[SOLVED] Get old PC boot up Puppy from hdd

[hofy]

Hello there,

this isn't really a puppy-problem, but I've googled for an hour and couldn't solve.

Here's the deal:
the PC is a 400MHz CPU with ~300MB RAM and two WD harddisks (7 and 13GB). Booting off live CD is OK, gparted lets me format the drives, set boot flags and I can install puppy (antiXmepis also worked) to hdd, but when I try to boot from the hdd, it says NTLDR missing and gets stuck there.

From what I read, NTLDR should be overwritten by grub installed on MBR. However it doesn't seem to be the case here tho grub reports it installed fine. Both WDs behave the same. Autodetection of both WDs in BIOS works.

The mystery is: how does the PC even remember such a thing as NTLDR when I have wiped/reformatted both drives (multiple times)? Could this be some kind of BIOS setup?

thank you for helping me get this old baby runnin.

[smokey01]

You haven't said what version of Puppy you are using but if it's one of the later versions try Grub4Dos.

You should find it in the menu under system.

The Grub4Dos guide in the GUI is quite helpful.

[bigpup]

When you used Gparted. Did you completely delete what was on drive, repartition, and reformat?

Use Gparted when live Puppy CD is booted with boot option puppy pfix=ram.
This makes sure the hard drives are not mounted. Have to be unmounted for Gparted to work properly.

For that low spec a system, good idea to make a swap partition of 1 or 2 GB.

[amigo]

That message is coming from the old windows MBR. The OP is correct in thinking that grub has not been correctly installed -if so it would overwrite the old MBR. If the installer doesn't do this correctly for you, you can always install grub manually -any errors you make won't leave you any worse off than are now.

[nooby]

NTLDR ??? Should you not make use of grub4dosconfig and GLDR?

That way the MBR get copied and saved as a backup and the GLDR
can boot anything? Okay not grub2 So maybe that would be best
to have grub2 for one hd and grub4dos for the other?

But I know too little.

[turboscrew]

hofy, sounds like you formatted an old windows partition, but didn't install grub in MBR. The ntldr is not something on the MBR, it's a windows program started by windows boot loader (XP and older).

You can find it if you look into the c:\ of a windows machine with also hidden system files visible.


C:\>dir /a nt*.*
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 6463-385F

Directory of C:\

14.04.2008 14:00 47 564 NTDETECT.COM
14.04.2008 14:00 250 048 ntldr
2 File(s) 297 612 bytes
0 Dir(s) 82 507 677 696 bytes free


The installation doesn't put the boot loader there (if you tried to do a full install), but you need to install a boot loader separately - at least for Lucid Puppy.

[tommy]

Here's what I would do:
1 boot Puppy from CD
2 re-install Grub simple mode
3 when Grub asks you where to install, choose 'MBR -not recommended' but I do recommend it!!! this will wipe off windows mbr.
4 edit the file menu.lst located in your puppy partition in the foder named 'boot', and be sure it points to Puppy's /vmlinuz and /initrd.gz as described hundred of times in this forum.
5 reboot, remove the CD and enjoy Puppy booting from Hard Disc.

Bye!

[turboscrew]

If after full install, do that.
I did and it worked fine. You can select where to put the boot loader isn simple mode.

Just because I thought that the expert mode is needed to select where the boot loader should go, I selected that, and didn't get any boot loader installed at all. With simple mode, everything worked fine.

I'm not sure, but the expert mode may not work fully - at least for full install.

Check my adventures...
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=73783

I guess everything would have gone well much earlier if I wasn't so f****** stubborn with the expert mode. Fortunately I was helped through, even if, I guess, a good punch on my face would be more than earned.

[hofy]

Hello friends,

I have tried all your suggestions to no avail. Both Grub and Grub4dos report they installed correctly, but the PC always reports the NTLDR missing upon boot.

Maybe some BIOS setting?

thanks for help

[shinobar]

two WD harddisks (7 and 13GB)

I guess you installed grub or grub4dos on one disk and the BIOS boots up another disk.

Simple solution is to install grub or grub4dos on both disks.
The grub4dosconfig has an option where to install the boot loader.
You can do it twice, to /dev/sda and to /dev/sdb.

[hofy]

Nope.

Of course in order to isolate the problem I tried with both disks separately, one at a time. Same damn thing.

any other ideas?

[sheldonisaac]

SOME SNIPPAGE

the PC is a 400MHz CPU with ~300MB RAM and two WD harddisks (7 and 13GB). Booting off live CD is OK, gparted lets me format the drives, set boot flags and I can install puppy (antiXmepis also worked) to hdd, but when I try to boot from the hdd, it says NTLDR missing and gets stuck there.

Tommy's message looks OK to me.

On this computer, I did something like that:

Under (perhaps booted from CD) Puppy Linux, put the needed files in a HD directory.

Code: Select all

grub
root (hd0,2)  
setup (hd0)

That'd be for the Puppy files located on the first hard drive, 3rd partition

grub should give a message saying success or some such.

You could try a different hard drive, and have only that one connected.
Maybe start with

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

or some such, to zero the mbr

[bigpup]

Are you repartitioning and reformatting the hard drives?

[Burn_IT]

Check that it is going to the Disk master boot record and NOT the Partition boot record.

[glene77is]

Sent this twice.

[glene77is]

Of course in order to isolate the problem I tried with both disks separately, one at a time. Same damn thing.

Like Shinobar suggested,
"Simple solution is to install grub or grub4dos on both disks."

