Mandrake 10.1 Installation Keeps rebooting after install

[lokoalex]

OK, I am running Mandrake 10.1 on my desktop machine. Its a dual boot wit h Win XP Pro. Installation went perfect. No problems. Since I was so satisfied with the desktop installation I decided to do the same thing with my desknote. I partitioned the hard drive in half on my desknote. 10 GIG hard drive. I have an ibuddie desknote A900. 1GigaPro Mobile CPU # 733MHz CPU speed # 128KB L1/64KB L2 cache. 512 sdram. The installation went perfect just like with my desktop, but when I try to run Mandrake all it does is reboot. Over and over again. I hit escape at the Grub screen. All it says is boot: I type in failsafe and it says BIOS data check successful and then reboots again. HELP!!! I love Mandrake on my PC and I would love to share it on my desknote. Please tell me what to do. Remember I am a newbie so telling me to mess with kernels and command functions I dont know how to do. Please give me step by step advise. Thanks

[lakerdonald]

what happens when you just press enter at the boot: prompt?

[lokoalex]

what happens when you just press enter at the boot: prompt?

When I press enter all it does is reboot. Over and over and over again.

[lakerdonald]

hmmm...very strange. what does your grub.conf say?

[lokoalex]

hmmm...very strange. what does your grub.conf say?

Hhhmmmmm!!! Linux talk. I do not know how to get there to tell you that. If you can guide me Id be more than glad to give you all that information.

[lakerdonald]

i believe its in /etc, so can you paste the output of:

less /etc/grub.conf

[techieMoe]

i believe its in /etc, so can you paste the output of:

less /etc/grub.conf

Well, since the machine keeps rebooting the poster might have a little difficulty accessing his file system. What it sounds like to me (though I could just be shooting in the dark) is that somehow the default runlevel got set to 6 (reboot). The only way to fix that, or any file system problems, is to find some way to boot into the system (like a LiveCD) and edit the file.

On the other hand, your Grub.conf file can be at least viewed and temporarily modified from the Grub: prompt. When your system boots there should be an option on the screen where you select your kernel to "press E to edit options" or some such thing... but then again I haven't used Mandrake's grub in a while so I can't say...

[lokoalex]

Your exactly right. I cant get past the screen that asks me what I want to start with. All I see is linx, failsafe, and windows. The only one that works is windows. There is nothing on the screen about editing anything though. I installed it exactly the same way I did with my desktop and this one is the only one acting funny. Is there anyone out there? :drown: Thats me. I really dont like using windows anymore. So I really want to get this running. I had Mepis linux installed on here before. But I like Mandrake better. It runs a little smoother.

[techieMoe]

I had Mepis linux installed on here before. But I like Mandrake better. It runs a little smoother.

Do you still have the Mepis CD handy? You could use it to boot and allow you to edit the grub.conf or /etc/inittab, or at least show us what the contents are so we can try and figure out what your problem is.

[lokoalex]

Yes I still have the Mepis CD. I also have the Mandrake CD, Linspire, Yoper, Fedora Core, FreeBSD, Gentoo, Knopix, Vector, Slackware, Mizi, and Debian. Which one would you like me to work with. Just take me step by step. I can learn from this.