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First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

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jagjag363
Posts: 5
Joined: 2011-06-24 15:00

First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#1 Post by jagjag363 »

Hi guys,

I've just installed Debian 6.0.1a on a HP Proliant ML115, the install seemed to go ok.
As it began to start up it 'Grub Bootloader' loaded then on the screen after the bootup froze at 'Loading initial ramdisk'

Anyone got any ideas?
Unfortunately im a complete novice to debian :(

Help would be appreciated.

Thanks

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bw123
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Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#2 Post by bw123 »

jagjag363 wrote:Hi guys,

I've just installed Debian 6.0.1a on a HP Proliant ML115, the install seemed to go ok.
As it began to start up it 'Grub Bootloader' loaded then on the screen after the bootup froze at 'Loading initial ramdisk'

Anyone got any ideas?
Unfortunately im a complete novice to debian :(

Help would be appreciated.

Thanks
hi jagjag, it's good to be a complete novice, and solving problems like this will give you a lot of confidence to really learn a lot in a short time.

good stuff http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual

When you say froze, you mean like rock hard dead froze? It can take a little while for that to complete, if you have a recovery mode option try that..
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qjqqyy
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Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#3 Post by qjqqyy »

correct me if im wrong, but will deleting the initrd line help? debian can boot without initrd right? moreover that is a fresh installation.
Image

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kiyop
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Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#4 Post by kiyop »

At Grub menu, press C to enter into command line.
I hope the version of Grub is 1.9...
Type

Code: Select all

ls
and find the expression for the / partition (or /boot partition). In case the / partition (/dev/sda1) is expressed as (hd0,1),

Code: Select all

set root=(hd0,1)
ls /boot/
and so on to find correct kernel and initramfs (initial ram filesystem?).
In case the kernel is /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 and the initramfs is /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686, type

Code: Select all

linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686
boot
and see what happens.

Do you have any Live debian media, such as debian Live CD or debian live USB flash drive?
If you have, boot with the media and open terminal and execute

Code: Select all

su
fdisk -lu
and submit the result.
qjqqyy wrote:will deleting the initrd line help? debian can boot without initrd right?
With my debian squeeze installed in an partition with kernel vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686, mere kernel cannot mount correctly the / partition, because the suitable mounting process is executed by init in initramfs.
So, it booted without initramfs (/boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686), but I could not do anything but restarting by pressing ALT+SysRq+r,s,e,i,u,b.
I do not know if there is kernel which can boot and mount correctly the / filesystem without initramfs, or not.
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jagjag363
Posts: 5
Joined: 2011-06-24 15:00

Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#5 Post by jagjag363 »

kiyop wrote:At Grub menu, press C to enter into command line.
I hope the version of Grub is 1.9...
Type

Code: Select all

ls
and find the expression for the / partition (or /boot partition). In case the / partition (/dev/sda1) is expressed as (hd0,1),

Code: Select all

set root=(hd0,1)
ls /boot/
and so on to find correct kernel and initramfs (initial ram filesystem?).
In case the kernel is /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 and the initramfs is /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686, type

Code: Select all

linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686
boot
and see what happens.

Do you have any Live debian media, such as debian Live CD or debian live USB flash drive?
If you have, boot with the media and open terminal and execute

Code: Select all

su
fdisk -lu
and submit the result.
qjqqyy wrote:will deleting the initrd line help? debian can boot without initrd right?
With my debian squeeze installed in an partition with kernel vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686, mere kernel cannot mount correctly the / partition, because the suitable mounting process is executed by init in initramfs.
So, it booted without initramfs (/boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686), but I could not do anything but restarting by pressing ALT+SysRq+r,s,e,i,u,b.
I do not know if there is kernel which can boot and mount correctly the / filesystem without initramfs, or not.
Thanks for this i'll have a go, although does look fairly complex to me :S.

Should this really happen? I mean its a stable version i've downloaded and i would have thought it would be "ready to go".

Does stuff like this happen a lot with Debian?

jagjag363
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Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#6 Post by jagjag363 »

Sorry for double post...

Just booted it up again and now its stuck here:

GRUB loading.
Welcome to GRUB!

It doesn't respond to any keystrokes :(

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Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#7 Post by bw123 »

There are a lot of ways that installation can go wrong, and there are some known issues.
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/

Yeah I think it's pretty common with Debian, and computers in general to expect hardware/software issues. Especially when introducing components for the first time, like a bunch of kids on a playground.

Sounds like a hardware issue to me, like ecc ram or raid maybe?
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jagjag363
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Joined: 2011-06-24 15:00

Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#8 Post by jagjag363 »

I tried installing it with a RAID 1 array, but i figured that could be the problem, so i just created one large volume, then tried and it still had the same error

oldboy
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Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#9 Post by oldboy »

I ran into the situation where grub did not install properly. I recommend trying to reinstall grub. There are 2 ways:

1. if you can boot into recovery mode, run

Code: Select all

os-prober
update-grub
2. If you cannot boot into recovery mode, then using the install disk, choose rescue mode, mount the partition where you have installed squeeze. Here you can install grub manually (unfortunately, I do not remember the commands to install grub, but you can google for it).

I am not any expert by any means, but like I said, I did run into past install once or twice where grub did not get installed properly. The simplest solution is to go through the install process again instead of spending hours trying to fix it.
This oldboy has a lot of time in his hands
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Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#10 Post by kiyop »

Oh, you had used raid, which is sometimes complicated to deal for beginners.
But you mentioned that grub cannot start even without raid.
Maybe hardware issue.
Can you boot with live CD and execute the following

Code: Select all

su
fdisk -lu
and submit the result?

boot info script is also a good way to understand the reason of the problem.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/
oldboy wrote:Here you can install grub manually (unfortunately, I do not remember the commands to install grub, but you can google for it).
If your installed debian / partition is /dev/sda1 and filesystem is ext4 and /boot is not a separate partition from / partition,

Code: Select all

mount -t ext4 /dev/sda1 /mnt
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
Please refer to
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... ub2+basics
Please be noticed that the above is for ubuntu which needs "sudo" command for getting root privilege.
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jagjag363
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Joined: 2011-06-24 15:00

Re: First boot - stuck on 'Loading initial ramdisk'

#11 Post by jagjag363 »

Hi guys, after my like 5th attempt at installing Debian.....it FINALLY worked........WOW
Thanks alot.

Now i have another question, im planning on installing openERP on there. I've made an error while doing the install, is there a way to restore the install back to its original settings through the command line?

Thanks.

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