Locked up in boot process.

[Steven Vollom]

On Saturday 01 August 2009 05:32:54 pm Jonas Norlander wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 7:25 PM, Steven Vollom<stevenvollom at sbcglobal.net> 
wrote:
> > 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.
>
> F8 is for the Windows boot loader, in grub i think you press ESC to
> get the grub boot menu. I use to deactivate that so I always see the
> menu.
>
> / Jonas
When the first screen comes up, the instruction for entering boot is f8.  I am 
not fast enough.  Perhaps a nanosecond the screen shows then moves on.  My 
system just roars past that step in the boot process, and I don't know how to 
slow it down.

Before this problem happened yesterday, I transfered data from drive to drive 
1gb in about 6 seconds.  170mbs.  At the end of move, it showed a speed of 
95mbs, but the rest was 170+mbs.  I have been told that it isn't possible with 
my computer, but it happened.  Transfers always start at least 130mbs.  I 
think it is the combination of the SATA drives, the ext4 file system, and 
perhaps the ram, but I don't think the ram has much to do with it.  I am only 
using 4gb at the moment.  I wouldn't boast so boldly about this; it isn't 
really a boast.  And even though it can't happen, it is happening, every time 
I move data, almost.  Sometimes it only moves around 60mbs, but I think that 
must have to do with the type of file or something, because usually it starts 
130mbs + and holds pretty steady.  I hate to talk about this, because I don't 
think anyone believes me, but usually on a 1.4gb transfer, the window that 
shows progress opens and closes.  By the time I can open the window by 
clicking on the "i" icon, the move is already finished.  AMD quad 9600 Black 
Edition W/4gb ram.  500mb SATA to 1tb SATA.

The only way I have been able to edit the menu.lst file is by doing so using 
Kate.

Steven