I just made a fresh Etch Netinst CD and successfully completed an install on
a PC that I bought six years ago. When I try to boot, this is as far as it
gets:

Verifying DMI Pool Data ..........
GRUB Loading stage1.5.
Read

It may or may not be relevant to mention an issue I had in the past with this
box. I used to run Red Hat on it but with a Windows partition at the start
of the disk. During the Red Hat installation, I had to select "Force LBA32"
or it wouldn't find the Linux boot partition.

Now, though, I have given the whole disk to Etch, so I'd be surprised if this
is the issue. There are just two partitions:

IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
#1 primary 39.9 GB B f ext3 /
#5 logical 1.5 GB f swap swap

The BIOS (AWARD 1998 / PCI/PNP 686 / 276079428) shows:
IDE Primary Master Auto (other choices are None, Manual)
Access Mode Auto (other choices are Normal, LBA, Large)

I've tried various combinations, including LBA, to no avail. The hard drives
are IBM Deskstar 40-GB IDE hard drives, model IC35L040AVER07-0.

Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks.


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Hi,

Sometimes older bios has a virus protection enabled in the bios itself.
This does not allow anything to be written to the MBR to protect MBR
viruses. I have faced this problem whereby the MBR gets cooked and the
GRUB does not get written properly. Looking at your information it
looks like grub is not able to proceed. Can you check your bios once
again and try disabling the virus protection (re-enable it later once
things are working) and re-install the grub and check ?

On Sun, 2007-07-29 at 17:43 -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> I just made a fresh Etch Netinst CD and successfully completed an install on
> a PC that I bought six years ago. When I try to boot, this is as far as it
> gets:
>
> Verifying DMI Pool Data ..........
> GRUB Loading stage1.5.
> Read
>
> It may or may not be relevant to mention an issue I had in the past with this
> box. I used to run Red Hat on it but with a Windows partition at the start
> of the disk. During the Red Hat installation, I had to select "Force LBA32"
> or it wouldn't find the Linux boot partition.
>
> Now, though, I have given the whole disk to Etch, so I'd be surprised if this
> is the issue. There are just two partitions:
>
> IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
> #1 primary 39.9 GB B f ext3 /
> #5 logical 1.5 GB f swap swap
>
> The BIOS (AWARD 1998 / PCI/PNP 686 / 276079428) shows:
> IDE Primary Master Auto (other choices are None, Manual)
> Access Mode Auto (other choices are Normal, LBA, Large)
>
> I've tried various combinations, including LBA, to no avail. The hard drives
> are IBM Deskstar 40-GB IDE hard drives, model IC35L040AVER07-0.
>
> Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks.
>
>
--
Bhasker C V
Registered Linux user: #306349 (counter.li.org)
The box said "Requires Windows 95, NT, or better", so I installed Linux.


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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

What happens if you reboot the installer in rescue mode and tell it to
install grub again?

Does the box have a floppy and do you have a grub-disk (I've never made
a grub-stick)? Will that get you to a grub command line?

Doug.


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On 07/29/2007 04:43 PM, Steve Kleene wrote:
> I just made a fresh Etch Netinst CD and successfully completed an install on
> a PC that I bought six years ago. When I try to boot, this is as far as it
> gets:
>
> Verifying DMI Pool Data ..........
> GRUB Loading stage1.5.
> Read
>
> It may or may not be relevant to mention an issue I had in the past with this
> box. I used to run Red Hat on it but with a Windows partition at the start
> of the disk. During the Red Hat installation, I had to select "Force LBA32"
> or it wouldn't find the Linux boot partition.
>
> Now, though, I have given the whole disk to Etch, so I'd be surprised if this
> is the issue. There are just two partitions:
>
> IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
> #1 primary 39.9 GB B f ext3 /
> #5 logical 1.5 GB f swap swap
>
> The BIOS (AWARD 1998 / PCI/PNP 686 / 276079428) shows:
> IDE Primary Master Auto (other choices are None, Manual)
> Access Mode Auto (other choices are Normal, LBA, Large)
>
> I've tried various combinations, including LBA, to no avail. The hard drives
> are IBM Deskstar 40-GB IDE hard drives, model IC35L040AVER07-0.
>
> Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks.
>
>

Older BIOSes have restrictions on where the Linux kernel and other boot
files must be located. LBA32 should be able to get past these
restrictions, but in your case it might not be working.

