I finally got around to getting some hardware together and getting a new CD drive (mine stopped working) so I could try out the Haiku R1A1 CD I burned some time ago.
I am able to boot off the CD, initialize the target hard drive and install from it without problems (although I’m still not sure what “write boot sector” does, that button doesn’t appear in the install instructions - I’ve tried the procedure with and without clicking that button, before and after formatting the partition - the subsequent boot behaviour remains the same). I installed from the CD on a fresh hard disk without problems, configured my BIOS to boot that hard disk first (instead of my Windows HD), and “nothing happens”.
By “nothing happens”, I mean the line of dots I see very briefly when I boot from the CD (before the splash screen and icons appear) do not show up - I only get a flashing text prompt in the upper left of the screen.
However if I boot from the CD and use the CD’s boot manager (holding spacebar after POST) to choose to boot from the hard disk, it boots and runs just fine off the hard disk, bringing me to the Haiku R1A1 desktop.
I assume that I’m missing some kind of obvious step or mistake in setting up my drive and this is why it won’t boot by itself (the Windows Disk Management tool doesn’t show a “Boot” flag for my Haiku drive, for example - should it? I can’t find any way in that utility to set that flag…).
You likely created a partition on the drive and installed Haiku to it. When you create partition, you also require bootman or other boot manager.
If Haiku will take the whole drive, do the partition tool again. Delete partition and select entire drive without creating partitions. That should not require installing bootman.
[quote=tonestone57]does that drive have 1 partition or many?
You likely created a partition on the drive and installed Haiku to it. When you create partition, you also require bootman or other boot manager.
If Haiku will take the whole drive, do the partition tool again. Delete partition and select entire drive without creating partitions. That should not require installing bootman.
I think that’s your issue if Haiku not booting.[/quote]
That sounds likely. I’ll try it again without creating the partition. Thanks! Once I’m sure it works I’ll worry about getting up to date
Well, I finally (FINALLY) spent a day or two on getting this working, and I’m now posting from my new Haiku box. I had to download A1R2 and install it on USB stick to get it working with the target hardware, and I had to install bootman to get it to boot on its own, but I’m now running Haiku on a fanless Atom-based system (Intel D510M0 board). Thanks for the tips.
