antiX installed on HP Omni Book 4150 - Page 5

wayne128 · posted: 2010-11-26 05:43

TheForsaken wrote:
wayne128 wrote:Your earlier post said you installed it with antiX WITHOUT internal hard disk, so I expect to see this USB drive as the first boot drive and it should be seen by antiX as (hd0) on its hard disk.

The instructions from Grub prompt is the same.
Go ahead to use them while it is attached as USB drive on your PC.

Yes, I unplugged the internal HDDs of my PCs and the only HDD is the laptop's HDD which is inside the HD enclosure case which has USB connection.

It says sda so yes, that should be.

I'll do that and will report back.

Thanks a lot __{{emoticon}}__

OK , while you are resting, I would take this opportunity to amend my procedure.
As my assumption was your hard disk is good and rest of installation is good also, I think this might be a bit risky.

Instead of using your 'USB drive' to boot to get a grub prompt, please change that for a safer approach. What you do now is to use the known good antiX CD to boot your PC , then get into the root terminal ( # prompt), then issue a command
# grub <enter>
it will lead you to grub > prompt, from here, follow the above procedure to repair your grub.
good luck

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 09:04

wayne128 wrote:When you have a grub prompt, it said Grub has already got into the MBR, which is a good news. However Grub does not know where is the partition to go to, something is missing or not properly installed, so Grub gives you a prompt and wait for your instruction.
Assuming your hard disk is good and the rest of your installation when well, then just try these steps :

1. at grub prompt type find /boot/grub/stage2 , then <enter>
you should see a list of (hd0,x) that contain partitions with grub stage 2, which is where the grub is installed at your partition that house your antiX, I have multi boot so I have a few there, you should expect only one line, you will use that line for next command:

grub> find /boot/grub/stage2
(hd0,5)
(hd0,6)
(hd0,7)
(hd0,8)
(hd0,11)
(hd0,16)

grub>
2. Next command is grub> root (hd0,5) then <enter>
you should see a line below Filesystem type is....,

grub> root (hd0,5)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub>
3. Next command is grub> setup (hd0) <enter>
grub> setup (hd0)
Checking if"/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if"/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if"/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running"embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 17 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running"install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+17 p (hd0,5)/boot/grub/stage2
/boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.

grub>
4. If you see the above you are in good shape,
final command is grub> quit <enter>
You will be back to the root prompt

[root@localhost ~]#
5. Reboot .

I tried all the above commands while the laptop's HDD is connected to my PC. I don't mind to re-install as long as it's connected to my PC but once I return it back, it's a real pain for me to re-do that. So, I did that while it's there on my PC.

NONE of the above commands work. It gives me:

Code: Select all

Error 27: Unrecognized command

The ONLY command worked is"reboot".

pcalvert · posted: 2010-11-26 09:18

TheForsaken wrote:I re-installed antiX.

The old process:
1- Disconnected the HDD from the laptop
2- Put it in the mobile HD enclosure which has USB cable to be connected to the PC
3- Disconnected all the internal HDDs in my PC
4- Plugged the USB cable and turned the laptop's HDD on
5- Wiped the whole thing
6- Installed antiX

"5- Wiped the whole thing"-- what does that mean? Wiped it how?

Phil

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 09:28

pcalvert wrote:
TheForsaken wrote:I re-installed antiX.

The old process:
1- Disconnected the HDD from the laptop
2- Put it in the mobile HD enclosure which has USB cable to be connected to the PC
3- Disconnected all the internal HDDs in my PC
4- Plugged the USB cable and turned the laptop's HDD on
5- Wiped the whole thing
6- Installed antiX
"5- Wiped the whole thing"-- what does that mean? Wiped it how?

Phil

I used GParted, then I used Windows XP's CD to delete all the partitions and create new partitions, then again with GParted to create ext3 partition and swap partition then re-installed antiX.

pcalvert · posted: 2010-11-26 10:27

TheForsaken wrote:
pcalvert wrote:"5- Wiped the whole thing"-- what does that mean? Wiped it how?
I used GParted, then I used Windows XP's CD to delete all the partitions and create new partitions, then again with GParted to create ext3 partition and swap partition then re-installed antiX.

Not good enough. You should have used the badblocks command in destructive mode like I told you to do back on page 2.

Either that, or this alternative:

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX

That command will overwrite the entire hard disk with zeros. The badblocks command would be more thorough, but the above command should be faster and will probably be good enough.

After recreating the partitions with GParted, another thing that could help is to format the partitions a second time like so:

Code: Select all

mkfs.ext3 -c /dev/sdX
mkswap -c /dev/sdY

The"-c" switch tells the command to check the partition for bad blocks before formatting.