If you can, try to get the boot files placed before the 1024th cylinder
boundary. Sometimes this is at 0.5GB, 2.1GB or 8GB. Try a partition
layout like so:

/boot (primary #1, 2.1GB)
/ (primary #2, 37.8GB)
swap (logical #5, 1.5GB)

/boot must be the first partition, and try to keep all of it below the
1024th cylinder.


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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 10:28:04PM -0500, Mumia W.. wrote:

> If you can, try to get the boot files placed before the 1024th cylinder
> boundary. Sometimes this is at 0.5GB, 2.1GB or 8GB. Try a partition
> layout like so:
>
> /boot (primary #1, 2.1GB)
> / (primary #2, 37.8GB)
> swap (logical #5, 1.5GB)
>

You shouldn't need a 2.1GB /boot. I find that 24 MB is fine. Hey,
splurge and make it 32 MB.

Since we don't know what the problem is, better be safe and assume that
the boundary is as 512 MB.

Doug.


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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 10:28:04PM -0500, Mumia W.. wrote:

> If you can, try to get the boot files placed before the 1024th cylinder
> boundary. Sometimes this is at 0.5GB, 2.1GB or 8GB. Try a partition
> layout like so:
>
> /boot (primary #1, 2.1GB)
> / (primary #2, 37.8GB)
> swap (logical #5, 1.5GB)
>

You shouldn't need a 2.1GB /boot. I find that 24 MB is fine. Hey,
splurge and make it 32 MB.

Since we don't know what the problem is, better be safe and assume that
the boundary is as 512 MB.

Doug.


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On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 08:24:08AM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> > [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]
>
> On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:19:40 -0400, From: Douglas Allan Tutty replied:
> > What happens if you reboot the installer in rescue mode and tell it to
> > install grub again?
>
> I don't know how to do this yet, but it sounds like it's worth looking into.
> I'm hoping not to have to run the whole build again.
>

The installer's rescue mode (at the boot prompt, instead of typing
'install', just type 'rescue') is designed to rescue an already
installed system. It will not reinstall from rescue mode. I also gives
you the option of a shell chrooted into your installation where you can
run commands as if it had booted normally.

> > Does the box have a floppy and do you have a grub-disk (I've never made
> > a grub-stick)? Will that get you to a grub command line?
>
> It does have a floppy. I do not have a grub-disk. I do have a second
> (newer) box that is happily running Etch.
>

Then on that box, install the grub-disk package. It gives you a disk
image which you write to a floppy with dd:
dd if=grub-disk.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 conv=sync; sync

If that box has grub installed and you have the grub-doc package, there
are instructions for putting grub onto a floppy from within the grub
command line.

> And on Sun, 29 Jul 2007 22:28:04 -0500, "Mumia W.." wrote:
>
> > If you can, try to get the boot files placed before the 1024th cylinder
> > boundary. Sometimes this is at 0.5GB, 2.1GB or 8GB. Try a partition
> > layout like so ...
>
> This is exactly what I always did with Red Hat and lilo on a drive that
> shared Windows and Linux. I could easily try this again but thought it
> should be unnecessary for two reasons. First, I am using grub now, which I
> thought supported lba by default. Second, without the whole drive allocated
> to Etch (i.e. no Windows partition at the start of the drive), I imagined the
> files needed by grub would not be placed past cylinder 1024. But maybe
> that's unpredictable.

Just because grub can find something doesn't mean that your bios can
boot it. Just to save the headache later, especially if I move the
drive from one computer to another, I _always_ put /boot in the first
partition on its own. If I have two drives, I'll put it on a raid1
partition for good measure.

Doug.


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On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 08:24:08AM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> > [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]
>
> On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:19:40 -0400, From: Douglas Allan Tutty replied:
> > What happens if you reboot the installer in rescue mode and tell it to
> > install grub again?
>
> I don't know how to do this yet, but it sounds like it's worth looking into.
> I'm hoping not to have to run the whole build again.
>

The installer's rescue mode (at the boot prompt, instead of typing
'install', just type 'rescue') is designed to rescue an already
installed system. It will not reinstall from rescue mode. I also gives
you the option of a shell chrooted into your installation where you can
run commands as if it had booted normally.

> > Does the box have a floppy and do you have a grub-disk (I've never made
> > a grub-stick)? Will that get you to a grub command line?
>
> It does have a floppy. I do not have a grub-disk. I do have a second
> (newer) box that is happily running Etch.
>

Then on that box, install the grub-disk package. It gives you a disk
image which you write to a floppy with dd:
dd if=grub-disk.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 conv=sync; sync

If that box has grub installed and you have the grub-doc package, there
are instructions for putting grub onto a floppy from within the grub
command line.

