[Tfug] GRUB hang

[Jim March]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:30 AM, Jeffry Johnston <tfug at kidsquid.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just installed XUbuntu on an old junker.  When booting the first thing that
> is printed is something like "GRUB 1.5 loading..." (or starting).. just that
> single line.  Normally I would then expect it to continue to print some
> additional GRUB messages and continue on to loading the kernel.  However, it
> sits on that first line with the HDD light on solid, for a very long time
> (I'd estimate around 10 minutes), before finally continuing on.  My first
> thought is that the drive is hosed.. but everything seems fine once the
> system boots up.  smartctl saw some past failures, but they didn't appear to
> be data related, and none of the stats showed close to failure.  Any ideas?
> Maybe a virus or is it probably the HDD?
>
> Jeff

First thing to try is catching the "ESC" thing and see if a "recovery
boot" works.  That will tell us something about what's up.

Second trick is to google "ubuntu" with the make/model of your lappy
and see if anybody has some known alterations to the startup line for
that critter.  In other words, parameters can be edited when you get
into the grub menu.  "noacpi" is a common one for older lappies.

You're passing parameters to the kernel, which is failing to load
right now.  At this page you'll find the parameters needed by a
specific lappy (Acer Travelmate 3004):

http://myy.helia.fi/~karte/acer_travelmate_3004wtmi_with_linux_notes.html

The parameters in that case are:

 linux noapic nolapic acpi=off vga=771 pci=noacpi

Here's a tutorial on how to get to where you edit this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

If you can't find anything specific to your critter, try this first
(certainly can't make anything worse!):

noapic nolapic acpi=off pci=noacpi

Jim