won't boot after upgrade

[davepass]

I was trying to upgrade from woody to sarge. I followed the instructions on http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...rading.en.html. When I attempted to reboot I got the following error:


Boot from ATAPI cd-rom: failure...
LI



I have searched the web and the only reference I can find to this error indicates that LILO needs to be rebuilt. Being a newbie, I'm not sure if this is accurate or what it even really means. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[spencerf]

sounds like you have the boot order in your bios set to cdrom. You should enter your bios and change boot order to boot from harddrive first.

[davepass]

sounds like you have the boot order in your bios set to cdrom. You should enter your bios and change boot order to boot from harddrive first.

My BIOS was set for floppy, cd then hd0. This is how it's always been and used to work before I tried this upgrade.

Anyway, I changed it to boot from hard drive 1st and now just get


LI


on screen. Uuuuug. Any ideas?

[spencerf]

did you update the kernel?

Note that the Linux kernel was not upgraded by these procedures. You may wish to do so yourself, either by installing one of the kernel-image-* packages or by compiling a customized kernel from sources.

If you are currently using a kernel from the 2.4 series, the older stable Linux kernel series, you may wish to upgrade to a 2.6 series kernel for better hardware support or improved performance.

However, you are strongly advised not to upgrade to a 2.6 kernel as part of the upgrade from woody to sarge. Some issues associated with an upgrade to 2.6 are documented in Upgrading to a 2.6 kernel, Section 5.2.

this is my only idea since I'm not a debian user. But if you did update kernel then you have to reconfigure lilo.

[davepass]

hmmm, I don't think I upgraded the kernel.

I am in the process of creating a rescue disk using rawrite on my WinXP box. Is this an appropriate next step? Where do I go from there?

[spencerf]

you can use a rescue disc or a live distro which I think both will serve you well.

[lestoil]

That LI error is showing that LILO stage one is not starting. I think you are given option to install lilo during upgrade. Lilo or grub boot disk should help deal with that error. As root mkboot command should help create boot floppy. man mkboot can give more info.
http://www.debian.org/release/sarge/...e-notes.en.txt may be helpful.
Sarge defaults to grub boot loader. But if you were using lilo you should've been able to edit /etc/lilo.conf for new setup--not forgetting /sbin lilo after edit-- before reboot. Make sure sarge(stable) sources have main contrib non-free at end in /etc/apt/sources.list. I would suggest installing sarge 2.4x kernel-image before reboot into sarge. See how your system works with that kernel for a while. You can later install 2.6x kernel-image if you like.
Good luck.

[mr.MikyMaus]

Yes, afaik that "LI" error really shows an error during
LILO's stage one. Since I'm not lilo user, I cannot tell
you for sure what to do, but I think switching from
lilo to GRUB could be the easiest way to solve this problem:

Just download Knoppix Live CD, burn it, boot it and run

grub-install (hd0)

If you have an NT-based Windows (like NT, 2K, XP),
Grub should be able to detect it as well and properly
setup itself.

GL

-M.

[davepass]

but I think switching from
lilo to GRUB could be the easiest way to solve this problem:

ok, booting from the knoppix cd has gotten me farther than before. It looks like everythingboots but when it tries to start x, it gives

Error: no suitable x server found for your card



and then it hangs. Surely there's some way to just into command line mode or otherwise bypass this?

[davepass]

ok, I'm finally able to boot from knoppix cd. I tried

grub-install hd0


but got an error:

/sbin/grub-install: line 399: /usr/bin/uniq: input/output error
could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device


Unfortunately, this does not mean a whole lot to me. Any ideas for what else I might try?