New Monitor

[Brenda Radford]

-----Original Message-----
From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Rick Stevens
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:30 PM
To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
Subject: Re: New Monitor

Bob McClure Jr wrote:
> As for top posting, I don't think you have to start your reply where
> MS leaves your cursor.  Just arrow down to where you want to insert a
> reply, open up a line and start typing there.  See also
> 
> http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/bottom-posting.html
> 
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 09:42:24PM -0500, Brenda Radford wrote:
>> I am running RHEL AS 4 U5.
>> It is an Acer H213H new-fangled monitor (it's huge).
>> The video card is an ATI Radeon 9250.
>> I have tried hooking it up with a VGA cable and a DVI cable. It made no
>> difference.
>>
>> I tried hooking it up to a VGA monitor. The floppy disk light came on and
>> stayed on, so I unplugged the floppy drive and disabled it in the BIOS.
>> I got some text display on the VGA monitor related to the BIOS only. No
Red
>> Hat text of any kind
> 
> Sounds like the hard drive or memory is not coming up.  Does the
> machine do a single beep shortly after reset or power-on?  If not,
> something's failing the POST (power-on self test).  Power it off and
> get inside the box and pull and reseat memory sticks and any add-on
> cards.
> 
> If it does beep, then POST is good.  Hit Del or whatever is prescribed
> to get into the BIOS after the beep.  Does the BIOS recognize the hard
> drive?  If not, power down, open it up, and pull and reseat the cables
> that connect the hard drive(s) to the motherboard.
> 
> Let us know how far you get.

If it does see the hard drive, you might want to try to reset the BIOS
to its default settings.  If the machine hasn't been fired up in a
while, it is possible that some of the BIOS settings got glitched due
to an old motherboard CMOS battery (that's a button-shaped battery on
the motherboard that keeps the CMOS memory holding the BIOS settings
alive when the machine's powered down).  If that's the case, and once
you get the machine up, you really need to replace that CMOS battery.

> 
>> I do not know how to boot up in text only mode. You will have to tell me
how
>> to do that

As to booting in text mode, it sounds complicated but it isn't:

1. Wait for the grub menu to come up, then press the spacebar.

2. Use the keyboard up and down arrow keys to highlight the kernel you
want to boot (it's probably already selected).

3. Press "E" (for "Edit").  You'll be shown a couple of lines of text.

4. Use the up/down arrow keys to select the line that starts with the
word "kernel".

5. Press "E" again and that line of text will be displayed for editing.

6. Press the "End" key on your keyboard or use the right arrow key to
get to the end of the line.

7. Add " text" OR " 3" (that's a space and the word "text" OR a space
and the digit "3") to the end of the line.  Do NOT include the quotes.
The end of the line should look something like:

	rhgb quiet text
or
	rhgb quiet 3

8. Press the "ENTER" key to save the line.

9. Press "B" to boot the kernel with the changes.

Note that these changes are only temporary and will work for THIS boot.
If you reboot, you'll have to do this again.

>>
>> I hope it is not DOA. It was working a couple of months ago. I did not
have
>> the money to renew my Red Hat Academic subscription until today, and I
was
>> hoping to get the box updated.

We'll get it sorted.  It's difficult to diagnose remotely and on a
mailing list to boot, but we've done far more arcane things here!  :-)

>> Thanks to all you guys; I hope I answered all your questions. I love this
>> install list.

If you could, Brenda, try not to top post.  It makes following the
logic of the messages difficult.  It's better to place your comments
and responses below what you're commenting on (as we try to do).

Windows mail clients default to top posting, but nothing says you HAVE
to put your response there.  Just use the arrow keys to scroll down to
where you want to put your comment and do it your way.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                      ricks at nerd.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
-     Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.      -
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I opened up the case and reseated the memory and made sure the hard drive
was plugged in properly and reconnected the floppy drive (I think the cable
was on backwards; I seem to remember that makes the light stay on) and fired
it up again and got it working with the new monitor. I went into grub,
changed it to text, and pressed B to boot the kernel with the changes.
Then I got these error messages:

VFS: can't find ext 3 filesystem on dev dm-0
mount: error 22 mounting ext 3
mount: error 2 mounting none
switchroot: mount failed: 22
umount/initrd/dev failed: 2
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init! 

This cannot be good. Something is wrong with the hard drive, is that what it
all means?

FYI, I was able to boot with Knoppix.

Thanks
Brenda