Old laptop (MaxData Vision 350M) with Puppy - SUCCESS !

Message

MRX · #21 Post by **MRX** » Sun 22 Jun 2008, 10:11

@ bambuko: if im right you installed puppy this way:

- you used an ide-usb adapter to connect your laptop disk to the other pc
- you told the installer to install on the usb disk.
- you installed the disk into the laptop.

If above is right, it will NOT work.

at least you grub menu has to be edited. When you build the harddisk into the laptop,
the disk becomes a HDx on a SDx

You can try changing things by pressing e in the grub menu and change the sda
in the boot line to hda.i had to change mine to.

You might also have to use a ide-laptop disk adapter to install. I did a full install that way, and that's the only thing that worked out for me.

bambuko · #22 Post by **bambuko** » Sun 22 Jun 2008, 10:37

hi MRX,
Your guess about procedure I've used is spot on
And yes, the problem I have, is to with HDx ve SDx when the HD is installed back in the laptop

It is my fault - I didn't want to have to open the desktop to use IDE adapter/harness (preferring the convenience of USB HD case)
And now rather than admit the defeat

I am trying to get the thing going ...
If I don't manage today, than on Monday I am going to have to go to the shop and buy the adapter to wire HD into my desktop

Back to your suggestion though:
"...You can try changing things by pressing e in the grub menu and change the sda in the boot line to hda..."

That's exactly what I am hoping to be able to do, but so far wasn't very successful...

thanks for all your help

Chris

trucker33377 · #23 Post by **trucker33377** » Sun 22 Jun 2008, 12:30

or another thing would be a usb cd drive. and if not put puppy on a usb pen drive.

have you looked at cleaning your cd drive on this laptop?

bambuko · #24 Post by **bambuko** » Sun 22 Jun 2008, 13:41

hi muggins,
I have changed bios and booting priority, I have also used "special key", none of it made any difference...
Haven't tried sbootmgr mentioned here: http://www.puppylinux.org/~whodo/wiki/h ... tingfromcd
because I haven't got any floppies (thrown them in a dustbin long time ago), but if I can't find another solution, I will have to go into the nearest town and get a couple of them just fort experimenting

Anyway, I liked the idea of the full install on the empty HD: (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29653)
This is a great set of instruction for a newb like me who likes to keep things simple and straightforward

The only complication is (because of my laziness) the fact that I've used USB HD case to connect laptop HD to my desktop - and now I am getting punished for it (deservedly so

)

trucker33377 wrote:...have you looked at cleaning your cd drive on this laptop?

hi trucker33377,
there is nothing wrong with the cd drive

it's just to do with bios, boot etc not willing to use it for booting

Anyway, I am past trying to boot it from CD

- it is now about installing Puppy to an empty laptop hard drive using desktop for the job and how to do it best (and I know by now that USB hard disk case is not it

)

thanks guys for your help
I am now almost resigned to having to buy tomorrow IDE adapter/harness to plug in...

Chris

Aitch · #25 Post by **Aitch** » Sun 22 Jun 2008, 15:10

Hi Chris

you don't say whether you were able to get into the edit mode for grub by typing e at bootup?

maybe these links will help

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... c&start=48

http://www.puppylinux.com/hard-puppy.htm

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22355

unfortunately any attempts to run Linux from sda2 end up with me being told that the drive doesn't exist
Maybe it was to do with the choice I have made (ie "USB hard drive") or maybe I need to "trick it" into understanding where things are

That sounds about right!!
It looks like you're nearly there, you just need to edit your grub menu.lst

Post Installation Tweak to Grub Boot File:
When you reboot your computer, you'll be presented with a GRUB boot option
of either booting into windoze or Linux. If you want to configure the start
sequence to automatically boot into Linux, you must edit the menu.lst file:

NOTE: It's menu.lst with a lower-case letter "L" not the number " 1"

You can do this if you boot your desktop to puppy with the laptop h/d in the usbcase

You will have to mount the h/d using mut on the desktop, then use rox to examine the filesystem

How to edit the menu.lst file:
A. In Puppy Desktop > rox > parent directory > boot > grub > menu.lst.
B. Open the menu.lst file.
C. Cut these 3 lines...

title Linux (on /dev/hda2)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 rw vga=normal

and paste them below this line...

