Can't boot into newly installed Sabayon 10 KDE [Solved]

[Loreia]

Hi all,

I already tried the search function but both Google search and this forum search were not of much help.

Anyway, after testing Sabayon 10 KDE in virtual machine, and being impressed with it, this weekend I tried to install it on my laptop. Installation went fine, but after reboot, I got a nice message from my "Intel boot agent" telling me there is no OS on my hard drive.

After booting into live session I can see that OS is installed but obviously Grub2 isn't working. Then I tried two thing:
1. repeat installation, selected "repair" option
2. repeat installation, this time I fully reinstalled Sabayon

I used default options for Grub2, so it was suppose to install to MBR.
I also verified that /boot/grub/grub.cfg is present and contains entries for all my three OS'es, namely two (yes, two) Windows 7 and one for Sabayon.
This is what I get from fdisk -l:

/dev/sda1 ........ Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda2 ........ NTFS
/dev/sda3 ........ NTFS
/dev/sda4 ........ Extended
/dev/sda5 ........ Linux Swap
/dev/sda6 ........ Linux
/dev/sda7 ........ FAT32

I also tried to follow this guide, but there was no luck:
http://wiki.sabayon.org/index.php?title ... tore_Grub2
(I tried both quick recovery and complete reinstall)

So, after all this, the only thing left is to ask for help here on Sabayon forum. Is there some other way to install Grub2 to MBR, or will I have to abandon Sabayon completely. Just to mention, other distributions did not have any problems on the same laptop, in fact I wiped fully functional openSuse when I installed Sabayon.

Thank you and best regards,
Loreia

[joeoden]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't one of the tasks for the boot agent used for booting from the network ROM (This allows a computer without any disks or persistent storage to run an operating system by downloading the necessary software over the network)

Try disabling the boot agent in your BIOS (you may have enabled it by mistake)
At least your computer will then boot from your hard disk drive instead of searching your network for boot files

If that does not help then please supply more info

Code: Select all

lspci

as root will be a good start as well as the model number of your laptop so as we can download the owners manual

[Loreia]

Hi joeoden,

thanks for your reply. That boot agent indeed searches network, but only if local hard drive is empty (no OS found). I manually selected to boot from hard drive, but no OS was found. It is strange because both Ubuntu and openSuse worked without any issues on the same laptop. Model is HP Elitebook 8460p:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm ... html?dnr=1

But after failing to make Sabayon run, I downloaded any burned Linux Mint 13 (all from live Sabayon session) and reinstalled Mint over Sabayon only to have the same problem with Mint. Then I replaced hard drive with another empty one, and installed Mint as the only OS on the system. This time it worked just fine. I only have Mint DVD right now, but I will try to do the same thing with Sabayon latter tonight.

Partitions on first hard drive were created with Windows 7 built-in partition tool. I guess something went wrong there, and some distributions just can't handle whatever is wrong with partitions table on that drive, (Windows 7, Ubuntu, openSuse, even Mint KDE (version from a year ago, can't remember the number), all worked and installed just fine though).

I will probably have to delete all partitions there and start fresh, but I am not looking forward reinstalling Windows .... yuck.

I just wish there was a way to fix that issue with grub2 installation.
Can I try "grub recovery" procedure from another distribution, say openSuse or Ubuntu, on Sabayon install?
If that works, I could have my system running in a relatively short time.

Regards,
Loreia

[Loreia]

Forgot to include this one:

Code: Select all

loreia-HP-EliteBook-8460p loreia # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family KT Controller (rev 04)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b4)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4)
00:1c.7 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 8 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation QM67 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
23:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): JMicron Technology Corp. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 30)
23:00.1 System peripheral: JMicron Technology Corp. SD/MMC Host Controller (rev 30)
23:00.2 SD Host controller: JMicron Technology Corp. Standard SD Host Controller (rev 30)
24:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (rev 35)
25:00.0 USB controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 04)


BR,
Loreia

[joeoden]

I replaced hard drive with another empty one

Your other hard drive may have some errors check the drive for errors with windows and linux (if you do a linux check 1st and it finds errors on the win partitions it will tell you to use the windows tools, so use the win tools first)
I use the following live cd to fault find/repair windows computers Hiren's BootCD and SystemRescueCD for linux
http://www.softexia.com/hirens-bootcd.html
http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

[Loreia]

http://www.softexia.com/hirens-bootcd.html

This one helped, but I can't say why.

I discovered that by using openSuse installer DVD I could boot Sabayon from local hard drive. Default option in openSuse live installer is to "boot from local hard disk" (unfortunaletlly, Sabayon installer does not have similar option). And that option would bring Sabayon up without issues. Bios couldn't start Grub2, but live DVD could. Well, at least I had an option to start Sabayon up, so I was happy playing around with Sabayon. Damn fine distribution, I must admit.

Then I burned Hirens CD, started it, and accidentally hit ENTER, which initiated first entry in the list (boot Windows). I force shutdown Windows boot, and started my laptop again. This time Sabayon started normally from hard drive !!!

And from that point on, everything works fine. I am really confused what happened here, it is good that Grub2 now works, but I would have been much happier if I discovered what caused this in the first place.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

BR
Loreia

[joeoden]

I am really confused what happened here

More than likely errors on your hard drive, most likley was repaired while distro hoping (I couldn't tell you which one) but something I would do is recheck your hard drive for damaged blocks (Win marks disk errors as damaged blocks which 9 out 10 times can be repaired)

Boot the Hirens CD and select to boot Mini Windows XP then run the error scan tool form HD Tune
HBCD Menu > Programs > Hard Disk / Storage > HD Tune (Test / Health / ErrorScan)

Do a full scan (I always do a Quick scan first before the full scan) if your drive has some damaged blocks you may be able to repair them using the disk tools that you can download from the manufacture of your hard disk (that is if the tools are not already on the Hirens CD)

If your drive has some damaged blocks then make a backup of all your partitions before you start doing repairs

The Hirens CD also has a Linux operating system on it which has a few different backup programs
Although run from the command line I prefer to use fsarchive because it can backup both (and more) ext4 and ntfs

Glad I was able to help, hope you understand a little bit more
If your original problem is solved then please viewtopic.php?f=86&t=17059

[Loreia]

Disk has no error at all, so this will remain a mistery.

Thanks again for your help.

BR
Loreia