Package: Installer Problem: Will not boot after installation
System: ~2000 vintage HP Vecta XU, 6/200, system D4365N, dual Pentium II processors, 64 MB RAM, three hard drives - 200G IDE, two 1.3 G SCSI (Quantum Fireball), network card, no USB The most common outcome of an installation session is that the bootup step at the end of the session results in the letters "GRUB" appearing in the upper left corner of the screen with the blinking cursor to the right of the "B", and nothing else. The system does not respond to any keystrokes, or combination of CTRL-<key>, ALT-<key>, etc. It seems like the system is waiting for keyboard input, but the keyboard is not enabled. If I had a responsive keyboard AND I knew what to type, this could be an acceptable outcome, since it does occur most times. What I've tried: All combinations of discs (all three drives plugged in, each one separately, all combinations of two drives). The drives all appear to be accessed but the boot ultimately fails as described above. I've tried most combinations of answering the partitioning questions and placement of the boot sector. The failures are not all as stated above; it's just the most common outcome. Other results are "GRUB" being continuously written to the screen, until I power off. I was able to get the boot to succeed once, but that particular system build led to other problems causing me to attempt a second install. This one time the result was that the system would, after powering on and all the verbiage of the boot up process, presents me with a login prompt, accepts my login and allows me to use the system. I was able to run with this system for a couple of weeks, loading packages, etc. until I filled the discs and had to start over. The disc full issue occurred because the IDE drive (most of the system's capacity) was not mounted. I did not realize this until the disc full failure. The version of Debian is 2.4. I have a 15 CD set, purchased in roughly 2004. Last week I downloaded disc image 1 of Debian 6.0 in hopes that the boot problem has been fixed, but the results are the same. Thanks, Mike Tremblay