> And on Sun, 29 Jul 2007 22:28:04 -0500, "Mumia W.." wrote:
>
> > If you can, try to get the boot files placed before the 1024th cylinder
> > boundary. Sometimes this is at 0.5GB, 2.1GB or 8GB. Try a partition
> > layout like so ...
>
> This is exactly what I always did with Red Hat and lilo on a drive that
> shared Windows and Linux. I could easily try this again but thought it
> should be unnecessary for two reasons. First, I am using grub now, which I
> thought supported lba by default. Second, without the whole drive allocated
> to Etch (i.e. no Windows partition at the start of the drive), I imagined the
> files needed by grub would not be placed past cylinder 1024. But maybe
> that's unpredictable.

Just because grub can find something doesn't mean that your bios can
boot it. Just to save the headache later, especially if I move the
drive from one computer to another, I _always_ put /boot in the first
partition on its own. If I have two drives, I'll put it on a raid1
partition for good measure.

Doug.


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On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:35:19 -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty [sent several ful
discussions on how to get around the lba problem with grub].

Thanks very much. It make take me a few days to try these, but in any case
I'll report on the outcomes.


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On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:43:26 -0400
Steve Kleene <skdeb@syrano.acb.uc.edu> wrote:

Hello Steve,

> I just made a fresh Etch Netinst CD and successfully completed an
> install on a PC that I bought six years ago. When I try to boot,
> this is as far as it gets:

Have you tried booting with a noapic option? Older machines sometime
require that; Mine does, and it's a similar age to yours.

--
Regards _
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is
/ _)rad never immediately apparent"

Black man got a lot of problems, but he don't mind throwing a brick
White Riot - The Clash

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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:01:51 +0100, Brad Rogers replied:

> Have you tried booting with a noapic option? Older machines sometime
> require that; Mine does, and it's a similar age to yours.

I haven't tried this, but I'll look into this and the other suggestions I've
received. Thank you.


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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:01:51 +0100, Brad Rogers replied:

> Have you tried booting with a noapic option? Older machines sometime
> require that; Mine does, and it's a similar age to yours.

I haven't tried this, but I'll look into this and the other suggestions I've
received. Thank you.


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On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:07:36 -0400
Steve Kleene <skdeb@syrano.acb.uc.edu> wrote:

Hello Steve,

> > Have you tried booting with a noapic option? Older machines
> > sometime require that; Mine does, and it's a similar age to yours.
> I haven't tried this, but I'll look into this and the other
> suggestions I've received. Thank you.

TBH, it doesn't appear that your machine is getting far enough into the
boot sequence for this to be an issue.

Having said that, I'm no expert, so don't quote me on it.

--
Regards _
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is
/ _)rad never immediately apparent"

Black man got a lot of problems, but he don't mind throwing a brick
White Riot - The Clash

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On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:07:36 -0400
Steve Kleene <skdeb@syrano.acb.uc.edu> wrote:

Hello Steve,

> > Have you tried booting with a noapic option? Older machines
> > sometime require that; Mine does, and it's a similar age to yours.
> I haven't tried this, but I'll look into this and the other
> suggestions I've received. Thank you.

TBH, it doesn't appear that your machine is getting far enough into the
boot sequence for this to be an issue.

Having said that, I'm no expert, so don't quote me on it.

--
Regards _
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is
/ _)rad never immediately apparent"

Black man got a lot of problems, but he don't mind throwing a brick
White Riot - The Clash

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=REtn
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Hi,

I recently made a huge mistake, which might you...
I did a apt-get dist-upgrade to upgrade my Sarge server to Etch, and all
seemed to go very well, but then I rebooted and Etch with the default 2.6.18
kernel could/would not find my two NICs. I then wiped everything and
installed Fedora Core 6, same problem (pretty much the same kernel I
believe), so I then re-installed Etch (from scratch) with still the same
problem, until I decided to turn off (disable) the Power Management in the
BIOS.

I think your problem was with bootup, but maybe this s you out, if you
haven't already found a solution.