# Other bootable partition config begins

D. Now, you can set the timeout value:

In the line

#timeout 30

CHANGE the 30 into 10, and REMOVE the # at the beginning
of the line (you can specify the timeout value to whatever
you like). Save & exit.

Now, when you start computer, it will auto-boot into
Puppy in 10 seconds.

you may have to juggle with hda(x) and the next line
Note hda2 =(hd0,1)

further explanation here;

http://puppylinux.org/wiki/archives/old ... nsvsdrives

OR, if you are still having problems

http://www.fs-driver.org/

Using that link for ext2IFS, install that onto your desktop & put the drive back in the usb case & examine the laptop h/d files

report back what you can see on the laptop h/d both with explorer & with ext2IFS

Quick final question

does the laptop boot into either win partition shown, from grub, And what exactly do you get as a message if you try to boot puppy?

Aitch

bambuko · #26 Post by **bambuko** » Sun 22 Jun 2008, 15:27

hi Aitch, thanks

just a quick reply to some of your questions (rest of it I will have to digest slowly

)

Yes I was able to get into the edit mode for grub by typing e at bootup - whether any of my editing was any good, that's another question ... it didn't work

Found menu.lst etc myself, so it is encouraging that this is what you are recommending - just wasn't sure whether this would do

Your instructions for editing look great - just what I was looking for - thanks

No it doesn't boot into win partition, because there is no win on this HDD and I have changed it by re-installing another Grub (now there is no win partition)

And as for your final question - I will check it again later, but from memory, the message is that the drive (ie sda) doesn't exist (which is indeed correct, since sda is now hda

)

Chris

bambuko · #27 Post by **bambuko** » Sun 22 Jun 2008, 22:30

hi Aitch,
have modified menu.lst
here is what I did:
BEFORE:
# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Sun Jun 22 16:12:59 2008
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.27537'. You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.sda.27537 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
#timeout 30
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Linux (on /dev/sda2)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
root (hd1,1)
setup (fd0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/sda2)
root (hd1,1)
setup (hd1,1)
pause Press enter to continue.
title - For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title - For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)

AFTER:
# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Sun Jun 22 16:12:59 2008
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.27537'. You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.sda.27537 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
#timeout 10
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
title Linux (on /dev/hda2)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 rw vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
root (hd1,1)
setup (fd0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/hda2)
root (hd0,1)
setup (hd0,1)
pause Press enter to continue.
title - For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title - For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)

and we are making progress

- got past the problem with sda ve hda

but now, the error message is as follows:

Booting 'Linux (on /dev/hda2)'
root (hd0,1)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 rw vga=normal

Error 15: File not found

Press any key to continue

I've got the feeling I have seen before Error 15, so I will search the forum, but any suggestions are welcome (please

)

Chris

muggins · #28 Post by **muggins** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 00:54

Chris,

Is vmlinuz definitely in /boot directory? When you first boot, if you enter c and go to the grub commandline, then enter:

Code: Select all

find /boot/vmlinuz
find /vmlinuz

what does grub report?

bambuko · #29 Post by **bambuko** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 08:57

muggins,
looks like you are onto something, because:

when I type find /boot/vmlinuz
I get - Error 15: File not found

yet when I type find /vmlinuz
I get - (hd0,1)

So, I have moved vmlinuz into boot and...
it started booting linux (progress

)
but very soon the message was:

root (hd0,1)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vlinuz root=/dev/hda2 rw vga=normal
[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1c00, size=0x1b4cd8]
Uncompressing Linux.... Ok, booting the kernel.
Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

don't like the word panic

but let's hope that it is also sortable

Chris

muggins · #30 Post by **muggins** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 09:56

Chris,

in your menu.lst entry there's a typo. You've got vlinuz, but should be vmlinuz. Is this OK in the actual menu.lst? Also, is there any reason why you've got rw rather than ro?

