(SOLVED) bootloader or device issues after dual boot install xp and pclos

[jaybee]

 It seems I can make it boot or not boot ever time now. All I have to do is make it wait for a minute before making my boot choice - then it boots right up. If I choose right away, it fails. You are now entering the twilight zone! Something must be taking too long to do its thing. What do you think?

 Jaybee

[ThirdOfSix]

jaybee,

That's what I like,progress.

You have pointed out a major item for folks installing PCLOS on a limited resource machine the first time.

You may not consider this to be a limited resource machine. But, for this conversation, I consider anything less than a 2GHz processor and 1GB of memory, limited. Especially if it has on board video that is using a good chunk of that memory. What can I say, I am only human and time really seams to slow down when I just know that things are about to go belly up.

I have found myself about to condemn a machine as unworthy of PCLOS on several occasions because is seems to have hung while booting the first time either from the live CD or more likely the first boot after install.

On these machines, it can take a LONG time. You will find yourself getting impatient and be absolutely certain that it is hung.

When this happens and one hand is reaching for the keyboard to try whatever comes into your head, the other hand needs to reach out and slap it away.

When I am installing on an unfamiliar machine  which may not be too fast, I watch the hard drive light and even after it seems to have stopped flashing, I go take a break and do something else. I only declare it to be hung after it has sat there for twenty minutes or more.

This has paid off a number of times.

I have an older machine here with an ASUS motherboard that boots quite differently depending on how many drives are connected and what types they are. It is one of those machines that takes both IDE and SATA drives. The BIOS doesn't seem to know how to handle either efficiently. Yours may be of a similar vintage and like mine may not have a fully updated BIOS.

That is why I said to disconnect any extra USB stuff. The more you have connected the more resources used during boot and the slower the boot.

I do know that the last machine I worked on that was close to the specs of yours was a very slow install. Patience is a virtue! Always give the machine a chance to do its thing when you do not yet know what a normal time is for that particular setup.

There are sometimes settings in BIOS that very much affect the speed of data transfer.

I do not know but I suspect that the Linux kernel will only wait so long for a response from a hard drive.

Maybe if all continues to go well, you may later be able to improve things with BIOS settings.

You still have to get over the hump of the first shutdown and reboot after setting your video parameters to where you like them.

Whatever you do, do not try to do any updates until after you have rebooted this machine several times. And then be sure to use the frozen repository.

Given that this machine has been such a problem so far, once you get it fully functional, I would go in and document all the BIOS settings. Otherwise Murphy's law says that within the first week, the lithium battery that retains the BIOS setting will fail. And of course it will turn out that the currently working BIOS settings are not the default settings.

I hate the fact that the there is no way to get a printout of the BIOS settings.

What I have taken to doing is to use a 1600 x1200 resolution digital camera that can focus on just the computer screen to go through and document every screen of the BIOS.

That way, if I ever feel compelled to try to make things work better via BIOS settings, I can always get back to what worked.

OK, I am rambling again.

Good luck.

EDIT

I see you have progressed while I was rambling.

At this point, I would be inclined to try setting it up to automatically boot from the default in the grub menu and set the delay in grub to one minute and then use it for a while to see if any new clues become obvious.

[Old-Polack]

I tried a little experiment. I did as you said and forced it to boot in verbose mode. When I started it up, the words just flew by, way too fast to read, and it stopped - at the exact same point with the exact same error messages.
So, I rebooted again. At the boot menu, I just hit the arrow key and walked away for about 10 minutes or so. I came back and selected the default boot choice and it just booted right up! So what the heck? I'll do it a few more times but is there something that could be loading too slowly (perhaps because of some failing hardware) and all is well once I wait for it to catch up?

Back when, like a couple of years ago, I made a set of custom initrd images that included all the SATA controller modules, for people having trouble booting their system with the as shipped initrd image. Some of the modules needed a sleep state built in to allow time for the modules to fully load. That part comes a bit later in the process, but on your machine a similar wait state may be necessary before entering the boot choice. You could try editing your menu.lst to change;

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

to

timeout 60
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

then just wait for the timer to run out so the default entry boots automatically. If it works with 60, try changing it to 30 to see if it works with the shorter time. By varying the time, you should get to what works best for your system.

Just for the sake of argument, what do you get as output from the following command?

[root@fatman ~]# hdparm /dev/hda          <Enter>

Post your results.

[jaybee]

 Mr. Polack, your knowledge must be rubbing off just a tad. I knew you were gonna say that. I was thinking about the '10" I see during install and figured there must be a way to change that to like a minute - then cut it down til it just worked and maybe adding 5 seconds to be sure. Awesome. I'll do that now.

ThirdOfSix I will read your "ramblings" soon because I'm sure I'll learn something. Thank You.
I'll report back shortly.

