Error: Anaconda hangs during/after /sbin/loader

[David S. Johnson]

m2bruce at ryerson.ca wrote:

>Hi, 
>
>I'm having a problem with an installation on a Compaq 1211CA laptop.  The laptop has 192 MB of memory, and is using a 1GHz Athalon processor.  Ide Hard drive.
>
>The problem occurs in graphical and text mode after the kernel is loaded.  Here are the last few lines that i see on the terminal.
>
>Greetings.
>anaconda installer init version 9.2 starting
>mounting /proc filesystem... done
>mounting /dev/pts (unix98 pty) filesystem... done
>trying to remount root filesystem read write... done
>mounting /tmp as ramfs... done
>running install...
>running /sbin/loader
>
>at this point, the screen will flash and switch resolution then all disks spin down after 10-15 seconds.  Keyboard interrupts do not work.  The 'nofb' option stops the screen from changing resolutions, but the halt occurs at the same place.  i've tried disabling apm, acpi, and using ide=nodma. The install has been run with defaults, and with mem=192M.
>  
>
Hmm... I'm seeing a similar problem on both Compaq Presario 2100Z and 
2550  models.  The symptoms I see are that it hits "running 
/sbin/loader" and then never does anything else.  If I boot to 
mediacheck, it works fine, but both rescue boot and regular install 
boots seem to hang at that point.  I do not see any screen flash, and I 
can ctrl-alt-delete to shutdown & reboot, but it hangs reliably at the 
same point.  I've checked the media and it passed, and I've tried 
different cd's, all with the same result.  And the cd's were made from 
iso images which passed md5sum checks.

I don't have a fix, but I do have a workaround:  I do an NFS-based 
install, using the directions in the README on the CD.  I'm guessing the 
size of the boot image being read off CD is somehow related, as smaller 
images required for mediacheck and askmethod work, but the larger 
install and rescue images fail.  Even for rescue, I can use "linux 
askmethod rescue acpi=on" and choose NFS.  I haven't tried, but I'm 
guessing if I chose any of the other install methods other than CD, it 
would work.  NFS was just the most convenient for me.

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