Grub Loading Please Wait.....Error 18

[mattman59]

I will start out by saying I know nothing about Linux, I picked up a DVD (Suse 10.0) from a magizine at Barnes and Noble. I have installed it on one old windows machine fine but when I went to my home computer it gets all the way through the install and when it reboots I get the error message in the title. From what I did read it is something to do with the BIOS but I have no idea what it is in the BIOS. Any help would be great.

[mattman59]

Anyone? I reset my BIOS to default and it is now giving me an Error 17.

[oz]

Take a look at the GRUB Manual:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html

Section 14.3 has a listing of stage 2 errors and what they mean.

[hughitt1]

how did you do the install on your windows pc?

The easiest thing to do would be a clean install of linux, and windows if you want to use both. Are you familiar with partitions, and how to wipe a partition? And did you want to setup a dual-boot system?

I got similar errors to the one you have (possibly the same one), by messing up my master boot record. it's probably possible to fix it without formatting, and reinstalling, but i'm not experienced enough with grub to even try.

[mattman59]

how did you do the install on your windows pc?

The easiest thing to do would be a clean install of linux, and windows if you want to use both. Are you familiar with partitions, and how to wipe a partition? And did you want to setup a dual-boot system?

I got similar errors to the one you have (possibly the same one), by messing up my master boot record. it's probably possible to fix it without formatting, and reinstalling, but i'm not experienced enough with grub to even try.

It used to have windows.

[hughitt1]

If windows it already wiped, or you are not worried about saving anything from the windows partition, then i would suggest using a boot cd to run fdisk and delete any partitions on the hard drive. Then boot the pc with the suse install media, use the feature in the install to check to media for errors, and if all goes well, try installing again.

If the windows partition is still there, and there are files you wish to keep before erasing the partition, the easiest thing to do would be to install the hd in another pc that already has windows running and copy the files you want to save over, then put the hd back in and erase the partitions & do a fresh install.

[suyash:linux fan]

hi
I' a newbie...jst joined the linux bandwagon. i hv installed fedora core 5 a no of times...but today i got an error.

I did it on a 40gb hd,...dell pc which had win xp...i made some free space using PM8 and put in fc5 dvd.
FC5 got installed successfully as usual...but on reboot it flashed a message only text mode available and gave a prompt
<grub>

here i cld recover win xp using usual
chainloader (hd0,0)+1
boot

....but the aim was to start fc5...
any idea wht the error is and how i should solve it...
any suggesstions are welcome...

[tkemmere]

Hi,

Just to share with others:

Indeed, like Ozar mentioned, on GNU GRUB Manual 0.97 the meaning of Error 18 is listed.
It says:
18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general).

My disk was also 40gb, just like mattman59.

I went back to the bios and changed the Harddisk setting from a specified amount of cylinders and sectors, to AUTO.
This solved it for me.

Regards. Thomas.

PS. @suyash:linux fan: Maybe no-one replyed your post, because of the way you wrote it. I mean that your spelling is similar to what a highschool pupil would use in a mobile phone text message. For example I can't follow what your question is. It takes too much time to figure out. I suppose there are plenty tutorials on how to effectively use a forum. Good luck.