[Discuss] Boot Problems and Firefox

[Murray Strome]

Andrew Willard wrote:
> Murray Strome wrote:
>
>> I can at least access all my files from my old Mandriva install so I 
>> haven't lost much.
>
> Back-up ALL of the data now.
I had already backed up all my files before I started this, so they are 
all on DVDs -- they also seem to be OK on the Hard Drives which I can 
mount from within Red Hat.
>
>> However, at least it is mostly working, except for being unable to
>> use Firefox.  If I try to launch it, I get a message saying it is 
>> already running -- but it isn't (at least as far as I can tell).  I 
>> have uninstalled it, removed all the files and tried reinstalling it 
>> several times -- always the same result!
>
> ~/.mozilla/firefox/[Profile name]/   <-- remove the .lock or 
> .parentlock files
>
I could not find any .lock or .parentlock files anywhere -- that is the 
first thing I looked for.

I did get Firefox to work (not the new version, but the one that comes 
with the Red Hat distribution, except that I have been unable to enable 
Java (which I downloaded and installed according to the directions).  
Maybe the plugins that Firefox is using are somewhere else other than 
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins, but that is the only place I could find them. 
Or maybe I did something wrong in linking from there to the jre 
location, but it does look OK. Under preferences in Firefox, there is no 
"Enable Java", or whatever it is supposed to be.
>> I definitely prefer Mandriva, but cannot boot to it.  From what I 
>> have seen, I also like Kubuntu, but cannot get its boot loader to 
>> work either.  None of the new distributions seem to give me the 
>> option of creating a floppy boot loader.
>
> Can you be a bit more specific about your hardware... considering all 
> things
> your running into with your system I would suspect and try to 
> eliminate any
> hardware issues first. ie: ensure your hard-drive is working 100%... 
> you could
> simply have a bum drive that is causing these odd problems.
>
>
I believe the hard drives are working OK (I have tried checking them 
with some utilities on "Ultimate Boot CD". I seem to remember that when 
I first went to Mandriva 2006 there was a problem with the boot loader. 
However, I did get booted into Mandriva and I was able to use the boot 
utility within it to fix the problem.  If there is a similar utility 
with Red Hat, I have not been able to find it.

Murray