SLACKWARE: freezes on boot

Hey guys,

I've installed and re-installed Slackware 10.0 on my cousin's computer about three times now - I'm (almost) certain that I've set things up correctly (I run Slackware 10.0 at home, and I have installed several times before without any problems).

However, when we boot it up from the CD (I prefer to boot from CD because he runs WinXP, and I couldn't get LILO to setup), it begins loading normally, but then, after uncompressing Linux, it goes to a screen that looks exactly like the original boot screen from the CD, w/ the command "bare.i /dev/hdb2 noinitrd ro" (which is the boot command I typed in originally) - and then it freezes up...

Any ideas?

-Wiski C.

Well, for one, have you checked that the hardware on his machine is compatible with Slackware? What are the machine specs? How did you not get Lilo installed? Would it not install, or...? Need a little more information than this. Usually when the Lilo install screen comes up I select "Install Lilo automatically" and install it on the MBR. Where do you try? How did you install? I've installed Slackware about 300 times and I've never seen this happen. I've never dual booted it though either. It wouldn't be hard I shouldn't think if you made sure the partitions were set up properly, gace it swap space that was decent, and remembered to set the Slackware partition as bootable.

Gore,

Sorry so short...

No, I didn't check to see if his hardware was compatible with Slackware - I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be, though - It's just a stock HP (Win XP, 512Mb DDR RAM, W.D. 40Gb HD, 2.79GHz AMD Athlon, etc.) w/ an extra 200Gb Maxtor HD and a couple of ATI Radeon 7000 video cards (w/ dual monitor support, etc.). Similar to my box, just a little more "beefed up."
I'm pretty sure the hard drives were partitioned correctly, too - we just moved everything from the 200Gb to the 40Gb, and then I split the 200Gb up like this:

swap: 1.1Gb (83) Logical
reiserFS: 50.1Gb (82) Primary (Bootable)
NTFS: 149.8Gb (07) Primary

As far as LILO goes, I tried to let it install automatically, but it gave me an error message and that I could run it from the terminal later (liloconfig) - didn't bother me much, since I'm accustomed to booting-up from the CD anyway.

We've been messing with it for the last 6 hours - I've been Googlin' my ass off and racking my brain trying to figure this out - like I said, I've installed Slackware myself several times before, and NEVER had any problem like this... very mysterious... quite frustrating, too...

Let me know if you need anymore info, and thanks a lot...
-Wiski C.
--------------------------------EDIT----------------------------------
Well, I decided to try again - this time I setup the HD partitions the same, except I left the extra 150Gb as "free space" (just to remove any doubts about file-structure conflicts).

The install went smoothly (as usual) until we came to the LILO configuration... I tried automatic again, this time from a boot disk... it made the disk, but still gave me an error message (not a very specific one, either - something to the effect of "lilo could not install - use the boot disk, and run liloconfig again later").

Anyway, I finished up the rest of the installation, and booted with the boot disk, but to no avail - it ran along normal until it decompressed the kernel - and then froze... again...

Damnit.

-Wiski

Heh... seems to be a bug in the liloconfig utility. It sets boot=(IN or something (at least on my box it does). I'd suggest you learn how to build your own lilo.conf and run lilo.

Cheers,
cgkanchi

Bingo...

I had him pull those two graphics cards with dual monitor support (why I didn't do this a week ago, I haven't a clue). Booted right up. Came to this diagnosis after he'd burned a SLAX live-cd, which froze on boot as well...

Don't I feel intelligent... I must've spent six hours reinstalling and Googlin' around for answers, when the solution was only a few screws away the entire time...

Oh well, at least it's running now...

-Wiski C.

-----------------------------------------------EDIT------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the advice, but (at this point in time) I have no interest in running LILO - it's a great tool and all, but it's just as easy for me to boot Slackware from a CD or a diskette...

Strange, though - I did try to let it "auto-install" --> worked great on my stand-alone Linux HD (where it's useless, of course), but it didn't like my partitioned Win98/Slackware drive... ???

-Wiski C.