Cannot start laptop - Grub prompt

Tony Nelson tonynelson at georgeanelson.com
Sun Jan 21 01:21:00 UTC 2007


At 12:20 AM +0200 1/21/07, Dotan Cohen wrote:
>On 20/01/07, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I just installed FC6 on a new Dell laptop. The first boot went fine,
>> but now when I try to start I get the grub prompt. I tried typing
>> "boot" but it complains that the kernel must be loaded first. Er, what
>> am I to do?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>
>Some more info:
>When I try to root(hd0,0) I'm informed that hd0 is a fat drive. I did
>comletely erase the hard disk when I installed, though, and the first
>boot went fine. So I booted into rescuemode from the dvd and tried to
>reinstall grub. It tells me that /dev/hda is not found or not a block
>device. Tabbing on grub-install /dev/h shows me that only hdc exists,
>however , i does not have any corresponding BIOS drive. Googling that
>error has gotten me nowhere.
>
>Not that before I booted I played with the laptop's MediaDirect
>feature, and I suspect that it ruined grub. Or more. What can I
>do/check? Thanks.

Googling suggests that the partition table is munged.  It is possible that
booting again will magically fix it; at least I think that's how it is
supposed to work.  I don't actually know what MediaDirect /is/ yet.  It
seems to be built into the firmware and into the BIOS, and probably has
something to do with preventing you from using your computer for anything
Big Entertainment doesn't want you to do.

Recreating the partition table may fix it.  Dumping the partition table
might be informative.  It may also be necessary to re-install Grub.
Pressing the button again will probably hose it again.  You might want to
cut that button off the keyboard.  More googling is indicated.
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
TonyN.:'                       <mailto:tonynelson at georgeanelson.com>
      '                              <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>




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