I am a moron- please help

[smokinglate]

I recently came across a COMPAQ 1394 notebook with no operating system and a user installed 20G HD. I decided to install CollegeLinux as the operating system to give it a try, but the evil, nasty, cruel and vile computer keeps telling me that there is no operating system installed. Yes there is!!! I watched it for like 2 hours!! Please explain to me in barney language why this happens and how to get it to start Linux. If I am beyond help, please notify my in a polite way, and I will ensure that I do not pass any of my idiot genetic material on to another generation.

 

[Visseroth]

Well two things could be accuring and anyone correct me if Im wrong or miss something.....

One could be that Linux or you didn't write the to the boot sector so it sees no OS

or

Since Linux does not check to make sure there are no bad sectors may have written to a bad boot sector, meaning that the hard drive would be good for nothing but a storage disk of some sort and not bootable.

One other thing, trying Gentoo, I run it and I have tried Red Hat, Debian and Suse and Gentoo by far works better and in my opinion is easier to understand

 

[stefanwagner]

You might get a CD-bootable linux like knoppix - or even a floppy-linux like tomsrbt (which only supported ext2-fileformat when I used it last, which is some years ago) - to try to mount your harddrive, and see what's there.

Do you know which bootloader you installed (lilo, grub)?

seeking a job as java-programmer in Berlin:

http://home.arcor.de/hirnstrom/bewerbung

 

[zeland]

Visseroth:

During the installation/partitioning, you can ask linux to scan for bad blocks. However, once a bad block is found, the installation will abort, asking you to change the damaged HDD and restart the installation process again.


--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[stefanwagner]

and please choose a specific topic next time- we aren't interested in your religion...

seeking a job as java-programmer in Berlin:

http://home.arcor.de/hirnstrom/bewerbung

 

[franklin97355]

stefanwagner: OH, I get it.