unable to boot

I ran mint julia on my eeepc 900, with no problem except if I want to update . Then, on the next boot, my password is not accepted with the message that the battery settings are faulty, and nothing that I think of will get me in except reinstalling mint
. I had forgotten that last night, and the same thing happened. I thought cool, it is the occasion to install puppy, as I have it in a usb stick and it works fine. I put the cd in, installed from the cd, all ok. Then puppy informed me to reboot, and I could not reboot, as "something was killing the init...". Sorry, can't remember the wording.
i tried the help of puppy, couldn't find what would work.
Now I am writing with puppy on the usb stick as nothing boots directly from the eeepc.
I reinstalled mint, but it stays stuck with a black screen and a blinking minus sign. It doesn't reach the splash screen, but the first image of the eeepc bios does appear.
I am quite the clutz and not too linux savvy, so please be gentle with me and maybe you could hint at how to fix this?
thanks and take care

It's difficult to assess what the problem might be with the information you have given. With regard to Mint, did you do an "update" or an "upgrade" to a different version?
With Puppy, are you using the most recent version?
Did you do a frugall install? or a full install to the hard drive? Where did you install the bootloader? Do you have any operating system now? or just the Puppy on usb?

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I reinstalled mint, but it stays stuck with a black screen and a blinking minus sign.

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Usually a sign there is a problem with bootloader installation but???

Do you know how to get partition information from your hard drives from Puppy on USB? If so, do that and post it here. If not, post back and let us know.

I've found that when you are doing something unfamiliar like installing a new operating system it is always best to keep a detailed step-by-step record of the install. That way when you have a problem, you will be able to answer questions asked. Also, write down any error messages you get specifically.

ya, sorry, as i said, i'm a clutz. Until now, i never had problem like this an wasn't expecting it ( it only happens to others of course) i was only updating julia, not upgrading to the latest. And puppy is 5.2. I did an install to hard drive with puppy, and then when it obviously didn't work, a reinstall of julia, where booting got me no further than the black screen and the blinking thingy. Actually i know that i am not a tinkerer, so i was just wondering if i could just reinstall something without screwing the machine for good. Oh yes, i think that i tried to reboot from the puppy cd and there was no joy there. Could i eventually install from my usb, that works properly?thanks for the quick and patient response and take care.
edit: I did find with puppy the following, talking of the place in the ssd where my working software is put: 'FATAL ERROR:BAD PRIMARY PARTITION 1: partition ends in the finalpartial cylind'. I don't know if this helps you but there it is
also, just for fun I tried to reboot the cd, and got the original message on boot:'kernel panic- not syncing: attempted to kill init!'
Btw can we install to the internal flash drive from the usb stick? just wondering...or should I just save my info, format the whole darn thing and start over?
aloha

Ok. I found some info on this A. I had to prepare the partition I was to install to (thought that the univerall installer would do the work, but visibly no). B use the boot options of puppy help pfix or the other (I will get organised for this, ) to be able to boot the cd again. Just one thing I haven't been able to find yet, is that I would like to go into the filesave to see it and maybe delete things? Is this correct? because puppy keeps telling me that I have to either delete things or add memory. I have enough memory, but I would think that on this kind of linux, you should be able to...but I can't get into the file because it is mounted and in use...please help me, I find an enourmous amount of info, but it gets very confusing in the end. Plus I haven't found any posts yet about the subject, so maybe it's only me, ...take care
ps I haven't done this yet, but will this w-e, unless someone (anybody, help) tells me it is stupid...:?

Yes - can you:

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sudo fdisk -l

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and show the results. This will list all partitions and maybe reveal the problem.

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Originally Posted by twoHats

Yes - can you:



and show the results. This will list all partitions and maybe reveal the problem.

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I am sorry, but I am very bad at these things, I typed the thing you said, and either I didn't do it right(it is always assumed that we know what we are doing...) or I could not decifer the order properly...please be a bit more specific, or give me up as a bad job, I assure you that I will try what you say. I did type in console, but there is probably something I should have typed before and have no idea what...the order was not recognized...

You mean the sudo fdisk -l produced no output? You know how to access a konsole/terminal right? It needs to be all lower case lettters and the last letter "-l" is a lower case Letter L no a number one. After entering it, you should be prompted for your user password unless you are using a Live CD.

errrr. there is no sudo in puppy linux.

fdisk -l only should suffice.

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Originally Posted by rokytnji

errrr. there is no sudo in puppy linux.

fdisk -l only should suffice.

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Thanks guys, I just got so fustrated with the whole thing (as mentioned before I am not a tinkerer, ), so I went into puppy 5,2, which boots from my usb stick, did the boot pfix I think (don't have my notes), went to gparted, cleaned up the partitions(delete all), got out of puppy, reinstalled julia, made no update, and still no boot. so back to the puppy stick , and I had read somewhere that you had to install grub which I did, so it would boot. Then I got back to julia, still no direct boot.
I then had a aha moment, pressed escape when the eeepc page came up, to choose what to boot from, chose my 1st ssd ( my eeepc has a 4gb ssd, and a second 16gb ssd,) where I know that I put julia, and voila! I am back!
I am not technical enough to tinker with puppy yet, I find commmand line terribly confusing,
plus I have put opera in julia as my browser, 'cos I liked it a lot, and I have realised that it works a whole lot better than in puppy, although slower...In puppy it was a pain to get anything to save to my internal, computer memories ,maybe because it was onna stick?
. I still haven't found how to get it to boot normally, but as I am not so fustrated anymore, no sweat, I may just find it someday.
One thing I must say, the info on how to do things i puppy is quite difficult to find on the web, and I tried to inscribe myself on the puppy forum, and try as I might, and I can assure you that I am not a computer, I could not get the code right (15 tes) Maybe it is designed to keep nerds out ?
take care, and if you do have a solution for my last problem...I am interested xoxo:)

crolmac: There are so many things that are a surprise about your last post here...

...but for now a suggestion: Learn to work with the shell, It is the real heart of the system, with all the GUI just being window dressing! This forum has a few tutorials, and there are several folks here capable of helping you. Then we can get somewhere.

It is very hard to tell your general computer knowledge, but it seems to be much higher than your Linux knowledge, which is a good start! Don't give up tinkering!

Have fun