Catch-22 : NO JOY after all

Beartooth Beartooth at swva.net
Sat Dec 27 20:40:19 UTC 2008


On Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:45:38 +0000, I Beartooth wrote:
	[....]
> 	Today I decided to tackle my main machine. Anaconda launches --
> but before it starts asking about language, keyboard, etc, I get the
> dread "signal out of range; set to 1680x1050". [....]

	I'm on machine #2. For some reason, not all of this thread got to 
my reader this time; but when I left off, F10 was installed, XP on the 
other hard drive was still there, access to both was available, and both 
seemed to be working.

	I had left out any mention of my KVM switch, since I had shut all 
machines down (posting then from a wireless laptop), pulled the cables 
from the peripherals to the switch and from the switch to #1, and 
connected #1 directly to the peripherals.

	Now I have put the KVM switch back into use. The other machines 
(all of which, including this one, had been shut down, but never 
disconnected from the switch) are still as before. But #1 is suddenly 
altogether unusable.

	When I power it up, I seen *nothing* -- no maker's splash screen, 
no access to the BIOS, no self-testing, no grub menu -- until I get a 
blinking underline character in the upper left corner for a few seconds, 
then (one or two lines down) "GRUB _" -- and there it sits. No grub stage 
2, no grub menu, no anything else ever any more, unless I hit Ctrl-Alt-
Delete or the reset button -- whereupon the same nastiness repeats.

	When I log into my router (a Netgear MBR 814, supplied by my 
wireless broadband provider),and go down the list of "Attached Devices), 
connecting to each with ssh, I succeed with them all -- and #1 is *not* 
one. 

	That actually makes sense, after a minute; as that blasted "GRUB 
_" implies, no OS on either hard drive has ever actually reached boot 
point. So of course nothing is running, nor is there to connect to. Hence 
nothing on #1 is attached to the router.

	Incidentally, I have tried punching the escape key at every point 
along the dead end to "GRUB _", despite my disgust with that trick; no 
help there, either.

	I can of course, once again, shut all machines down, move the 
cables from the peripherals back off the KVM switch onto #1, and 
(presumably) regain use of that machine, at the cost of the other three. 
But so what? If I do it, and it does get me back into #1, what then?? 
What do I change, or how do I find what to change?

	One faint possibility, one I have less than no confidence in, is 
that the monitor in grub.conf is set to 1280x1024 rather than 1680x1050 
-- it is in #2, but #2 works.

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.




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