Failed HD-Install

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Failed HD-Install
started by: dmoc

Posted by dmoc on July 09 2006,21:11

I'm trying to get a frugal *and* a hd-install. Here is my partitioning:

hda1 - Win98
hda2 - Frugal
hda3 - Swap
hda4 - (extended)
hda5 - hd install
hda6 - (to be mydsl and home)

My attempts to install from cd-boot failed because my external cdrom is dodgy and produces failed reads at various points. So I did a frugal install from an iso stored on hda1. Then from the frugal I attempted a hd install. This seemed to work except produced error saying missing /boot/boot.img (?) and I opted not to reinstall grub, intending to add an additional entry to existing menu.lst on hda2. Because of the above error I checked hd5's boot directory and copied missing kernels from hda2 - is this the correct thing to do?

I have added the following to the grub menu in an attempt to boot from hda5. Could anyone tell me if this is correct or not?

title DSL-HD
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda5
initrd /boot/minirt24.gz

Any help appreciated.

Posted by brianw on July 09 2006,23:09

Should have something like this

title DSL
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda5 quiet vga=normal

Once you get home mounted on hda6 you will want to add nofstab (which will skip the rebuilding the fstab but it will still be used) otherwise your fstab won't remeber to mount /home. For my hd install mine looks like:

title DSL
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda6 quiet vga=normal nofstab dma noscsi nofirewire noagp noregen

I modified the knoppix-autoconfig to skip the generation of the lib so and modules.dep using the code noregen (this way if my harware is modified I can edit and remove the noregen for a single boot and get them updated). I will probably update for the pci bus to be 66 (i think it is pci= or bus= can't remeber exactly right now).

Anyway, the most important is kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/<your partition>

Posted by dmoc on July 10 2006,07:37

Edit: Added the swap partition to the info below. I'm in the process of re-assigning hd3 to the hd-install to this partition because I think 256M may suffice once I've created seperate partitions for /home, /usr and /opt. Is there any danger to putting /etc on it's own partition? Hopefully this scheme is not an overkill and will make updates less painless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks Brian, that got me booted. My partition sizes are:

hd3, 256M (swap)
hd5, 1.9G (129.6M used)
hd6, 4.2G (not used at the mo)

Belated but what would you recommend I do to minimise any reconfig if updating in the future? Can I use hd6 for both "home" and "opt" or would it be better to split hd6 into two seperate partitions? Once these are relocated exactly how much space is likely to be needed on hd5? I suspect I should severely reduce this partition size and shift all non-static elements to yet another partition, but what?

Re "noregen": I have kept the frugal install on a seperate partition so I could boot from it if I need to update the hd-install. Also my hardware won't change apart from usb/pcmcia devices. What are the pro's/con's of using noregen in this situation? (I checked the wiki cheatcodes but see no mention of noregen).

Finally, for now :laugh:

, if I were to put home and opt on same partition, as subdirectories, how do I change fstab to point to those subdirectories and not just the partition? Excuse the lame newby question

Thanks again for your help.

Posted by dmoc on July 10 2006,10:03

OK, I now have:

hda1, w98, 4G
hda2, Frugal, 1G (extra space to be used when updating hd-install)
hda3, HD-Install, 256M
hda4, (extended)
hda5, swap, 256M

...and I intend to add the following...

hda6, home, 2G
hda7, opt, 1G
hda8, tmp, 500M
hda9, usr, 2G
hda10, var, 500M

I figure /etc is small and easily back-up between updates so I'm leaving it on hda3. As for the new partitions and from what I've googled this seems a fair distribution of the remaining 6G and I figure I can always resize them if needed using gparted. Any comments welcome!

One thing I'm not sure is if all the boot options are still valid for the hd-installed dsl. Eg, do I still need a "mydsl"? Also my attempts so far to set the host name from either the boot option or /etc/hostname has failed and I still end up with "box" (I have checked that /etc/hostname changes persist after reboot) - this worries me because I don't know what else is not being picked up from /etc!

Posted by dmoc on July 10 2006,10:53

hmmm, definately a problem here because having created the "home" partition and making an fstab entry it is still created on hda3.

Posted by brianw on July 10 2006,16:21

First off Absolutely Don't put etc on its own partition. That is where the partition info is contained so will not work (won't mount itself because it won't know to).

Second. use the cheatcode nofstab to stop the fstab file from being rebuilt (startup as normal, edit the fstab file, edit boot file i.e. /boot/grub/menu.lst for grub, to include nofstab). The fstab that you build will be the one that is used.

No you do not need mydsl. most changes will persist (you add software and it will be perminently added). The only changes that will not persist are the ones (like fstab) that are done in /etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig. By the way in knoppix-autoconfig the hostname is reset to box so you will need to change that or conflics will occur with your own hostname. I made some mods to knoppix-autoconfig so the ld.so.cache and modules.dep are not done if I have the code noregen so my boot line looks like:

title DSL
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda6 quiet vga=normal nofstab dma noscsi nofirewire noagp noregen noacpi noapm

I put in the no items (like noagp) instead of nohwsetup because I find having the nohwsetup it uses alot of defaults and does not set up properly.