 [root@localhost ~]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount     = 16 (on)
 IO_support    =  0 (default)
 unmaskirq     =  0 (off)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 geometry      = 20023/255/63, sectors = 321672960, start = 0
[root@localhost ~]# silent

[jaybee]

 Okay guys, 60 seconds worked like a charm and so did 30. I'm good with that! I may play with it some more, but hell, it's already faster than my xp boot. I mean, xp gets to the desktop okay, but it is unusable for a few minutes. I've learned to just walk away and have a sammich or something. A 30 second delay is nothing.
    Anyway, the cause of this is strange but no longer an issue, and I sure have learned a lot from the assistance I've received here the last couple days. Unless you have further improvements you'd like to try, I can call this a total success. This forum is awesome. You guys are awesome. Old-Polack, Thank You for sticking with me for so long between all your other support efforts.  I intend to keep a copy of all these ideas and commands for future reference and keep reading to learn more.
  Oh ya one more thing. God this is an awesome operating system! It's just beautiful and does everything I need it to do. I've tried out more distros than I can count and have been pushing gnu/linux on people for over ten years, but PCLOS is for me, the best of the best. I'm so glad it's finally on my main desktop. Rock ON My Friends!
 Jaybee

[Old-Polack]

Okay guys, 60 seconds worked like a charm and so did 30. I'm good with that! I may play with it some more, but hell, it's already faster than my xp boot. I mean, xp gets to the desktop okay, but it is unusable for a few minutes. I've learned to just walk away and have a sammich or something. A 30 second delay is nothing.
    Anyway, the cause of this is strange but no longer an issue, and I sure have learned a lot from the assistance I've received here the last couple days. Unless you have further improvements you'd like to try, I can call this a total success. This forum is awesome. You guys are awesome. Old-Polack, Thank You for sticking with me for so long between all your other support efforts.  I intend to keep a copy of all these ideas and commands for future reference and keep reading to learn more.
  Oh ya one more thing. God this is an awesome operating system! It's just beautiful and does everything I need it to do. I've tried out more distros than I can count and have been pushing gnu/linux on people for over ten years, but PCLOS is for me, the best of the best. I'm so glad it's finally on my main desktop. Rock ON My Friends!
 Jaybee

Just one more thing. As root:

[root@localhost ~]# hdparm -c1 -u1 /dev/hda             <Enter>

That should help a little with disk operation speed. If it works well but doesn't hold past a reboot, as root, edit /etc/rc.d/rc.local and add the line hdparm -c1 -d1 -u1 /dev/hda on its own line. Press Enter to start a new line, then save the file. With every boot the proper flags will be set. When checked with hardparm /dev/hda the read out should be this;

[root@localhost ~]# hdparm /dev/hda

Code: [Select]

/dev/hda:
 multcount     = 16 (on)
 IO_support    =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq     =  1 (on)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 geometry      = 20023/255/63, sectors = 321672960, start = 0

Glad you've got thinks working in an acceptable manner. Enjoy.

[jaybee]

Hello again,
Well, I ran this command as root: hdparm -c1 -u1 /dev/hda
Then rebooted. It booted normally and seemed perfect.
So, I did the following command and as you can see, it does not match what you said it should look like:

root@localhost ~]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount     = 16 (on)
 IO_support    =  0 (default)
 unmaskirq     =  0 (off)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 geometry      = 20023/255/63, sectors = 321672960, start = 0
[root@localhost ~]#

Since it is fine, I didn't think I needed to edit that file you mentioned. Should I anyway?
It sure is nice to see this thing boot up properly.

[Old-Polack]

Hello again,
Well, I ran this command as root: hdparm -c1 -u1 /dev/hda
Then rebooted. It booted normally and seemed perfect.
So, I did the following command and as you can see, it does not match what you said it should look like:

root@localhost ~]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount     = 16 (on)
 IO_support    =  0 (default)
 unmaskirq     =  0 (off)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 geometry      = 20023/255/63, sectors = 321672960, start = 0
[root@localhost ~]#

Since it is fine, I didn't think I needed to edit that file you mentioned. Should I anyway?
It sure is nice to see this thing boot up properly.

Here's my rc.local

=================== start ==================
#!/bin/sh
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: rc.local
# X-Mandriva-Compat-Mode
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Short-Description: Local initialization script
# Description: This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
#              You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't
#              want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.
### END INIT INFO

touch /var/lock/subsys/local

hdparm -c1 -d1 -u1 /dev/hda
hdparm -c1 -d1 -u1 /dev/hdb

==================== end =====================

and my disk settings;

[root@fatman ~]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount     = 16 (on)
 IO_support    =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq     =  1 (on)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 geometry      = 24321/255/63, sectors = 390721968, start = 0
[root@fatman ~]# hdparm /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:
 multcount     = 16 (on)
 IO_support    =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq     =  1 (on)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 geometry      = 20023/255/63, sectors = 321672960, start = 0

I've been using these settings in rc.local for as long as I can remember, from the start of my Linux days. You can read about hdparm in the man pages with the command;

[polack@fatman ~]$ man hdparm

Pressing the Q key will close man and bring you back to the prompt. Scroll the man pages with the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard.

The important parts here are the explanations of the flags we're setting.

