Why does Bootman not work and Haiku won't install/boot?

[Luposian]

I installed Lubuntu on my 320Gb SATA HD on my Acer Aspire X1200.

When I run the Haiku Live CD (from a recent build) and try running the installer, I can use Bootman and it sees the partitions and will address them as normal. I can also install the boot sector as well.

However, when I try to initialize the main drive (not one of the partitions, though I doubt that would matter), it seems to go ok, but upon trying to rerun Bootman, it says "No space available" in red, over the drive size shown. Yet it worked fine just a moment earlier, BEFORE I tried initializing the drive!

If I proceed to install Haiku onto the drive, everything seems to go smoothly and the system reboots... but all that pops up, after that, is the Haiku boot options menu and "no drive found" is the only thing shown. Upon trying to select a drive, there is none! My only option is to reboot, which, of course, accomplishes nothing, except ending up at the same screen again...

Thus, I'm in a situation where I can't install Haiku! Am I doing something wrong or is something wrong with the install process?

[bonefish]

I suppose with initialize you mean initialize with BFS. If so, then it isn't surprising that bootman complains about no available space, because there really isn't any -- the whole disk is used by BFS.

I also don't quite understand why you would want to install bootman on the disk at all, since you dedicate the whole disk anyway. Or is your mention of a Lubuntu installation supposed to mean that you have two drives?

If you can grab the serial output of the failed boot process, please attach that. If not, in the boot loader debug options you can "Display current boot loader log". The part after "Welcome to the Haiku boot loader!" (usually comes shortly after the list of display modes) is the interesting one. It will be a few pages (Page Up/Down works). Please take pictures of those. For reference the syslog from a boot off the CD could be helpful as well.

[Luposian]

Ok, let's establish if I'm doing anything wrong...

Starting from a standard Lubuntu install (which worked perfectly), I had:

1) One large partition (Where Lubuntu is installed, I assume) 2) One small partition (the SWAP partition)

After booting into the Haiku Live CD (or running the Installer; I assume either path will allow the same end result, when attempting to Install Haiku to the HD), what do I do?

If following every step, to the letter, still results in no bootable Haiku partition being found and the Haiku boot menu being the only thing I can "get to" after a reboot, then I will know something else is wrong, beyond my own possible ineptitude, and we'll take it from there.

[bonefish]

Replying to Luposian:

Ok, let's establish if I'm doing anything wrong...

That's rather hard, since you're very fuzzy about what you're actually doing.

Starting from a standard Lubuntu install (which worked perfectly), I had:

1) One large partition (Where Lubuntu is installed, I assume) 2) One small partition (the SWAP partition)

After booting into the Haiku Live CD (or running the Installer; I assume either path will allow the same end result, when attempting to Install Haiku to the HD), what do I do?

That's what I'd like to know. So far you haven't even answered how many hard disks we're talking about. Is it two where you want to install Haiku on the second one or only one where you want to overwrite the previous installation of Lubuntu?

If following every step, to the letter,

Which steps?

still results in no bootable Haiku partition being found and the Haiku boot menu being the only thing I can "get to" after a reboot, then I will know something else is wrong, beyond my own possible ineptitude, and we'll take it from there.

There are different ways to install Haiku -- and I don't just mean the process but the end result. From your initial description I understood you formatted the complete disk with BFS. That is unusual for an internal hard disk, but should nevertheless result in a bootable Haiku, unless your BIOS requires a partitioning system (since you get to Haiku's boot loader, that's apparently not the case).

The more conventional way is to create a partition (or reuse an existing one) and install Haiku on it. If an MBR is installed that boots the active partition, all that needs to be done is mark the partition active. I don't know what happens, if GRUB was previously installed in the MBR. The safe way, if you want to wipe the whole disk anyway, would be to initialize the disk with the intel partitioning system in DriveSetup (this writes a standard MBR) and create a new partition.

Anyway, the request to attach the syslog from the failed boot and (afterwards) the syslog from booting from the CD stands in either case.

[Luposian]

My apologies...

I have one SATA drive.

I am attempting to use the entire drive for Haiku.

Based on where I'm starting from (two Lubuntu partitions (main and Swap) on the single drive), what should I do to install Haiku, from that point?

So, from the point at which the Haiku Installer tells me there are no recognized partitions for it to install onto (obviously, as Lubuntu doesn't use BFS), I have to run the partition tool. What do I do, precisely, step by step?

Just trying to find out if I'm doing something wrong, first.

If we find I'm not doing anything wrong during the install procedure (and we end up with the same result), then I'll delve into the whole syslog thing and whatnot. I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right during the install process, first.

[jonas.kirilla]

The Haiku Installer assumes, in the absence of a BFS-formatted partition, that you will use DriveSetup to set things up. (There's no/very little support for non-destructive repartitioning, and no support for non-destructively resizing partitions.)

There are two possible ways:

A: classic msdos partitioned disk:

The basic steps to a working system, assuming you start from scratch, is to

1. Partition (intel, or msdos, I don't remember what it's called in DriveSetup)
2. Create partition (one or more, one by one)
3. Initialiaze (aka format) the partition(s) you're going to use for Haiku
4. Set up the boot menu.

If you repartition, you may have to reinstall the boot menu. (I'm guessing that it embeds partition offsets, and if the partition is moved its boot code won't be found in the spot where the boot menu expects it.)

B: "dangerously dedicated" (no partitioning whatsoever)

1. Initialize whole disk as BFS.

This includes boot code at the start of it, so you don't need an MBR boot menu, and it doesn't fit anyway, so it would complain about there not being any space for it.

