10 replies to this topic

[Manolenta]

Hi.
 
I have got an Alienware R11X R3 laptop. I am using it to test some USB Grub4dos in my pendrive, and I am having a problem while trying to boot some distro's. For example, with Partition Magic. I can boot it in QEMU and another old laptop, but not in the Alienware's one.
 
Any idea about this? I am afraid I won't be able to use the pendrive in other computers if the problem replicates.
 
The example I am talking about uses this manu entry:

title Parted Magic  (funciona QEMU y algún PC)
find --set-root /iso/pmagic.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 /iso/pmagic.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /pmagic/bzImage edd=off load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw vga=normal sleep=10 loglevel=0 max_loop=256 vmalloc=384MiB keymap=us iso_filename=/iso/pmagic.iso
initrd /pmagic/initrd.img

Thanks!!

[steve6375]

'a problem' is not really a very helpful description. What exactly do you mean? Does it start to boot? Does the drive LED flash, any messages displayed, etc.

[Manolenta]

You are right, sorry, I got interrupted and I forgot to explain better. When it starts loading, in QEMU shows the MB being copied to RAM. In Alienware, that never happens, just gets to the part where it says:

 

(hd0,0)

Filesystem type is iso9660, using whole disk

 [Linux=bzImage, setupo=0x4000, size=0x2fe050]

 

Then it should show something like [32M/56M] increasing, but nothing happens and instead of that, it hangs there. I waited like 5 minutes, but nothing happens.

[steve6375]

Does it get to [56M/56M]  - i.e. load all into memory - or does it stop before this?

[Manolenta]

In old PC (celeron CPU, 32 bits) and QEMU yes, it gets to 56/56 and loads Partition Magic into the X environment. In Alienware, no, not even shows the numbers, just hangs showing this and nothing else happens:

(hd0,0)
Filesystem type is iso9660, using whole disk
 [Linux=bzImage, setupo=0x4000, size=0x2fe050]

[steve6375]

Are you using 20141027 0.4.5c version? If not, try it.

Also try 0.4.6a version. (just replace \grldr file).

[Manolenta]

I am not sure about that. I will test with the new version. Thanks!

[tinybit]

Sounds like a bios issue.

as a test, try this and see if it could complete successfully:

debug on
map --mem /iso/pmagic.iso (0xff)

[Manolenta]

I will. Haven't got time these days. Thx for advice.

[tinybit]

It could be otherwise possibly caused by a CPU bug.

To work around it, try this way:

pause --wait=X
Kernel ......
pause --wait=Y
initrd ...
pause --wait=Z
boot

You may adjust X,Y,Z to be a proper successful value greater than 0, most likely between 5 and 30.

[Manolenta]

Hi, tested everything, nothing works. It may be a BIOS problem... This is crap. All test in my old laptop works, but not in the M11x...

 

Thanks for helping.