Hi,
Yep it's me again with this same won't boot
prob. However, I have narrowed it down a bit.
Upon one of the boots I read SysLinux 1.52.
What is SysLinux? I thought.
So did the google thing and found a site
called syslinux.com with a current version
of 2.10. After reading that is was a boot
loader for floppies and CD's, I just had
to experiment. So I downloaded the latest
version and ran it on this Reinstall disk
that I kept getting the linux panic crash on.
Then I regooted and what you know, the thing
actually came up to the install Ok Back
window.
So this is what I did. I pulled the 2.08 rpm
off of the Fedora core 2 cd and installed it
on my sme6.01 server. I then formated the
disk I could boot from and stuck it in the
drive of the server, entered server manager
and ran the create reinstallation disk.
I then rebooted to test the boot disk to see
what would happen. Upon the initial boot,
I read SysLinux 2.08, so this tells me that
the rpm from Fedora installed and was accessed
by the server properly. Upon booting however,
the system crashed at the usual place and
gave me a kernel panic error.
I then rebooted to the dos prompt this time
thinking this would make things faster only
to find out I needed to be at a prompt window
for the program to run correctly. Not a problem
since most people don't do anything at the prompt
on win machines anhow. After rebooting into win98
I opended a command window cd to the c:\syslinux
directory and ran the syslinux a: command.
When the program was finished I rebooted to test
the disk and it booted all the way up to the
OK Back window again. No kernel crashes.
Now, before you claim that this is because it
is a fedora rpm you need to keep in mind that
I can boot from the fedora cd without a problem.
This means that the problem is within the
SME-Esmith configurations.
There is an option that can be run with the
syslinux command -s. What this does is tell
syslinux to use the slow clummsy method when
booting and eliminates some errors that it
may run into due to it's not being able to
mount ext2. Why they would do a fool thing like
that is a good question.
Two things,
first: update the syslinux program to the current
one. This will insure compatability with most
systems today.
Second, when issueing the command to create the
syslinux drive, the command needs to be updated
with the -s option. Thus (syslinux -s /dev/fd0)
On win machines this would be (syslinux -s a:)
This may or may not be necesary, however, since
I do not know where all this stuff takes place, and
reading the create reinstalation disk panel did not
point me to any particular area to play with, I
can't test the fix on my system.
So if someone would either point me to the right
place or test this on a system they have a similar
problem with, I would apreciate the help.
Nest, and I suspect it will, I need to test
the disk and run the install program to see
if all goes well.
Thanks,
Scott
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