If you used Bootman on the Lubuntu partition layout, then initialized the whole disk as BFS, as per alternative B, that would explain why you couldn't use Bootman afterwards, but the partition should be bootable, as long as it's initialized and there's a Haiku system installed on it. (Unless, as Ingo said, you have a BIOS that expects a disk with a proper MBR.)

If you installed Bootman and then repartitioned, try running Bootman afterwards instead.

[Luposian]

Haiku no see usable partition

[Luposian]

After BFS init and install, this is what Haiku sees

[Luposian]

I ran Active@ KILLDISK to zero the drive and make one 320Gb empty drive. Haiku sees no usable partitions. I was going to just Init the drive, but then didn't know if I should use Intel partition map or Be File System. Also, does it need a partitioned/formatted drive BEFORE initializing the drive, or is a blank/zero'd drive perfectly ok with it?

The first image is of Haiku not recognizing the drive. The second image is what Haiku shows after I tried to partition/format the drive in Lubuntu and then Init the drive as BFS, and install Haiku.

After reboot, all I get is Haiku's boot menu and no visible drive/partition! The Live CD drive setup program then shows what you see... weird!

I have since run Active@ KILLDISK again and am starting with a completely zero'd (unpartitioned?) drive again. Let's see where we get, starting from scratch again... now, what do I do?

Haiku will say no partitions recognized. Then I go to the disk utility. What do I do from there? Does the drive have to be partitioned/formatted (with another OS) FIRST, or will it work fine completely zero'd (zeros written to the entire drive)?

Do I initialize using "Intel Partition Map..." or "Be File System..."?

I used to be able to do this so easily... now I can't get anything to work! :-(

[umccullough]

Replying to Luposian:

Do I initialize using "Intel Partition Map..." or "Be File System..."?

Both.

First partition the disk (create one big partition if you like), then initialize the partition as BFS.

Initializing a raw drive without first creating partitions tends to create issues down the road. Without a partition table you will have no MBR, and cannot therefore install a bootloader.

[Luposian]

Right now, the drive is zero'd (zeros written across the entire drive). When I go into Haiku disk utility, it sees only the main drive with no partitions or format information at all. Can I use Haiku's disk utility to do what I need (if so, what do I do, in what order?) or do I need to partition/format the disk from another OS first?

If the latter (partition/format drive in another OS first), when I come back to Haiku, what do I do, in what order?

I hate to sound so dense, but running Active@ KILLDISK takes over an hour each time I run it and I only use it, to make sure the drive is completely clean, with no other partition/format info munging things up when I try installing Haiku again.

I never used to have this kinda trouble before... why now? I used to be able to just go in, initialize a partition for BFS, and install Haiku. Simple as that. Now it doesn't work that easily and I can't figure out why.

[tangobravo]

I've just done it in VirtualBox with a 320GB image.

1. Select the drive. Partition->Initialize->Intel Partition Map (agree to all the warnings)
2. Select the empty space. Partition->Create. It should be BFS by default.
3. Select the partition. Partition->Initialize->Be File System.

I agree it's not 100% clear what's going on, but the first step sets up an MBR, the second step alters the MBR to contain a type BFS partition that fills the drive, and the third step formats that partition as BFS.

[tangobravo]

As to why you have problems now and not before - you've zeroed the disk, thus getting rid of any partition structure that was on there before. If you had paritions on it already that you didn't mind wiping, you could have just selected one of them and initialized it as BFS (essentially step 3 only). There's no need to completely zero the disk before starting.

[Luposian]

Haiku crash, no partition found.

[Luposian]

Thanks for the instructs! It seems to have worked. The system boots now... except it only gets to the 4th icon (disk) before it crashes! Is this somehow related to how I prepped the disk (I selected "Active", for the partition; doesn't the partition need to be Active to work at all?) or something else, entirely?

If it's something else, entirely, then we can close this ticket and I'll open a new one.

Thanks!

[umccullough]

Replying to Luposian:

disk (I selected "Active", for the partition; doesn't the partition need to be Active to work at all?) or something else, entirely?

I can't comment on the reason for the crash, but the "active" flag in the partition table won't affect Haiku's ability to boot from that partition. That flag was used by the old (DOS) bootloaders to decide which partition to boot first - a modern bootloader usually provides the user more choices, so the flag pretty much doesn't get used any more.

[bonefish]

Replying to bonefish:

Anyway, the request to attach the syslog from the failed boot and (afterwards) the syslog from booting from the CD stands in either case.

...

[Luposian]

There's no issue concerning booting from CD on this system. It works fine. I was having trouble formatting/installing to the SATA hard drive, because I was doing it wrong. Once it was made clear exactly what I had to do, I did it, and now the OS is installed, but crashes at the 4th (disk) icon.

My assumption is that this ticket (unable to properly partition/format/install) has been "fixed" (it was all a matter of proper explanation, apparently), but a different issue (crashing during boot from the SATA hard drive) is now rearing it's head. Funny thing is, Ticket #8111 and this other "issue" on this system are seemingly similar. Both crash at the same point (4th icon), but my Gateway NV55S09u laptop takes a lot longer to happen.

The question remaining is, do we continue working under the same ticket or create a new one? If it's overall system-related (same system = same ticket), then we keep the ticket open and go from there. If it's issue-related (different problem = different ticket), then we close this ticket and I create a new one, and go from there.

Name your game and I'll proceed accordingly. :-D

[Luposian]

I no longer have this system. Unless this ticket has value to someone else, please render it "closed".