to install the bootloader of your choice. If you use Lilo setup in Salix Live, upgrade it from 13.37 repos first.

Hi Mimosa,

Thanks for your message, but unfortunately I don't have a Live CD.
Is the same possible with a normal installation CD?

I think it probably is, but I've never got further than a cursory attempt followed be recourse to Live. Maybe someone else knows.

You might be able to boot from the grub prompt by entering commands manually. Read the section "Indirect booting by chainloading" from the opening post in the following link...

http://forums.justlinux.com/showthread. ... x-manually

You may need to experiment with different partition numbers depending on your set-up.

If you can get in to your Salix installation you/we can then figure out how to repair your bootloader.

Hi,

well the problem is quite persistent. But I have got an idea why things don't work.

First, I tried UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD) and to boot Salix with grub from there. All I receive is a kernel panic (repeatedly).
UBCD includes a linux version to repair other systems. I tried to install lilo from there, but failed (repeatedly).
Lilo won't write as it has problems in finding the right info and sequence to boot.

Booting the Salix14.0-Installation CD and then I get to the login screen, but mouse and keyboard dead (repeatedly).

Booting SalixLive13.37 all runs ok, but trying to install Lilo fails as it did with UBCD.
When looking into the lilosetup.log I started wondering what went wrong.

I think the boot loaders are having trouble with my HDD setup...

I have a SATA (SDD) disk, on which I installed (and upgraded) Salix64bit. This drive is first in BIOS order.
I also have a SCSI disk, on which I installed (and upgraded) Salix32bit (chroot environment). This drive is second from BIOS,

BUT in real booting the sequence changes and so I have the SDD being 'sdb' and the SCSI-HDD being 'sda'.
I think that is the point, where the boot loaders get confused.

I remember having had such problems on my first install...but currently I have no idea/plan to get around.

What would you suggest?

Thanks.

In Lilosetup, select the option to edit the config file, and swap sda and sdb round in the 'root' lines of the stanzas. Just a hunch ...

However, did you try the chainloading approach on ht page linked to by knome above? If that worked, it would get you inside the new Salix install. Maybe things would be easier to fix from there.

Another thing to try from Live: I think the version of lilosetup available in 14.0 may be more robust. You could run Live 13.37, download the source from the 14.0 repos, build it, and upgrade.

The version number will tell you if there's any point. To build it, in the directory where you downloaded those two files, as normal user do:
In fact you could almost certainly just download the package and install it as is, but there's no reason not to do it this way.

Hi,

thanks for your hint as well!

No, I have not yet tried what Knome proposed. I had a quick read and it might be of help. I will give it a try when I am home.
Same with your proposal.

However, what if I disconnect the SCSI-disk and try to boot just the SSD? Before I will save my fstab. Then I could try and install Lilo or even Grub
and do until it runs. After that I could reconnect the SCSI-disk and restore the fstab...and then include the SCSI-disk in the boot manager.

What came to my mind, too, was, I might have used the wrong Salix version when trying to boot into the installation with With dev/sdb... it should find the correct version then...

A lot of options...let see how it runs...

Thanks so far.

The steps are simple in grub-legacy. After booting with grub-legacy, go to grub prompt by pressing 'c' when in menu. Then issue commands: The 'root (hd.,.)' parameters indicate disk number and partition number, both starting with 0. The desired disk can be found with command 'find /path/to/a/known/file' eg 'find /boot/grub/grub.cfg' . This assumes that boot loader is present in partition boot record. If not then the commands are: The (hd.,.) and sda2, sdb1 etc should be adjusted according to the disk and its partition having salixos (for (hd.,.) both parameters start with 0 for grub-legacy and sda sdb etc has partitions starting with 1; hence (hd0,0) is sda1 and (hd1,1) is sdb2). The kernel and initrd names should also be corrected.

Hope it helps.

Hi,

will give it at try, unless I get it fixed otherwise

Thanks.