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#81

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 21, 2021, 23:50:09 PM

Have a look at this information from GParted:

/dev/sda4 starts at sector 281106430 and ends at sector 312580095.
/dev/sda5 starts at sector 281106432 and ends at sector 310482943.
/dev/sda6 starts at sector 310484992 and ends at sector 312580095.

The way I set up all these operating systems was I set up the first 2GB FAT16 partition for DOS, installed that, then installed PLoP with floppy installer and created the hda1 and hda1-hidden partition definitions.

I created the DOS profile HDA: *80h hda1, clear, clear, clear and a Windows 98 profile HDA: hda1-hidden, *80h don't touch, clear, clear.

Then I used the Windows 98 installer to create a new 15GB FAT32 partition, installed it, then re-installed PLoP bootloader from the diskette again. Then I created the hda2 and hda2-hidden partition definitions.

I updated the Windows 98 profile to HDA: *80h hda2, hda1, clear, clear and created a Windows XP profile HDA: hda1-hidden, hda2-hidden, *80h don't touch, clear.

Then I used the Windows XP installer to create the third 117GB NTFS partition. I've found that the Windows XP installation would not work unless I used the partition tool included on the installation CD.

Then again I re-installed PLoP bootloader from the diskette and again created the hda3 partition definition.

I updated the Windows XP profile to HDA: *80h hda3, hda1, hda2, clear and created a Lubuntu profile HDA: hda1, hda2, hda3, *80h don't touch.

For Lubuntu I used the installation CD to create the /dev/sda5 (14GB ext4, mount "/") and /dev/sda6 (linux-swap) partitions. After the installation it seemed there was nothing at boot, just a flashing cursor. I had to again re-install PLoP bootloader from diskette and lastly created the hda4 partition definition.

Finally, I updated the Lubuntu profile to HDA: hda1, hda2, hda3, *80h hda4 L1.

I've tried creating the Lubuntu logical partitions using both GParted and the tool in the installer and neither way seems to make a bootable system !

Oh: and one time I used the GParted tool to set the "boot" flag on /dev/sda5, seemingly to no effect.

#82

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Elmar - December 21, 2021, 19:57:35 PM

I reconstructed your disk layout with the 3 files. How did you partition the hard disk? Here, gparted reports an invalid partition table. The problem is the extended partition. I think there is a problem with the boundaries. From my point of view, its required to remove completely the extended partition and then recreate it.

On your computer, does gparted not report any problems?


Note: I think you created the extended partition because of the swap partition. You can also use a file as swap space. That means, you can use sda4 as primary partition and a custom file on sda4 as swap space. This gives more advantages than using a partition as swap space. But booting works also with the extended partition.

#83

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 21, 2021, 17:43:21 PM

Hi Elmar, thanks a lot for taking the time to help me out!

Here are those files:

#84

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Elmar - December 21, 2021, 17:12:40 PM

The extlinux message is ok.

Start the livecd. Run as root

dd if=/dev/sda of=sda.bin count=63
dd if=/dev/sda4 of=sda4.bin count=1
dd if=/dev/sda5 of=sda5.bin count=1

And post the 3 files sda.bin, sda4.bin and sda5.bin

#85

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 21, 2021, 16:42:50 PM

Hi, thanks for doing that.
I'm still getting some kind of error from extlinux, it says:

Code Select Expand

extlinux --install /mnt --device /dev/sda5
/mnt is device /dev/sda5

I took some photos so you can see exactly what is happening 😆

#86

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Elmar - December 20, 2021, 09:00:01 AM

I did this with the livecd successfully:

At first I cleared the boot sector of sda5 to make it impossible to boot and getting "No valid bootsector signature".
The syslinux.cfg stayed unchanged in the root of sda5.

Then booting the livecd of Lubuntu
In the terminal:
sudo bash    <- to not always have to write sudo
mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
apt install extlinux
extlinux --install /mnt --device /dev/sda5
reboot

-> Lubuntu booted from the Plop Boot Manager and sda5 without problems.

#87

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Elmar - December 19, 2021, 20:53:21 PM

I have no time at the moment to test whats wrong with the chroot, which should work fine.

The easiest is to just reinstall Lubuntu, then do the extlinux stuff, then reinstall the Plop Boot Manager with option 2 (Rewrite loader only) in the Plop Boot manager Installer.

#88

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 19, 2021, 20:38:07 PM

So I discovered another environment known as "chroot": https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chroot

Changing root is commonly done for performing system maintenance on systems where booting and/or logging in is no longer possible. Common examples are:

• Reinstalling the bootloader.

Using chroot
First, mount the temporary API filesystems:

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# sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
# cd /mnt
# mount -t proc /proc proc/
# mount -t sysfs /sys sys/
# mount --rbind /dev dev/
# mount --rbind /run run/

Finally, to change root into /location/of/new/root using a bash shell:

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# chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Once I was in this Lubuntu 16.04 environment that had been installed on /dev/sda5, I was able to execute:

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apt install extlinux
extlinux --install / --device /dev/sda5
vi /syslinux.cfg


Where I typed in:

Code Select Expand

prompt 0
timeout 1
default a

label a
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-45-generic
append initrd=/boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-45-generic root=/dev/sda5

Yet I still get this error:
Warning:
No valid bootsector signature
Continue boot? [y/n]

Then I fired up Gparted and changed /dev/sda5 to have the "boot" flag. No change.

I'm beginning to suspect there is more complexity at play here than was first appreciated...

#89

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 17, 2021, 18:17:21 PM

Elmar, hey that looks like really good information.

I had installed Lubuntu "/" on /dev/sda5 and "swap" on /dev/sda6.

However I cannot boot into the Lubuntu to try the commands you gave me.

So I booted into the Lubuntu installer CD and called up LXTerminal, did the "sudo apt install extlinux" and then "extlinux --install / --device /dev/sda5"

It came back with:
extlinux: not a fat, ntfs, ext2/3/4, btrfs, xfs orufs1/2 filesystem: /

So then I tried something like this, I dunno:

sudo mkdir /mnt/hdd
sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/hdd
extlinux --install /mnt/hdd --device /dev/sda5

It came back:

/mnt/hdd is device /dev/sda5
extlinux: cannot open device /dev/sda5

So...?

#90

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Elmar - December 09, 2021, 17:08:09 PM

Hello Grunchy,

I tried your setup. I know what the problem is and I have a solutions for you.

Lubuntu comes with Grub2 and the problem is that Grub2 can not be installed to a boot sector. Maybe its possible and I don't know how.

Instead of Grub2 you can use extlinux (part of syslinux) as Linux loader. The simplest configuration is to create the file /syslinux.cfg

Code Select Expand


prompt 0
timeout 1
default a

label a
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-45-generic
append initrd=/boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-45-generic root=/dev/sda5


Install extlinux to the boot sector of sda5 with "extlinux --install / --device /dev/sda5"

Now, Linux will boot from the Plop Boot Manager with *80h hda4 L1.

Note: You have to do a "sudo apt install extlinux".