Repairing Boot etc.

[Member Budgie]

Trying to make a new installation of Antix 19 on 32 bit T42 laptop.
Real grief here as I am removing various OSs and just when I thought I was there I had an error message that Grub could not be installed and I was run repair from live boot.
On booting live CD I was asked for the password. What is the password for a live boot I ask please?

[Anonymous]

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Hi budgie,

On live system, username login as demo, username password = demo.
For root access, password = root. Please do not login as root. It is totally unnecessary.
Sudo is configured by default. When prompted for a password, user your username password, not root, 
for example on live system use demo

[Member Budgie]

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Well I used demo as password and ran bootrepair (or something like that) but it failed, apparently. When I started over, booting from the CD rom, I had the same problem. I cannot find anything labelled Grub rescue. I am working with Antix 19 32 bit base as the full system will not fit on CD and I cannot get USB to boot, but that is another story. Where can I find Grub Rescue please? Is it on the base system or should I download it?
All help gratefully received.
Many thanks,
Budgie

[Member olsztyn]

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Budgie wrote:

Well I used demo as password and ran bootrepair (or something like that) but it failed, apparently.

In my understanding if you removed all Linux OSs such as formatted partitions then Bootrepair will fail but going back to the first post was the message that grub could not be installed received during installation of antiX to a hard drive partition?

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Moderator caprea]

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Did you check the md5sum of the download and the cd ?

[Member Budgie]

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I did check the md5sum with the download when burning the CD. I have never had quite the same issue before. I have now wiped the drive completely using DFSee version 15 boot cd and started over with a clean drive having marked bad sectors. The installation goes without issues until the final 3% and after I have entered names, passwords and locale etc. I get a message that the grub installation has failed and that I should run Grub Rescue. Running Grub Rescue failed to find any grub boot loaders. There could be a hard drive issue but I would have expected this to become apparent earlier. The machine is an IBM T42. Will check bios details and report later.
Any suggestions gratefully received.

[Anonymous]

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just to ask this is trying to install grub to hard drive mbr right?
Double check in the bios to make sure no security measures are on the hard drive
preventing the install. such as any hard drive passwords there that prevent writing.
if possible on live take a screenshot and upload a

inxi -Fxz

output so others know the hardware details.
`

[Moderator caprea]

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Just to be on the save side, could you please while on the boot-screen of the live-cd, press the F4-button and choose checkmd5sum- enter.
This way not only the download is checked,but also the burn of the CD.

[Member Budgie]

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Hi and many thanks for the suggestions. I shall try this check now but unfortunately the last advice didn’t reach me in time.
The abridged version of this story is that I wiped the drive with dd setting all bits to 0 and tried a new installation accepting all defaults and the installation still failed at the end with the grub installation. I swapped out the drive with another and this failed too so I ended up doing a new installation from CD of Antix 17 and upgraded from there. Took a while but I now have Antix 19 installed. I shall try your check with the live CD and report back.

[Member Budgie]

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Just to confirm that I did as you suggested; F4, select checkmd5sum and enter and then ran the live distro. I am not sure what to expect if there is a problem but the live boot proceeded to complete the checkmd5sum without any error messages and then booted to a working live distro so I conclude that the problem is not that obvious. In conclusion I have run memory checks, tried a new hard drive and run the installation many times with the simplest configuration on a fully wiped drive and the problem still appears. My conclusion is that the installation program is flawed in some way. The only info I have on the failure of the installation of grub is the following error message;-

MBR at 0x000000, Cyl:0 entry 2 points to an invalid EBR at 0x0530 3800, Cyl 42503, no aa55 sig, no valid table.

Can you shine any light on this or possibly report a bug?

Of course I am a fan of Antix in spite of the above issue and impressed by watching the cli upgrade roll out before me. A great deal of work has been invested in this project and I would just like to thank all those involved for a brilliant operating system.

Please let me know if you need more info from me on what might be a bug.
Regards,
Budgie

[Anonymous]

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hi, budgie,

MBR at 0x000000, Cyl:0 entry 2 points to an invalid EBR at 0x0530 3800, Cyl 42503, no aa55 sig, no valid table.

I’ve never seen that error before !?. I could only suggest from a live cd is
running gparted and creating a new partition table before launching the install.

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