OK, Freespire-Linux. Booting issues...

bluetech

bluetech

bluetech

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27 Aug 2006
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I may be in the wrong place for this but if anybody has any info it would really help!

I am trying to install Linux to a PC which I have knocked up very quickly to run windows (which runs fine). So I go to install it (which it does... no error's) and at the end of the install do as it shows. Take out the CD and hit enter to reboot. HDD-0 is the first boot device (worked for windows) and yeh it displays that it cannot find the boot info on the HDD. Perhaps I need a boot loader? If this is the case then I have never used one and would like some advice in how to use one.


Thanks all!
 
AFAIK you need a boot loader such as Grub/Lilo to boot the Linux kernel. Im a bit of a newbie to Linux myself, so as to how i cant help. Im surprised that you weren't prompted to install a boot loader at some point tho.
 
Yeah you need a bootloader, but the install should have really installed one for you. Assuming your install has gone fine, you can likely boot the CD, set it to point at your root partition, then boot into your chosen environment from there. Once inside you can install lilo/grub or whatever you wish.

"yeh it displays that it cannot find the boot info on the HDD. " - What do you mean by this exactly, that the bootloader gives this message?
 
saffyre said:
I think he means his bios reports there is nothing to boot from on the hdd.
Click to expand...

That is correct.

You see, I pop the cd into the drive and boot from it, and then select the 1st option "Install to Hard Drive". When I look at the website for a "how to" installation http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=709&slide=19&title=freespire+rc1+screenshots
It appears nothinf of the sort. I get the freespire logo, and the loading bar takes about 10 minutes to complete. After this there is a picture that pop's up... at the same time the cd tray pops out. The picture indicates remove the cd and press the enter key. I do so and the PC reboots and the tray closes up. I then recive the message about there not being any information to boot from on the HDD, given to me from the BIOS. It is the same message you get if you wipe windows from an HDD and then try to boot from that same HDD, there is no boot info which made me question the installation and perhaps the necessity of a boot loader. But looking at the install guide (link above), it dosent even get this far and gives me no error messages or codes as to why.

Please help, this PC runs windows fine. You see it is just an old system I knowcked up from bits and bobs and tested it with before OS diagnostic tools and then an installation of windows which ran Prime 95 and simalar in OS tests before trying freespire.

Thanks guys, any info would be great...
 
In the install it should prompt you to install a bootloader. Either to the MBR or to a hard disk. If you install it to a hard disk you need some way to boot that hard disk. I wouldn't bother with that freespire crap, get a decent distro :p If you want KDE maybe try Kubuntu.

You could try boot it with the cd and set root=/dev/whatever hard disk you installed it to. Then once inside your distro install lilo/grub.
 
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