Can't boot after Gentoo 2005.0 install

[Scot]

Hello,

I've recently installed gentoo 2005.0 on my old x86 box, but when
I try to boot into it (via lilo), after a short flurry of messages to the
screen, the screen goes blitz full of random characters and the
machine apparently crashes. If I boot with the install disk and chroot
into the new installation, the last thing in /var/log/messages is
the mounting of my disk paritions - that's it.

What's the next step in the boot process and how do I fix it?

Thanks,

scot

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
# $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo-src/rc-scripts/etc/fstab,v 1.14 2003/10/13 20:03
:38 azarah Exp $
#
/dev/hde1      /dos        vfat     iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,codepage=850,noa
uto  0 0
/dev/hde2      /           ext3     defaults                        1 1
/dev/hde3      none        swap     sw                              0 0
/dev/hde5      /usr        ext3     defaults                        1 2
/dev/hde6      /var        ext3     defaults                        1 2
/dev/hde7      /tmp        ext3     defaults                        1 2
/dev/hde8      /record     ext3     defaults                        0 2
/dev/hde9      /usr/local  ext3     defaults                        1 2
/dev/hde10     /opt        ext3     defaults                        1 2
/dev/hde11     /home       ext3     defaults                        1 2
/dev/hde12     /data       ext3     defaults                        1 2

/dev/cdroms/cdrom0     /cdrw        auto     noauto,ro              0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom1     /dvdrw       auto     noauto,ro              0 0
#/dev/fd0              /floppy      auto     noauto                0 0

none           /proc       proc     defaults                        0 0
none           /dev/shm    tmpfs    nodev,nosuid,noexec             0 0

PS- here is my /etc/fstab

[Scot]

Really -no ideas, anyone?

thanks

scot

[budman7]

I don't know if this will help or not. When I looked at my /etc/fstab in Gentoo, there were some differences. You could try editing yours.

# <fs>                  <mountpoint>    <type>          <opts>
<dump/pass>

# NOTE&#58; If your BOOT partition is ReiserFS, add the notail option to opts.
/dev/hda9               /boot           reiserfs        defaults,noatime
1 0
/dev/hda9               /               reiserfs        noatime
0 1
/dev/hda3               none            swap            sw
0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0      /mnt/cdrom      auto            noauto,users
0 0
/dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy     auto            noauto
0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom1      /mnt/cdrom      auto            noauto,users
0 0
none                    /dev/shm        tmpfs           nodev,nosuid,noexec
0 0

# NOTE&#58; The next line is critical for boot!
none                    /proc           proc            defaults
0 0

# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for
# POSIX shared memory &#40;shm_open, shm_unlink&#41;.

[loft306]

you said random numbers on the screen ....but were they by chance

99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 ect.....

if so then you need to

/sbin/lilo

if not could you please try to write the numbers down they might be lilo error codes
also try to post here what that flurry of messages are or pertains to

also dose it boot into windows? or into nothing

[Scot]

Thanks, loft.

Actually- I don't really see numbers on the screen. It starts to show the
usual boot information in the console window and is beginning to boot gentoo, but then the screen quickly
changes to black with random dots on it and alternating bluish stripes. There
is nothing legible on the screen when this happens.

The boot messages disappear so quickly that I can't follow them either.
So, the best I can do is look at /var/log/messages (or so I think) and
find out what got written there.

It will boot into windoze from the lilo prompt.

Scot

[gentoo409]

Scot, where's your boot partition? I don't see one. I see a root, a swap, and a bunch of others, but no boot. Sounds like something video related though - maybe during cold/hotplugging. Did you install either/both of those? Have you set it up to go straight into X/K/Gnome? Maybe it's dying on the video setup going into X.

[Scot]

Scot, where's your boot partition? I don't see one. I see a root, a swap, and a bunch of others, but no boot. Sounds like something video related though - maybe during cold/hotplugging. Did you install either/both of those? Have you set it up to go straight into X/K/Gnome? Maybe it's dying on the video setup going into X.

1) I don't have a boot partition. /boot lives on / (/dev/hde2). This caused
me some trouble (I think) getting grub to work, but lilo, I believe, handles this
fine. (It's what I've always done, but I think I'll do a real /boot partition next time.

2) I did install X during the install process - otherwise I did everything
according to the installation guide. I'll check about turning X off, but it looks
too early in the boot stage for X to be the problem. (Remember, the last
thing in /var/log/messages is always the hde* partition mounting.)

Thanks,

scot