Robert


>From: Brad Rogers <brad@fineby.me.uk>
>To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
>Subject: Re: new Etch install fails to boot
>Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:18:27 +0100
>
>On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:07:36 -0400
>Steve Kleene <skdeb@syrano.acb.uc.edu> wrote:
>
>Hello Steve,
>
> > > Have you tried booting with a noapic option? Older machines
> > > sometime require that; Mine does, and it's a similar age to yours.
> > I haven't tried this, but I'll look into this and the other
> > suggestions I've received. Thank you.
>
>TBH, it doesn't appear that your machine is getting far enough into the
>boot sequence for this to be an issue.
>
>Having said that, I'm no expert, so don't quote me on it.
>
>--
> Regards _
> / ) "The blindingly obvious is
> / _)rad never immediately apparent"
>
>Black man got a lot of problems, but he don't mind throwing a brick
>White Riot - The Clash


><< signature.asc >>

__________________________________________________ _______________
http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home...textlinkjuly07


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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:30:41 +0000, Robert Cates wrote:
> ... I then re-installed Etch (from scratch) with still the same
> problem, until I decided to turn off (disable) the Power Management in the
> BIOS.
>
> I think your problem was with bootup, but maybe this s you out, if you
> haven't already found a solution.

Thanks, I'll keep this in mind.


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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

I've tried several of the solutions suggested and am still stuck. In the
BIOS, Virus Protection was already disabled, and I tried turning off Power
Management. I've tried the different Access Modes for the drive (Auto, LBA,
Large).

Then I tried rebooting the installer in rescue mode and reinstalling grub (I
think it did "grub-install /dev/hde1").

Then I tried doing a whole new install of just the base system, but set up
these partitions:

IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
#1 primary 98.7 MB B f ext3 /boot
#3 primary 39.5 GB f ext3 /
#5 logical 1.5 GB F swap swap
IDE5 slave (hdf) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
#1 primary 41.2 GB ext2

which gave /boot its own partition at the start of the disk. I tried this a
few times and should mention that the `f' flags in the table sometimes showed
as `F' or `K'. I think `F' means "format this", but I haven't been able to
track down what `f' and `K' mean.

As I said, these all still crashed when the boot got to grub. I wouldn't
have guessed that there was any need to have the boot files near the start of
the disk anyway. Until two days ago, this same disk in the same box had a
9.8-GB Win98 partition (1252 cylinders), followed by Red Hat, as follows:

Mount Size
Device Point Type Format (MB) Start End
/dev/hde
/dev/hde1 vfat 9821 1 1252
/dev/hde2 /boot ext3 Y 102 1253 1265
/dev/hde3 / ext3 Y 28318 1266 4875
/dev/hde4 Extended 1020 4876 5005
/dev/hde5 swap Y 1020 4876 5005
/dev/hdf
/dev/hdf1 ext2 39260 1 5005

This worked fine, although I did have to force lba32 in lilo.conf.
Supposedly grub does this by default.

I have not yet tried the suggestion of making a grub disk but may if I can
figure out what to do with it.


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On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 10:19:09PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
> > [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]
>
[... stuff about trying grub and various partition options]
>
> I have not yet tried the suggestion of making a grub disk but may if I can
> figure out what to do with it.

I agree with trying a grub disk. you can boot the system like this
from the grub command line

grub> root (hd0,0) #that tells grub to use the first partition of
the first disk. it should return something about the file system.

grub> kernel /boot/linux-image<insert appropriate info here> root=hda2 \
ro single #note this is all on one line. You can use grubs find
feature or its tab completiong to get the complete filename

grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6blahblahblah #use tab completion
again, but make sure it matches the kernel

grub> boot #this will fire up the boot.

Also, if lilo worked before, then maybe you should use lilo again
until you can get it sorted out.

A

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On 07/30/2007 09:19 PM, Steve Kleene wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
>> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]
>
> I've tried several of the solutions suggested and am still stuck. In the
> BIOS, Virus Protection was already disabled, and I tried turning off Power
> Management. I've tried the different Access Modes for the drive (Auto, LBA,
> Large).
>
> Then I tried rebooting the installer in rescue mode and reinstalling grub (I
> think it did "grub-install /dev/hde1").
>

I am absolutely not a Grub expert, but maybe you want "grub-install
/dev/hde".

How do you get a /dev/hde anyway? Perhaps your BIOS prefers to boot from
/dev/hd[a-d].

Take a look at your old Lilo config file. You might have needed to use
Lilo's map-drive feature to trick the BIOS into thinking that /dev/hde
is a more traditionally-positioned IDE drive. Grub has something similar.