-c     Query/enable (E)IDE 32-bit I/O support.  A numeric parameter can be used to enable/disable 32-bit I/O  support:
              Currently supported values include 0 to disable 32-bit I/O support, 1 to enable 32-bit data transfers, and 3 to
              enable 32-bit data transfers with a special sync sequence required by many chipsets.  The value  3  works  with
              nearly all 32-bit IDE chipsets, but incurs slightly more overhead.  Note that "32-bit" refers to data transfers
              across a PCI or VLB bus to the interface card only; all (E)IDE drives still have only a 16-bit connection  over
              the ribbon cable from the interface card.

 -d     Disable/enable the "using_dma" flag for this drive.  This option now works with most combinations of drives and
              PCI  interfaces  which support DMA and which are known to the kernel IDE driver.  It is also a good idea to use
              the appropriate -X option in combination with -d1 to ensure that the drive itself is programmed for the correct
              DMA mode, although most BIOSs should do this for you at boot time.  Using DMA nearly always gives the best per‐
              formance, with fast I/O throughput and low CPU usage.  But there are at least a few configurations of  chipsets
              and  drives for which DMA does not make much of a difference, or may even slow things down (on really messed up
              hardware!).  Your mileage may vary.

-u     Get/set interrupt-unmask flag for the drive.  A setting of 1 permits the driver to unmask other interrupts dur‐
              ing  processing  of a disk interrupt, which greatly improves Linux´s responsiveness and eliminates "serial port
              overrun" errors.  Use this feature with  caution:  some  drive/controller  combinations  do  not  tolerate  the
              increased  I/O latencies possible when this feature is enabled, resulting in massive filesystem corruption.  In
              particular, CMD-640B and RZ1000 (E)IDE interfaces can be unreliable (due to a hardware flaw) when  this  option
              is used with kernel versions earlier than 2.0.13.  Disabling the IDE prefetch feature of these interfaces (usu‐
              ally a BIOS/CMOS setting) provides a safe fix for the problem for use with earlier kernels.

[jaybee]

 If I'm reading this last post correctly, then the command "hdparm -c1 -u1 /dev/hda" should have changed those values on my hda drive to match yours, but it didn't?? Is that correct?

[Old-Polack]

If I'm reading this last post correctly, then the command "hdparm -c1 -u1 /dev/hda" should have changed those values on my hda drive to match yours, but it didn't?? Is that correct?

It did, but you didn't check them before rebooting, and the settings were removed with the reboot, which is why you want them regenerated each time you boot. That's what having them in rc.local does. It doesn't hurt anything to repeat the command if one or more of the settings already exist, and it insures they are all set properly if they don't already exist. It's insurance that the settings are always set to optimize disk performance.

[jaybee]

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding. A bell is going off. I get it now. hdparm = hard drive parameters and the switches you gave me change the values. Adding that line of code did exactly as you said. I just checked - after a reboot - and got this:

[root@localhost jaybee]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount     = 16 (on)
 IO_support    =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq     =  1 (on)
 using_dma     =  1 (on)
 keepsettings  =  0 (off)
 readonly      =  0 (off)
 readahead     = 256 (on)
 geometry      = 20023/255/63, sectors = 321672960, start = 0
[root@localhost jaybee]#

Eggselent !!
BOOOOOM. That's you man. U du bomb! Thanks again. Two easy questions and I'm outa here:

1)  I love to learn. I self studied for A+ cert., html/css/javascript from w3schools and now I'm interested in what you've been showing me. Any thoughts on where I can go to study on this?

2) I need to call this thread "solved" somewhere here myself, correct?
 Thanks a Million
 Jaybee

[Old-Polack]

jaybee:

The light bulb lights!  

1. Seriously, while sometimes a bit hard to read, at first, the man-pages are a great source of detailed information, sometimes overpowering in their content. They can also be read using the konqueror browser, in html format.

Open the konqueror web browser, click the X in front of the Location: bar, to clear it and enter, in the bar;

man:<command you wish to see>

Translated:

man:hdparm

man:ls

man:cp

man:cd

man:tune2fs

man:mkdosfs

man:mkinitrd

man:man

You should get the idea, by now.

The info system is even better, but not as complete. You have to install info from Synaptic, if it's not already installed. If what you are searching for is not covered by info, it will provide a link to the man page that does cover it. One I know is there, because I use it a lot:

info:grub

A good starting place is;

info:info

Which describes how to use the info system.

or

info:dir

This (the Directory node) gives a menu of major topics. You can select the topic you want from links provided on the page. That should keep you busy for quite some time.

2. Go to the first post of this thread, click the Modify link in the upper right corner of that post, then in the Subject: box, add (SOLVED) at the beginning. Click the Save button at the bottom of the window.

[jaybee]

 Excellent. Well, once again, Thank You for everything. It has been a real pleasure. Rock On!
 Jaybee

[Old-Polack]

Excellent. Well, once again, Thank You for everything. It has been a real pleasure. Rock On!
 Jaybee

Hey! You're welcome. It was fun.