Phil

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 11:14

pcalvert wrote:
TheForsaken wrote:
pcalvert wrote:"5- Wiped the whole thing"-- what does that mean? Wiped it how?
I used GParted, then I used Windows XP's CD to delete all the partitions and create new partitions, then again with GParted to create ext3 partition and swap partition then re-installed antiX.
Not good enough. You should have used the badblocks command in destructive mode like I told you to do back on page 2.

Either that, or this alternative:
Code: Select all
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX
That command will overwrite the entire hard disk with zeros. The badblocks command would be more thorough, but the above command should be faster and will probably be good enough.

After recreating the partitions with GParted, another thing that could help is to format the partitions a second time like so:
Code: Select all
mkfs.ext3 -c /dev/sdX
mkswap -c /dev/sdY
The"-c" switch tells the command to check the partition for bad blocks before formatting.

Phil

Ok Phil, thanks a lot __{{emoticon}}__

I'm going to follow your instruction this time. I thought GParted will do the needful but apparently, it's not good enough as you wrote.

I guess I can use these commands from the LiveCD, correct?

I'll give it a go and will report back __{{emoticon}}__

pcalvert · posted: 2010-11-26 11:36

TheForsaken wrote: I guess I can use these commands from the LiveCD, correct?

Yes, you should be able to. I'd be very surprised if you couldn't.

Phil

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 12:45

pcalvert wrote:
TheForsaken wrote: I guess I can use these commands from the LiveCD, correct?
Yes, you should be able to. I'd be very surprised if you couldn't.

Phil

Phil,

The"dd" command worked perfectly but the other two commands"mkfs" did not work. It says:

bash: mkfs.ext3: command not found

Yes, I'm booting from the LiveCD. One weird thing happened after the format is done. The PC has stopped responding the the screen was frozen. I left it for 45mins but nothing happened so I reset/rebooted, the PC was stuck again, reboot once more and it worked.

Shall I create root and swap partitions using GParted and that's all?

pcalvert · posted: 2010-11-26 13:03

TheForsaken wrote: The"dd" command worked perfectly but the other two commands"mkfs" did not work. It says:

bash: mkfs.ext3: command not found

I suspect that you got that error message because you tried to run those commands as a normal user. Did you make sure that you were root before running those commands?

Phil

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 13:08

pcalvert wrote:
TheForsaken wrote: The"dd" command worked perfectly but the other two commands"mkfs" did not work. It says:

bash: mkfs.ext3: command not found

I suspect that you got that error message because you tried to run those commands as a normal user. Did you make sure that you were root before running those commands?

Phil

When I ran the below command:

Code: Select all

demo@antix1:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX

I didn't get any error message and I didn't change anything. I guess"dd" must be executed while I'm root so same applies to"mkfs" command.

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 13:14

Oh, I think you're right and I don't understand how come"dd" command was executed without asking me to login as a root or showed any error message.

I typed"su" then the password"root".

When I tried to create the root partition, it says there's no partition table to this device.

What's the command to create a new partition table?
And can I use GParted? or it's better to use the terminal so that in case of errors, I'll get a report using"-c" ?

pcalvert · posted: 2010-11-26 13:44

TheForsaken wrote: What's the command to create a new partition table?
And can I use GParted? or it's better to use the terminal so that in case of errors, I'll get a report using"-c" ?

Yes, use GParted. If you re-read my message, you'll see that I said:

After recreating the partitions with GParted, another thing that could help is to format the partitions a second time like so:

Phil

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 14:07

1)

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

is done.

2) Partition Table created using GParted.

3) Root and Swap created using GParted.

4) Partitions were formatted again using GParted.

5) GRUB installed in the MBR.

6) Installation done.

7) Rebooted

8 )

GRUB loading stage1.5
Grub loading, please wait ...
Error 2

IS ALL WHAT I GOT.
I'm sorry but this is too much for me to handle.

See you later guys and thanks a lot for everything. It didn't work and honestly, I can't do it anymore. I've been trying for weeks with that laptop. Why? because I don't give up easily but looks like all the efforts of these days will go in vain.

pcalvert · posted: 2010-11-26 14:23

If I were you I would try installing the Xfce version of aptosid (formerly called sidux). Based on my own experience with an old laptop, I think it has a good chance of working.

Phil

TheForsaken · posted: 2010-11-26 19:48

I appreciate if someone could possibly tell me WHAT is the command to check the Hard Disk? is there any command in Linux that could be used to check the HDD and make sure it's error free? bad sector free? just like Windows, there are some command and/or utilities to check the HDD whether it has bad sector and/or error or not.

THANK YOU!