odd windows / ethernet / linux related problem

daven1986

daven1986

daven1986

Soldato
Joined
29 Oct 2005
Posts
3,298
hi,

ever since installing a realtek driver it now comes up on boot like this:

boot from cd:
boot from cd:

realtek stuff.....

then it says boot filename not found
invalid partition table

however when i put in the windows cd and dont press a key to enter setup it appears to miss this stage.

i am planning on installing linux and was wondering if when i install grub it will load before this realtek rubbish therefore allowing me to boot both windows and linux without problem?

thanks

daven
 
there should be a key combonation you can press to enter the NIC's "bios" in there you can disable the boot stuff it's trying to do by the looks of it.

turn off pxe boot and bootp if it's in there.

what model of NIC do you have?

just rereading yuour post i could be completey off the mark :eek:
 
oh no my friend i think you may be on the money.

i have a realtek built in nic and also an nvidia one, the nvidia one has never really worked so forget that! i THINK the key to get into the bios comes up after that message should disappear but im not sure. i will give this a go.

thanks for the help

any idea if the grub solution will work?

thanks

daven
 
If it's the issue deano thinks it is (and I agree it is the most likely) then the boot order is part of the BIOS configuration. GRUB has nothing to do with it.
 
yeah but when i put the windows cd in and leave it to boot normally (ignoring the press any key to boot from cd message) then it skips the realtek ethernet thing. i was just wondering if using grub (which i will do anyway) will work in a similar way.

thanks

daven
 
No as GRUB is still booting from the hard disk.
Unless your MBR is hosed and your BIOS is skipping your hard disk altogether, but the first thing to check is your BIOS configuration and in particular, the boot device order.
 
boot device order is fine, have done fixmbr and fixboot in repair console with no effect.

i dont understand why with the cd in the drive it skips the realtek stuff.
 
What is your current boot device order then? Also does your BIOS have any options for disabling PXE boot/ Netbooting?
 
it goes:

cd
floppy
sata hd
ide0
ide1

i had a little look but i didnt find anything for a network boot in the bios but i will have another look later.

thanks

daven
 
OK, that looks fairly sensible, might be worth moving the CD drive down to the bottom for diagnostic purposes, though I agree, 12.45am is far too late at night to be faffing around with BIOS settings ;)

mok, signing off for the night :)
 
ok to further increase randomness, if i disable the realtek from booting the message goes away however it now says "SYSTEM DISK ERROR PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK".

BUT, i can still boot into windows if i leave the xp cd in again.

daven
 
Sounds like the MBR is up the creak.
Boot from the XP CD, and when all the driver loading is done, press R to enter the recovery console.
Here, run the two commands-
fixboot
fixmbr

That should get you running.

-Leezer-
 
nope done those many times already no joy. even with grub installed it makes no difference. however now i am installing linux to my primary ide drive, see if it makes a difference. before i had it on the sata drive.

it is now like this:
ide0 - linux and swap
ide1 - backup drive
sata1 - windows and data

hopefully it will work.

thanks guys

daven
 
ok solved it at last.

ide0 - windows and linux swap (first boot device)
ide1 - backup
sata1 - linux and data

when i reinstalled windows the ethernet message went away.

thanks for all your help

daven
 
Glad its sorted, though it's a shame you had to resort to a complete reinstall, wouldve liked to have got to the bottom of it before that.
 
it was a problem that occurred from a new install so no data / time was lost / wasted really.

i think it was all down to the realtek drivers. but i reinstalled them and it works!! maybe it was because i installed windows with the boot from network disabled?

daven
 
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