Or, did you do a frugal install? If so you should have the file initrd.gz alongside vmlinuz, and you would alter your menu.lst entry to:

Code: Select all

root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 ro vga=normal 
initrd /boot/initrd.gz

bambuko · #31 Post by **bambuko** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 10:24

muggins wrote:...in your menu.lst entry there's a typo. You've got vlinuz, but should be vmlinuz. Is this OK in the actual menu.lst?

that's my typo - because I was manually typing in, what I saw on the screen

muggins wrote:...is there any reason why you've got rw rather than ro?...

the reason is that I blindly copied and paste what Aitch recommended

but I can easily try going back to ro
later edit:
tried and didn't make blind bit of difference

muggins wrote:...Or, did you do a frugal install?...

well I am not sure... - when you do the install to USB HD there is no option of either frugal or full given for you to choose in a manner similar to internal HD install as described by CatDude.
How can I check which one has been installed?
I suppose if all else fails I can simply change the code and see if it works out OK

thanks Chris

muggins · #32 Post by **muggins** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 11:12

If the file initrd.gz is on the drive, then it's a frugal install, otherwise full.With 64M RAM, a full install is better, but frugal is easier to implement without CD boot. I see you used partition magic to create the partition. Did it also format the partition? And did you create a swap partition?

bambuko · #33 Post by **bambuko** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 12:27

thank you for your patience with me muggins

initrd.gz is there, so as you say it is frugal - this was not my intention. I know about recommendations of full install for small RAM, just I didn't seem to be given this option when doing install to USB HD (although more than likely it is just me being thick as a plank

)

Yes I have used PartitionMagic (only because it felt more familiar

now I am happy with GParted), I have formatted the disk clean (un-allocated) and then created partitions as per CatDude's excellent how-to (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29653)

I have ext2 (5.34GiB with boot flag) and linux-swap (258.86MiB)

So for now, I am going to edit grub file as you have recommended and report back.... and later hopefully re-do the whole exercise, trying to do full install

thanks to all of you guys helping me

Chris

later edit:
changed grub code
put HD back into laptop
got error 15
but this time didn't need to ask for help (I am learning

)
moved initrd.gz to boot
and ....
we have a LIFT OFF

thank you (in no particular order

):
ezeze5000
muggins
trucker33377
MRX
Aitch
and CatDude, who (although didn't participate in this topic) has been of great help

The only thing left, is to go through the whole process again, and this time try to do full install

Aitch · #34 Post by **Aitch** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 13:18

well done, Chris

fun ain't it?

Puppy empowers people to enjoy & understand computing

unlike...............

Aitch

bambuko · #35 Post by **bambuko** » Mon 23 Jun 2008, 13:36

Aitch wrote: fun ain't it? Aitch

yeap

thanks (and I know what you mean about "illegal operation"

)

I suppose that now Puppy is running on the laptop, I could create another partition, install (full) Puppy from CD to this new partition (which should be no problem since I only want to install from it rather than boot) and when ready delete original partition with frugal installation.

And if I manage to screw it up

I can always start from the beginning

after all, as Bruce B said in another discussion :
"...I don't think Puppy is a table saw, where there is physical risk of cutting your fingers off, and you really need to be careful..."

Chris

trucker33377 · #36 Post by **trucker33377** » Tue 24 Jun 2008, 12:08

best part is if you have to start over you now how it works.. and unlike some other op sys you dont have call 1-800 I did'nt steal this

bambuko · #37 Post by **bambuko** » Tue 24 Jun 2008, 19:24

and just as a final wrap up:

After the first (frugal) install (and boy was it slow, running on my 64Mb RAM

) I have continued with the cunning plan of doing full install from CD using frugal Puppy running on HDD.

Of course had to go back and sort out partitions, to have two ext2 drives.

To be honest

ended up wiping everything and starting from scratch (it was a lot easier this way...)

Final result is FULL Puppy running on my laptop HDD, installed using only USB HDD case and the CD to copy Puppy from (but not to boot, since this was the original problem)

So it can be done, but...
it is right pain in the backside (although very educational

) and I have to admit that I have just ordered IDE adapter for the next job

Chris

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Old laptop (MaxData Vision 350M) with Puppy - SUCCESS !