Hi everybody, I'm having trouble booting up an old IBM P2. I tried to (re)install Linux on the machine over the weekend, but it seems to have developed more serious problems. I started a thread about the OS install here (http://support.zenwalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=20547). The current problem is that when the machine powers up, the console looks something like this:

PXE-M04: Hooking bootstrap interrupt 18h.

L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 9
9 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99

Actually, there are more 99s, about 2-300 in total.

The BIOS is (or was) set to try to boot off the CDROM first, and the "L 99" text appears both with and without a Linux install CD in the drive. I don't know what's currently installed on the hard drive, because there were also some problems with the installation process before the machine ran into the L-99 problem.

As I tried several times to redo the install, more and more of the packages couldn't be loaded because of some kind of corruption. At some point when the OS was (imperfectly) installed, the graphical Linux screen said "cannot open tty output" in the lower left-hand corner, and during later installation attempts, the menus to install the Linux boot loader (LILO) didn't seem to be working right (see the Linux thread for details). I made a new ISO image from the install CD, and its md5 sum matches the one on the site I downloaded it from, so I'm not sure where the corruption could have come from.

The most relevant hardware events that occurred are probably that the CDROM was used for the first time in months, and I had to power cycle the machine several times because it doesn't know how to wake up a crt monitor in power-saving mode. Also, a couple partitions on the hard drive were reformatted.

Other than having to power cycle instead of rebooting, the machine seemed to be running okay on the old OS a few days ago. Can anyone guess what broke? It doesn't seem to be working very well.

A few of the things I turned up seem to indicate that it is a hard drive problem...specifically a MBR problem, but if you are booting to a CD, then it shouldn't be an issue. Are you sure that the machine is actually seeing the CD drive? That it is actually trying to boot to it?

I'd say that the CMOS battery is also suspect...can you provide full specs for the machine?

A few of the things I turned up seem to indicate that it is a hard drive problem...specifically a MBR problem, but if you are booting to a CD, then it shouldn't be an issue. Are you sure that the machine is actually seeing the CD drive? That it is actually trying to boot to it?
Based on the fact that it does the same thing with or without the CD in the CDROM drive, I would guess that it's getting stuck before the point where it decides what to boot from. Other than that, I have no idea what it's doing.

I'd say that the CMOS battery is also suspect
That would be great if it's just the battery. The clock has been running slow for a long time.

can you provide full specs for the machine?
What info do you need? It's an IBM Personal Computer 300GL with a 233MHz P2 Celeron. The motherboard says something like this:
hp 5182-5444
C- -63

PXE is a network booting protocol. Check the boot order in the BIOS setup and disable or change the network boot option if possible.

PXE is a network booting protocol. Check the boot order in the BIOS setup and disable or change the network boot option if possible.
This was the boot order for the last few months, through yesterday:
1. floppy
2. CD
3. hard drive
4. disabled

Just to simplify things, I disconnected a second hard drive that was on the IDE bus, and changed the boot order to 1: CD and 2--4: disabled. Now the machine is booting off of the installation CD. I guess that's a start.

However, the installation isn't working right. The installer thinks one of the software packages being loaded is corrupted, even though it was able to read it in earlier installation attempts, and for the first time did NOT signal any errors for the package that it had thought was corrupted on all previous attempts. In the menu to install the boot loader, no matter what I do, it keeps going back to the expert menu. I can select the beginner's default options (autoinstall), but it goes to the main expert menu instead, and it stays on that menu (or keeps going "back" to itself) when I select any of the items in it.

At this point, I'm wondering about the CD and the CDROM. Both of them are old. As I said earlier, the md5 sum of the CD checked out okay when I made an image from the (newer) CDRW on the machine that I burned it on, but what if the old machine's CD drive isn't as sensitive? What if the CD isn't burned as strongly as a newer CD would be? Is either of these possibilities likely? Is one more so than the other? And if it's the drive, is there a way to rejuvenate it?

As for the network booting thing, the PXE line is still the first thing that appears on the monitor, but then another line briefly appears below it (I think it said "Linux" something), and then the graphical installation screen comes up. If I select "cancel" on the first installation menu, it loads the linux kernel, and I can halt the machine from the command line.

Yes. Older CD Drives may well have problems with DIY burned CDR/RW.

The line about PXE can almost certainly be ignored - it may just slow down the boot up. I would expect you to be able to disable the option somewhere in the BIOS as with this thread for a completely different PC (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ew/2006/01/16/stories/2006011600180400.htm).

It's an IBM Personal Computer 300GL with a 233MHz P2 Celeron. The motherboard says something like this:
hp 5182-5444
C- -63
Oops. That's the motherboard of my HP (duh), not the IBM. I was copying from a card I wrote the specs on some time ago, but I forgot what machine it was for.

The only reference to a manual for your model that I could find was at this page (http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/topic6953.html).

Even though it is in Slovenian there is valid info that can be gleaned for it. It appears that if the LAN card is in the third PCI slot it can function as Alert on LAN. There are also two jumpers for Alert on LAN and for Wake on LAN at the bottom of the board. Could be worth a shot moving any PCI NIC and of changing/removing the LAN jumpers (and any associated LAN settings in the BIOS settings).

If it really is HP mobo then that would be something different - but the post also indicated that various OEM's supplied IBM with mobo for that model.