System fails to boot 2.3.18ac8, only showing "Preparing to boot

Miles Lane (miles@amazon.com)
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 18:19:16 +0000

I am only able to boot a couple of times before my boot fails
where I only get the "Preparing to boot Linux..." (I'm paraphrasing).
Anyhow, I never get the boot prompt that allows me to select
a kernel.

If I then boot from the rescue floppy set, e2fsck /dev/hda5,
set up the ability to boot /mnt/hda5, mount it and run:

lilo -C /etc/lilo.conf -b /dev/hda5 -r /mnt/hda5

the lilo gets reinstalled successfully. Then, I run sync
and umount /mnt/hda5 and reboot. The system invariably
boots successfully afterwards. Then, after a couple
boots, the boot fails, only showing "Preparing to boot Linux..."

I am running the latest Rawhide stuff from
rawhide.redhat.com and kernel 2.3.18ac8.

LILO version 21, Copyright 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger

Here's the debug output from lilo:

Reading boot sector from /dev/hda5
Merging with /boot/boot.b
Device 0x0305: BIOS drive 0x80, 128 heads, 993 cylinders,
63 sectors. Partition offset: 3459519 sectors.
Secondary loader: 8 sectors.
Device 0x0305: BIOS drive 0x80, 128 heads, 993 cylinders,
63 sectors. Partition offset: 3459519 sectors.
Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz
Device 0x0305: BIOS drive 0x80, 128 heads, 993 cylinders,
63 sectors. Partition offset: 3459519 sectors.
Setup length is 5 sectors.
Mapped 1048 sectors.
Added latest *
<dev=0x80,hd=80,cyl=201,sct=93>
"ro root=305"
Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.11
Device 0x0305: BIOS drive 0x80, 128 heads, 993 cylinders,
63 sectors. Partition offset: 3459519 sectors.
Setup length is 7 sectors.
Mapped 956 sectors.
Added 2.2.11
<dev=0x80,hd=80,cyl=201,sct=106>
"ro root=305"
Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.3.18ac4
Device 0x0305: BIOS drive 0x80, 128 heads, 993 cylinders,
63 sectors. Partition offset: 3459519 sectors.
Setup length is 10 sectors.
Mapped 1079 sectors.
Added 2.3.18ac4
<dev=0x80,hd=80,cyl=201,sct=120>
"ro root=305"
Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.3.18ac8
Device 0x0305: BIOS drive 0x80, 128 heads, 993 cylinders,
63 sectors. Partition offset: 3459519 sectors.
Setup length is 5 sectors.
Mapped 1048 sectors.
Added 2.3.18ac8
<dev=0x80,hd=81,cyl=201,sct=70>
"ro root=305"
/boot/boot.0305 exists - no backup copy made.
Map file size: 28672 bytes.
Writing boot sector.

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