Installed BT2, restarted and now get black screen with white blinking line @ top left

[Cytomax]

Hello all i wanted to install BT2 since the Live CD was awesome.
First off i had WinXP and Ubuntu (Dual Boot) on it and i didnt know how to format so i just ran Darik's Boot and Nuke ( AKA DBAN) to clear the HD


I then followed the Official "Backtrack hard drive install" Install Guide


Rebooted and took out the CD

Now when the system boots i get a black screen with a white blinking line at the top left corner of my screen.

I am pretty wet behind the ears in linux but i think that when i ran DBAN maybe it killed like the boot file of the Hard Drive so when the comp loads it cant find the file on the HD on which to boot off of....

But then again that is what my pee brain thinks....


EDIT

I have figured out that what i meant was boot loader not boot file but i guess its the same thing

I was able to find my lilo.conf file
hda3 --> etc --> lilo.conf

This is EXACTLY what is in there

boot = /dev/hda
prompt
timeout = 20
bitmap=/boot/splash.bmp
change-rules
reset
vga = 0x317
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = current
initrd = /boot/splash.initrd
label = bt
read-only

BTW I have the the following partitions

hda1 = 50M Which is my Boot
hda2 = 1024M Which is my Linux Swap
hda3 = Rest of the 40 Gig HD

I really dont know what else to tell you guys... even if you cant help if you know that i am missing info that would allow someone else to help please tell me

Thanks in Advance
Eddie

[hifly]

Hi,

Apparently the Backtrack installation program does not always copy the /boot files or run lilo...since I have not investigated the inner workings on how it works I will not comment on that here..what I will do is tell you how you can resolve your problem.

I followed the standard hard drive installation instructions, but ended up with an installation that would not boot like you. The install appeared to run correctly, but what I discovered is that it did not copy /boot nor run lilo correctly. My install was to VMWare, but the procedures below will work with any install:

The BT2 install to harddrive procedures at Remote Exploit do not work
with VMWare exactly. After you run through the procedure you will find
that the system won't boot.

On closer examination the SLAX installer failed to copy /boot from the
LiveCD and did not run lilo correctly. I fixed doing the following:

1) When booted from the LiveCD do the following to make fix the boot issue:

a) mkdir /tmp/boot
b) mount /dev/sda1 /tmp/boot
c) cd /boot
d) cp -r * /tmp/boot
e) umount /tmp/boot
f) mkdir /tmp/bt2
g) mnt /dev/sda3 /tmp/bt2
h) chroot /tmp/bt2 /bin/bash
i) mnt /dev/sda1 /boot
j) vi /etc/fstab

Add a line for /boot like this:

/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2

(Rest of fstab should be OK)

k) vi /etc/lilo.conf

Edited file should look something like so:

boot = /dev/sda
prompt
timeout = 20
bitmap=/boot/splash.bmp
change-rules
reset
vga = 0x317
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda3
initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
label = bt
read-only

l) lilo (critical step!)
m) exit (gets you out of chrooted environment)
n) reboot and you should now be able to boot from your hard drive.

[mphillips]

hifly thanks your post has almost got my install working. It actually attempts to boot now. It dies right after starting usb support, with the error that: Livadata not found searching for bt directory, and want me to copy yhr bt directory from the cd to the harddrive.

This I understand, what confuses me is when booting using the iso, what is the harddrive and what is the virtual drive?

I have redone the install 3 times using the install to harddrive faq and yor post hoping I mistyped something, but that does not seem to be the case. Any ideas what could need to do to fix this?

Thanks,
Mike

[Cytomax]

Thanks for the help i got it working
Eddie

[mphillips]

Well crap, I can't find what I'm doing wrong!

[NSP653]

Okay, followed the directions from both the manual and your work around for missing files on /boot.

I can now run BT2 from the HDD but ONLY if I still have the bt2final.iso mounted on the virtual machine's CD-ROM drive.

If I don't I get...

Fatal error occured - LiveData not found. Searching for BT directory.
You are maybe using an unsupported boot device (eg. SCSI orPCMCIA CD-ROM)
Try to copy the directory BT from CD/USB to your IDE/SATA harddisk,
for example to /mnt/sda1/ in Linux or C:\ in Windows. Then boot again.

SO...I'm guessing the install did NOT put the right folders on SDA3 or at least there's a config file still pointing at hdc_cdrom. I'll keep looking but if you know off hand...save me some time and post here.

Thanks.

[Cytomax]

First off watch this moive...
http://www.offensive-security.com/mo.../dualboot.html
Then follow my step by step instructions now remember that i did this with an empty HD so i started with hda1 instead of hda2 which they use in the movie since the movie is showing how to dual boot... if you are using an empty hd then use my stuff if you doing dual boot add 1 to all the partitions

bt login: root
bt password: toor

startx

mount

umount /mnt/hda1/ 1:50

umount /mnt/hda3/

qtparted 2:00

File --> Commit 2:40

File --> Quit

fdisk /dev/hda

p

Do all the partitions

P

t

2

82

p

w

...syncing disk...


mke2fs /dev/hda1

mkswap /dev/hda2

swapon /dev/hda2

mkreiserfs /dev/hda3

y


6:30


mkdir /mnt/backtrack

mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/backtrack/

mkdir /mnt/backtrack/boot

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/backtrack/boot/

cp --preserve -R /{bin,dev,home,pentest,root,usr,etc,lib,opt,sbin,va r} /mnt/backtrack/


mkdir /mnt/backtrack/{mnt,proc,sys,tmp}

mount --bind /dev/ /mnt/backtrack/dev/

mount -t proc proc /mnt/backtrack/proc/

cp /boot/vmlinuz /mnt/backtrack/boot/

################################################## ###############
He Types
cp /boot/boot/vmlinuz /mnt/backtrack/boot/
But you should type
cp /boot/vmlinuz /mnt/backtrack/boot/
################################################## ###############

chroot /mnt/backtrack/ /bin/bas

chroot /mnt/backtrack/ /bin/bash

######################################
Its OK to get
/dev/pts/1: No such file or directory
######################################

nano /etc/lilo.conf


add # to everything minus

boot = /dev/hda

root = /dev/hda3



lilo -v
################################################## ###########################
Its OK to get
"Writing boot sector. /boot/boot.0300 exists - no boot sector backup made"
################################################## ##########################

exit

reboot

[Baxter]

this is how i do a single boot. but if the hdd is wiped then you'l need to open qtparted and create that first partion.

umount /mnt/hda1
fdisk /dev/hda
command :d 1
command: n
command: p
partition number (1-4): 1
then hit enter 2 more time
command: w
command: mke2fs /dev/hda1
command:mkdir /mnt/backtrack
command: mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/backtrack/
now select the BackTrack Installer located in menu\Backtrack\Miscellaneous\backtrack installer
leave everything the same besides click Real (2700 mb requiered) option then install.

[ajburch]

this is how i do a single boot. but if the hdd is wiped then you'l need to open qtparted and create that first partion.
you said:
umount /mnt/hda1
fdisk /dev/hda
command :d 1
command: n
command: p
partition number (1-4): 1
then hit enter 2 more time
command: w
command: mke2fs /dev/hda1
command:mkdir /mnt/backtrack
command: mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/backtrack/
now select the BackTrack Installer located in menu\Backtrack\Miscellaneous\backtrack installer
leave everything the same besides click Real (2700 mb requiered) option then install.

can you be clearer about what the 'leave everything the same' means? same what? which person articles settings are you referencing?

[Blessdstry]

When i try to change permishions to my harddrive it says i cant WTF some help lol
SORRY BAD SPELLER no spell checlk on linux lol i suck