Problem booting Mint in WMware - solved

[KernelJ]

Originally posted as an answer to the sticky about UUID
Thanks for that, Husse. I was just about to post this up:

I am having problems booting up Linux Mint Cassandra after installation. I'm using a GRUB boot floppy and passing the following commands to it:

Code: Select all

root (hd0,12) ... recognises as ext2
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=/dev/hda13 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic
boot

The hard drive is connected as a cable-select slave on the secondary IDE. I've tried using hdb hdc hdd and hde instead, to no avail.

I'm not sure if it even gets to accessing the HDD. It gets to something like "USB 1-1 config #1 chosen from 1 choice" and just hangs there indefinately.

When I alter the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (to account for the Nvidia GFX card in my PC) and load it up in VMWare, the OS boots up fine.

This is my second installation of it where it won't load from the PC and just stalls.

Anyone have any clues?

That VMWare runs even when you tell it "root=/dev/hda13", and that it doesn't seem to care about the UUID confused things further.

Having removed the line from /etc/fstab I can now successfully boot into the system. This could possibly be the cause of confusion for many, though.

Using these commands finally worked for me:

Code: Select all

root (hd0,12)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=/dev/sda13 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic
boot

[Husse]

Running any OS virtually (in WMware or some other application) is distinctly different from running "normally"
Thus the post above was irrelevant, and to a degree confusing, as an answer to the sticky about UUID

[KernelJ]

Well in any event I could not boot as normal from my HDD, more than likely because of the UUID.

I was of the impression that the Guest OS does not "know" it that it's being booted by VMWare, so why should it be different?

[Husse]

Guest OS does not "know" it that it's being booted by VMWare

That is correct but there are no hard discs for the guest system so they are emulated and possibly in such a way that you overcome the UUID problem
If you get an error from fsck and can't boot the normal way
you'll have to use the live CD and make some changes.
I see that I have to add a little about solving the problem, but the live CD is so like the normal environment that you should be able to fix it from there.