Locked up in boot process.

[Steven Vollom]

Trim

Dear Goh Lip,

His instruction says to boot to where the list of kernels shows up.  He is 
running Ubuntu 8.04, I am running jaunty kde4.2.2.  I never have seen that 
screen since Jaunty installation.  I haven't been able to enter the boot menu, 
it goes by too fast to enter.  Before this problem, I was able to edit the 
menu.lst in grub using kate, but it no longer shows in the boot folder.

The screen the computer stops at says that the language is not readable by the 
computer when APCI _PSS is entered.  I can't find that either.

The Grub folder is no longer in the Boot folder.

When I run a find, it says to look in /home/ubuntu.  It is not there.
I opened Kate and opened boot, but grub was not in the folder.

I can assure you that pci=nomsi was in the /boot/grub/menu.lst prior to this 
problem, and I did not remove or edit it out, so the problem is not pci=nomsi, 
it is the grub folder.  It doesn't seem to exist anymore.  How can I generate 
a Grub and enter it into the Boot Directory?

I am loosing my confidence in Jaunty.  The last four times I reinstalled 
Jaunty, I could tell by the helpers that I was deemed the reason the problems 
caused the need to reinstall.  I don't have any problem with people feeling 
that way, other than the fact that it is not true.  All four reinstalls were 
like this one.  Something simple like installing an application caused the 
actual problem that I was blamed for.  

I have installed Jaunty about 20 times in the last 2 months.  Entering 
pci=nomsi is about as common for me as clicking on the Menu button to look at 
applications.  In over a month, I have not tinkered at all with the system.  
It has been working fine.  This failure happened when installing an application 
offered in the KpackageKit package manager and was installed by KpackageKit, 
until a problem occurred.  I was not multitasking other things.  The 
installation was the only application running.

Just the fact that I can remember the file menu.lst in grub in boot should tell 
you that I have been there many times and am not remiss in installing 
pci=nomsi.

I have copied his email to the letter, but I can not do what he asks of me.  I 
have never been able to enter grub at boot; it goes by too fast.  I have tried 
at least 100 times.  I just can't do it.  The only way I have been able to 
instll pci=nomsi is with help using the command line or editing using Kate, 
which I have done a couple of dozen times.

I am confident that if you type in /root/boot/grub/menu.lst, kate opens showing 
the file.  It doesn't in my computer anymore.  It is apparently the problem.  
And I assure you that I did not remove or edit out the Grub or menu.lst from 
the computer.  They were missing after a routine GUI installation of Xine that 
failed for whatever reason.

I am perhaps being redundant, but I want you to understand that I most 
probably am not misunderstanding and failing to attempt the instructions in 
error.  If pci=nomsi is the problem, it is the problem because the folder it 
is supposed to be in is missing.  I do not have a clue how that happened.

I have reread this and I can't see anything that required checking my notes.  
How can the Grub folder be removed by an application like Xine?  How is grub 
made in the first place?  How can I make it again?  How can I create the data 
that would be in the menu.lst file so that I can put it in a grub folder once 
recreated?

If I can't fix this problem without reinstalling, I don't want to use Jaunty 
anymore.  Since I can't get my computer to run it previous versions, I will 
have to install Karamic.  It can't be any worse than this.

I have loved the jaunty version, but it breaks without reason anymore.  This 
stuff must have been fixed in Karmic.  I am not sure that the updates are not 
causing the new problems too.  I really think I understand the cause, and it 
is not my misuse of the computer.  I seem to hear you use Karmic.  Is it far 
enough along for me to use?  Thanks for the help my friend.

I have about 30 emails from my friend Hein in South Africa about entering the 
boot and adding pci=nomsi.  No matter how close we have become, I don't think 
he believes me about the boot menu either.  I see the word boot, but the 
screen lasts no longer than a nanosecond before continuing with the boot.  You 
just can not time the pressing of f8 to enter it.

Steven

Steven