(1) I think that you have NOT installed a grub4dos MBR to the HDD boot partition
(2) Else, you are booting from some other device,
which is expecting the XP ntldr.
Note that there can be several XP partitions involved in an XP OS system,
and you may have missed this.
"Gary" boots XP at sda1, runs Apps in sda2, restores System from sda3.


Here is what I do, and let's see if we can move forward.
I will introduce some new concepts, which I think will be helpful.
I feel certain the matter can be handled by you.

* Normally I boot from a USB pendrive,
using a grub4dos MBR, grldr, menu.lst method, on the pendrive, .
and run Puppy Linux off this pendrive.

* My main computer (solo) will boot from a grub4dos MBR
into 'grldr' and 'menu.lst', in sda1, the first partition.
I have sda1 for XP and sda2 for Puppy Linux.

* I have installed three Puppy Linux OS in this arrangement,
have controlled the interaction between finding the 'other' .2fs savefiles.
We will only discuss the one on the USB pendrive and the one on the sda2 HDD.
There is a running version of XP Pro on sda1, first partition.

* Why I would do this kind of arrangment is beyond the current discussion.

I have tried all your suggestions to no avail.
Both Grub and Grub4dos report they installed correctly,
but the PC always reports the NTLDR missing upon boot.
Maybe some BIOS setting?

Idea #1:
Check your BIOS settings.

* My XP has only a single partition, which is easy to work with.

* Some XP installs have triple partitions:
Perhaps you are booting from the wrong HDD by mistake,
or one of the 'other' XP partitions.
(1) boot (2) application (3) restore.
For example,
The computer I setup for "Gary" has this triple partition arrangement.
a) Some XP installs might call the first one the "boot' partition,
b) then they run ALL the applications and dll libraries and temps from the 'application' partition.
c) there may also be a 'restore' partition.

Now, back to my own system as an example of using grub4dos:
My main computer has both XP and Puppy installed.
So, From a USB pendrive, running Puppy Linux,
I ran grub4dos and installed to the HDD with these options:
(1) a new MBR,
(2) a new grldr,
(3) a new menu.lst.
grub4dos scanned all devices and made a usable menu.lst.

Since I commonly I boot from a USB Pendrive (thumbdrive, flashdrive),
via grub4dos MBR, grldr, menu.lst
I am including the running code, with notes, carefully verified.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Pendrive:
( You may need to read these twice.)
Here are some of my menu.lst options code:

title ==={ U16 Lupu 525 (sdb1) }=== find(MARK-U16)
###
### this finds my MARK file, loads Linux kernel & initrd locally.
### this throws up the Linux note that it has found hd(0,0) on USB
###
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /MARK-U16
kernel /lupu_U16_525/vmlinuz pmedia=usbflash
initrd /lupu_U16_525/initrd.gz


title ==={ HDD/SDA1/MBR/grldr/menu.lst }===( map, hook, chain, sda1/menu.lst )
###
### this does not run XP.
### this runs HDD grub4dos MBR, grldr, menu.lst
### Then I can select "XP" or "Puppy Linux".
###
### Verified by observing that bootloader throws up sda1/ menu.lst screen,
### providing all my usual options associated with the XP / Puppy HDD based system.
###
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map --hook
chainloader (hd0)+1


title ==={ M$-XP direct }===( map, multi-find, chain to file )
###
### this finds a valid bootloader , sets root to that partition, then chains in directly.
### this code does NOT activate the grub4dos MBR, grldr, menu.lst system.
### (The HDD grub4dos MBR would activate grldr, menu.lst.)
### this code loads via a XP bootloader file directly.
### which bootloader gets activated
### depends on which bootloader is found. (for me it is "ntldr")
###
### Verified by observing that the selected bootloader :
### (1) throws up the XP booting screen with rainbow colors
### (2) then proceeds to load XP.
### (3) sda1 Menu.lst never comes up.
###
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map --hook
errorcheck off
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /bootmgr
chainloader /bootmgr
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /ntldr
chainloader /ntldr
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /io.sys
chainloader /io.sys
errorcheck on


title ==={ M$-XP direct }==={ (sda1:PBS) ={ map,find(MARK-WX),chain+1 }===
###
### this finds my MARK file, sets root to that partition, then chains in directly.
### this code does not activate the grub4dos MBR, grldr, menu.lst system.
### (The HDD grub4dos MBR would activate grldr, menu.lst.)
###
### Verified by observing that the bootloader :
### (1) throws up the XP booting screen with rainbow colors
### (2) then proceeds to load XP.
### (3) sda1 Menu.lst never comes up.
###
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map --hook
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /MARK-WX
chainloader +1

#############################################
I run the above code daily from my USB pendrive.
#############################################
On the USB pendrive,
. there is grub4dos MBR, grldr, menu.lst, (with above code).
On the HDD,
. there is a grub4dos installed MBR, looking for grldr, menu.lst.
On the HDD, partition 1, the XP partition:
. there is a ntldr (bootfile) for XP so M$ can do bootload.
. there is a grub4dos MBR, grldr, menu.lst so Linux can do bootload..
On the HDD, partition 2, the Linux partition:
. there is grldr, menu.lst for Linux to bootload.
#############################################
Which set of bootloader files will run
depends on which one I activate via my pendrive menu.lst.
#############################################

So, sit back and re-read this post,
and then
I suppose there will be comments about all these things.

Have fun.

[hofy]

Hello friends,

sheldon, your suggestion to install grub manually using terminal and commands
grub
root (hd0,2)
setup (hd0)

worked!!! SOLVED.

thanks a bunch. I don't see why the standard instaler failed to overwrite MBR. ANyhoo, thank you all for help.

[Laie]

Hi hofy, would you mind marking this thread with "[Solved]"?
Thank you in anticipation