FC4 starts DUD / FC1 running. BSD - BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH - linux style.

[Jerry DeLisle]

Anil Kumar Sharma wrote:
> This is most preplexing situo I have had in last 8-9 years with Linux.
> With the Burned set of 5 CDs FC4 does not boot on my PC.
> That is only and only on my desktop box it does not boot, 
> everywhere else in the whole township, FC4 boots with same CD set.
> 
> This box already got Fedora Core 1 running like a dumb stallion - literally 
> - without power of speech. 
> On the dual boot side, WinXP-Pro-SP2 runs like Bill Gates wants it to in his 
> daydreams.
> 
> This box has -
> Intel D865GBF board, Intel P4 HT 2.8 GHz, 
> 256 MB DDR400 RAM (single module!), 80GB SATA HDD.
> Its onboard AGP with DVMT has unshared mode 1/8/16(max) MB while booting so 
> it
> doesn't show Fedora graphics on first (blue-gray) screen after bios task.
> 
> For the Fedora Core 4 downloaded from mirror - I have, 
> a. sha1sum OK for all five FC4-i386-*.iso downloaded.
> b. memtest86 pass on my PC, 
> c. burned CD - Check media pass (on other PCs).
> The diagonostic for FC4 not booting is - 
> 1. Box picks FC4's boot CD and runs upto Autorun complete. 
> 2. Then says - 
> 2.1 "could not find valid Ramdisk image starting at 0"
> 2.2 VFS: cannot find root device "<Null>" or unknown block (8,3)
> 2.3 . and kernel panic...n...blah blah I am unable to record. 
> 4. Few second later - screen has something in HEX, which I call linux style 
> BSD (Black Screen of Death). 
> 4. and I find it gone DUD, meaning nothing on the box works except the reset 
> button.
> 
> To get desired results I have tried following -
> 
> i. remove HDD (having FC1 and WinXP running)
> ii. change memory slot
> iii. remove network adapter (PCI)
> iv. remove modem (PCI)
> v. bios settings tweaking within senses.
> vi. Check FC4 media at multiple places to confirm it pass.
> 
> 
> Every thing ends with the push of reset button 
> and a promise that I will be back to .... 
> ...again start loving you 'Ooo' reset buton.
> 
> 
> Can someone out there help reset my love for the reset buton.
> ...i am trying in a doloop everytime with a new parameter and same promise.
> 
> 
> 
This is going to sound weird.  Boot to the FC4 Disk 1.  At the boot 
prompt, type some garbage text and press enter.  When it comes back with 
the boot prompt again, just press enter again.  Proceed with normal 
install upgrade.  Do make sure you have a backup, just in case.

This is a bug that is reported:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=159026

Jerry