Can't find the OS...

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MikeB
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:32 am

Can't find the OS...

Post by MikeB »

Hello,

I've been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to get my fit-PC2 working with Ubuntu Linux. I've tried 9.10 desktop, 9.04 server, and 8.04 LTS, repeatedly, and without success. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm installing from CD-ROM using a USB external CD drive. The Fit-PC2 has a 500GB WD drive, and the hardware appears to be working fine. Things power up, it finds the CD drive, the CD checks out defect-free, it will install the OS, I can make the recommended configuration changes and do the updates as specified on the "how to install Ubuntu on the Fit-PC2" pages, it accesses the network just fine (wired), and all seems well. Then I get to the unplug the CD and reboot step and that's where it goes wrong. On reboot I get a message saying there's no operating system found.

If I put the CD back in, boot from that, and pick the "boot from first hard drive" choice on the menu, the system comes up from the HD just fine, so the OS is there, it just isn't getting found by the BIOS on power up.

I've tried fiddling with the BIOS settings for OS and disk arrangement, but nothing changes the boot up problem. I've even tried forcing a grub install, and it looks ok to me, but I do NOT claim any major Linux expertise. I can use the systems, but much of the lower level stuff is all magic to me at this point. I expect I'll be learning more before this is done, which is fine, but some hints as to what needs doing would really help here. The device has been sitting on the desk for over 2 months now while I've tried various things in my limited free time, and I'd really like it to become useful. Having to manually boot off a CD is not an acceptable situation for normal use.

Any ideas? ADVthanksANCE!

yogev_ezra
Posts: 539
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:49 pm

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by yogev_ezra »

1) Do you have Fit-PC2 or Fit-PC2i?
2) What BIOS version?
3) Have you installed GRUB loader on the hard disk?

The error you are getting suggests that either the hard disk is not detected at boot time, or that it does not have boot loader (GRUB in this case) installed.

MikeB
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:32 am

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by MikeB »

Thank you for the reply.

I have a Fit-PC2. got it through Amazon.com.

The BIOS is Phoenix CSS 2009 SP3B, and the date is 7/21/09.

In theory the grub loader should be getting installed by the Ubuntu install, but I did wonder about that and tried "sudo grub-install /dev/sda" and got a message saying "Installation finished. No error reported." It also showed the device.map file to contain "(hd0) /dev/sda", which should mean it's booting from the MBA.

When that didn't work (still get "Operating system not found" on boot without the CD-ROM boot disk), I tried some other instructions I found on the net for working with grub.

Those said to do "sudo grub" to get into the command mode of grub...but that didn't work...command not found. Tried "find" to look for it, and didn't see it. The command not found included the helpful suggestion to do an apt-get install grub, so I tried that. Said it would be uninstalling grub-pc if I did, but it wasn't working anyway, so I went ahead.

That got me the ability to sudo grub, but when I tried telling it to locate the stage1 file, it couldn't find it. There is a /boot dir, with a grub directory in it, but no stage files.

At this point I think the install is hosed by too many tries with too little understanding, so I'll be reinstalling from scratch before I try anything else, it anyone else has any suggestions. I'm thinking it has something to do with the BIOS settings and the large HD (which reports itself healthy BTW), or perhaps with grub not being able to deal with an ext4 boot partition (it was created by the Ubuntu 9.10 install, so that's odd if so...I took the defaults and let it partition things last time).

In case it helps, here's more info:

BIOS is set for:

Large disk access mode: DOS
Installed OS : winxp
Boot: IDE HDD, then CD-ROM

Hard drive:

WD5000BEVT-00ZAT0- (though in boot it also has "(PM)" on the end of that)
set for "AUTO", getting:

LBA Format
976773168 sectors
500GB
Multi-sector transfer: 16 sectors
LBA mode control: Enabled
32 bit I/O: Enabled
Transfer mode: FPIO4/DMA 2
Ultra DMA mode: Mode 5

I've also reset the BIOS settings to default before doing an install...didn't change anything.

Since others seem to be getting this stuff working, even on 500 GB drives, I'm starting to wonder if there isn't something wrong somewhere in the unit I have...

-- Mike B.

yogev_ezra
Posts: 539
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:49 pm

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by yogev_ezra »

Your BIOS settings look good, although I do recommend updating to BIOS version 08/31/09:
http://www.fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?t ... _ROM_Files

The version you have is known to cause the system sometimes not boot: http://www.fit-pc2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=783

MikeB
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:32 am

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by MikeB »

Great call! That's the problem.

The link you provided had a workaround of disabling the Boot-time Diagnostic Screen. I disabled the Boot-time Diagnostic Screen and got a grub prompt rather than an OS not found message. Due to all the messing around I've done, the grub setup is FUBAR, so it didn't boot, but I can fix that with a fresh install. Running now.

I'll update the BIOS too.

I think this is "problem solved", but I'll let you know for sure once the BIOS and install are done.

Thank you for the quick, and VERY helpful replies! I wasn't expecting to have the problem solved in only a few hours! Glad to be wrong! ;-)

MikeB
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:32 am

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by MikeB »

One last question...why the August BIOS update, rather than the December one?

Do they have to be done in order? Is there something about the December one that won't work with a Fit-PC2?

ADVthanksANCE!

MikeB
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:32 am

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by MikeB »

Just an update: the BIOS update to the August version worked fine, and Ubuntu 9.10 desktop installed easily. Reboots now work as intended, with no CD-ROM. Happy time!

Had a bit of a problem building the USB drive since my desktop is running Win2K, not XP and the program that formats the USB drive for MSDOS (ImUpdate.exe) died. I looked around a bit and found a similar program (Win32DiskImager.exe) that did run on Win2K and got the USB drive set up. After that it was smooth sailing...the BIOS update program ran without a problem, did the update, and the Ubuntu install happened and the system is now running well. Got Apache2 and some other things set up on it, like SSH server, and I can now start setting it up as my LAN file server, web server, DNS cache, DHCP server, intrusion monitor, mail repository, and whatever else comes to mind...as soon as I work out the backup details. ;-)

Thanks again for the help!

yogev_ezra
Posts: 539
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:49 pm

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by yogev_ezra »

You are welcome. Happy to get your problem solved.

August update is not a must, you could also get December one (adds support for Overclocking as well). What I meant by August is get [at least] the August one ;) The updates are not incremental, you could install December one directly over July BIOS.

MikeB
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:32 am

Re: Can't find the OS...

Post by MikeB »

Thank you for the information. I suspected that was the case, but didn't know for sure. Always best to know for sure before doing anything hard to reverse!

It's working great now. I really appreciate the help and the quickness of getting it. I doubt I'd have gotten such a good and quick answer from Microsoft or HP, Dell, or any of the other "usual suspects".

I'm still amazed that such a small device has such capabilities...

Thanks again!

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