> Then I tried doing a whole new install of just the base system, but set up
> these partitions:
>
> IDE5 master (hde) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
> #1 primary 98.7 MB B f ext3 /boot
> #3 primary 39.5 GB f ext3 /
> #5 logical 1.5 GB F swap swap
> IDE5 slave (hdf) - 41.2 GB IC35L040AVER07-0
> #1 primary 41.2 GB ext2
>
> which gave /boot its own partition at the start of the disk. I tried this a
> few times and should mention that the `f' flags in the table sometimes showed
> as `F' or `K'. I think `F' means "format this", but I haven't been able to
> track down what `f' and `K' mean.
>

It's nice to have a Knoppix or Kanotix disk when these situations arise.
The 'rescue' feature of the Debian install disk might suffice to let you
see what is actually on those partitions.

I hope that you rebooted after changing the partition table. On every
i386 computer I've used, under every O/S I've used (Windows 3.1-XP,
multiple Linux distros) I've used, the computer must be rebooted after
the partition table has been changed, or the system will be messed up.
I've never been clear on the exact reasoning, but that's the case.

> As I said, these all still crashed when the boot got to grub. I wouldn't
> have guessed that there was any need to have the boot files near the start of
> the disk anyway. Until two days ago, this same disk in the same box had a
> 9.8-GB Win98 partition (1252 cylinders), followed by Red Hat, as follows:
> [...]

I'm convinced that the 1024th cylinder limit doesn't relate to your
problem; however, you might consider using the "--force-lba" option to
"grub-install" next time.



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On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 11:00:30PM -0400:
> [I wrote that my fresh Etch install calls grub and then stops.]

I've tried the remaining suggestions without luck and am now royally
confused.

1. I installed the grub-disk package and ran the following:
dd if=grub-0.97-i486-pc.ext2fs of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 conv=sync; sync
There were no errors. I could mount the floppy and read the files. I set
the BIOS to boot off the floppy. The system touched the floppy but failed
to boot off it. I tried this with the box I'm working on and one that is
successfully running Etch. I repeated the test with a second floppy,
which also didn't boot.

2. I tried repeatedly to install grub from the CD in rescue mode. The
install seemed to succeed. I poked around with a rescue shell and
confirmed that files had been installed in /boot/grub. However, booting
the machine still gave the usual message from the dead, i.e.:

Verifying DMI Pool Data ..........
GRUB Loading stage1.5.
Read

3. I reformatted the partitions, reinstalled the base system, and tried to
install lilo. This came up:

LILO installation target:
/dev/hdf: Master Boot Record
/dev/hde1: new Debian partition
Other choice (Advanced)

Note that the first one is for hdf, which is the second drive. I have no
idea why. Anyway, I tried all of these, include Other with /dev/hde and
/dev/hde1. In all cases, I got "lilo-installer failed with error code 1".
Console 4 showed the following:

Setting up lilo (22.6.1-9.3)
mount: /dev/hde1 already mounted or /boot busy
dpkg: error processing lilo (--configure)
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 32

Still, I verified that /etc/lilo.conf was there, and there were no grub
files anywhere under /target (including under /boot). I finished the
installation anyway, and found it totally bizarre when a reboot produced
the same output as before, including "GRUB Loading stage1.5". It's as if
this string lives on the MBR and I'm unable to overwrite it.

Practically all I can think of now is trying to install Windows and see if
that's even possible. That's pretty desperate.

In case it's relevant, here's how fdisk showed the filesys in rescue mode:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hde1 * 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux
/dev/hde2 4819 5005 1502077+ 5 Extended
/dev/hde3 12 4818 38604195 83 Linux
/dev/hde5 4819 5005 1502046 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I do appreciate all of your suggestions and am sorry this is going on so
long.


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On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 09:31:09PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:

> In case it's relevant, here's how fdisk showed the filesys in rescue mode:
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hde1 * 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hde2 4819 5005 1502077+ 5 Extended
> /dev/hde3 12 4818 38604195 83 Linux
> /dev/hde5 4819 5005 1502046 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>
> I do appreciate all of your suggestions and am sorry this is going on so
> long.

No need to be sorry

IIRC your /boot partition was pretty big. Would it be very complicated
to make it something like a few hundred megs (less then 512) ?

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

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On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 09:31:09PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote:

> In case it's relevant, here's how fdisk showed the filesys in rescue mode:
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hde1 * 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hde2 4819 5005 1502077+ 5 Extended
> /dev/hde3 12 4818 38604195 83 Linux
> /dev/hde5 4819 5005 1502046 82 Linux swap / Solaris
>
> I do appreciate all of your suggestions and am sorry this is going on so
> long.

No need to be sorry

IIRC your /boot partition was pretty big. Would it be very complicated
to make it something like a few hundred megs (less then 512) ?

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

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