ISO boot from FAT/NTFS/USB (GRUB.exe, grldr from boot.ini)

[ruymbeke]

New (and working) Forum links (after forum migration):
=====================================
Knoppix 9.2.0 minirt+vmt (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=205094&posted=1#post205094)
Knoppix 9.1.0 minirt+vmt
(http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=204040&viewfull=1#post204040)Knoppix 9.0.0 minirt+vmt (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=200528&viewfull=1#post200528)
Knoppix 8.6.1 minirt+vmt (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=189690&viewfull=1#post189690)
Knoppix 8.5.0 minirt+vmt (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=189688&viewfull=1#post189688)
Knoppix 8.3.0 minirt+vmt (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=189685&viewfull=1#post189685)
Knoppix 8.1.0 minirt+vm+3D
(http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=134186&posted=1#post134186)Knoppix 8.0.0 minirt+vm+3D (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=134024&viewfull=1#post134024)
Knoppix 7.7.1 minirt+vm+3D (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=133944#post133944)
Knoppix 7.7.0 minirt+vm+3D (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=133709#post133709)
Knoppix 7.5.0 minirt+vm+3D: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=132349#post132349
Knoppix 7.4.2 minirt+64+vm+3D: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=132111#post132111 (http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB-exe-grldr-from-boot-ini%29?p=132111&viewfull=1#post132111)
Knoppix 7.2.0 minirt+64+vm+3D: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=129607#post129607
Knoppix CeBIT 7.1.0 minirt+64+vm+3D: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=129169#post129169
Knoppix 7.0.5 minirt+64+vm+3D: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=128979&viewfull=1#post128979
Knoppix 7.0.4 minirt+64+vm: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=127675&viewfull=1#post127675
Knoppix 7.0.3 minirt+64+vm: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=127151&viewfull=1#post127151
Knoppix 7.0.2 minirt: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=126919#post126919
Knoppix 7.0.0 minirt and virtual machine: http://knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=126465#post126465
Workstation 8.0.1 or Player 4.0.1 (build 528992) vm for Knoppix 6.7.1: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads/11589-ISO-boot-from-FAT-NTFS-USB-%28GRUB.exe-grldr-from-boot.ini%29?p=125586&viewfull=1#post125586

A snapshot of the old forum (before the migration from phpBB to vBulletin) would be helpful to repair all the broken links...

Old forum links:
===========
Since this thread is quite long now, please find below an index of some useful links:

Workstation 7.0.1 or Player 3.0.1 (build 227600) vm for 6.2.1: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=122675#122675 >4GB
Workstation 7.0.0 or Player 3.0.0 (build 203739) vm for 6.2.0: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=121964#121964 >4GB
Workstation 7.0.0 or Player 3.0.0 (build 203739) vm for 5.3.1 & 5.1.1: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=121541#121541
Workstation 6.5.2 or Player 2.5.2 (build 156735) vm for 5.3.1 & 5.1.1: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=120342#120342
Workstation 6.5.1 or Player 2.5.1 (build 126130) vm for 5.3.1 & 5.1.1: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=119222#119222
Workstation 6.5.0 or Player 2.5.0 (build 118166) vm for 5.3.1 & 5.1.1: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=118954#118954
VmWare 6.0 virtual machines for Knoppix 5.1.1 & 5.2 c't: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=113100#113100
with persistence of data: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=113141#113141
USB dongle how-to & 4.02/5.01 files: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=93758#93758
Windows Partition PMI wiki: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition

Knoppix 6.2.1 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=122674#122674 with big memory kernel >4GB
Knoppix 6.2.0 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=121968#121968 with big memory kernel >4GB
Knoppix 6.2.0 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=121620#121620
Knoppix 5.3.1 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117224#117224
Knoppix 5.2 c't update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=112830#112830
Knoppix 5.1.1 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=110240#110240
Knoppix 5.1.0 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=110044#110044
Knoppix 5.0.1 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=103883#103883
Knoppix 5.0 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=101334#101334
Accelerated Knoppix 5.0.1 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=104261#104261
Accelerated Knoppix 4.0.2 update: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=101282#101282

ISO boot using grub: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=99669#99669
and some more explanation: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=98279#98279
bug fixes: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=98940#98940
and trick used: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=96888#96888

Hope this helps,
Gilles van Ruymbeke

[j.drake]

Try bootfrom=/dev/hda1/k*.iso

Not sure why it would make a difference, but this is what the cheatcode said, and it worked for me (although I wasn't using an NTFS partition)

HTH
jd

[ruymbeke]

Try bootfrom=/dev/hda1/k*.iso
Not sure why it would make a difference, but this is what the cheatcode said, and it worked for me (although I wasn't using an NTFS partition)
HTH
jd
I tried and it doesn't work. May I ask you for the exact syntax (all the keywords) you used to boot knoppix ? what kernel and initrd did you use ?
What is the length in bytes of the files you used ?
Thanks GvR

[j.drake]

I didn't do that, I just used the CD to get the boot prompt, then entered the bootcode. In my case, it was knoppix26 home=/dev/hdb5 myconf=/dev/sda1 bootfrom=/dev/hdb1/k*.iso

I must have misunderstood your question, because I thought you were asking about the command itself. Sorry I couldn't help more. I'm actually trying to work on booting from USB drive.

jd

[eco2geek]

(For the sake of brevity, assume I changed the name of the ISO file to "Knoppix.iso" -- "KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso" is just too long to type. :wink: )

You have to:

Use Knoppix v3.4 -- the bootfrom cheatcode won't work with earlier versions.
Make sure you specify the right hard drive and partition. "hda1" tells Knoppix to use the first partition on the master drive on your primary IDE channel.
Make sure you tell Knoppix the entire path to the ISO. In other words, if you saved it as C:\Knoppix\Knoppix.iso (on hda1), you have to tell Knoppix it's located at /dev/hda1/Knoppix/Knoppix.iso.
Either boot from the Knoppix CD, or from boot floppies.

For example, to boot Knoppix
using the 2.6 kernel,
disabling APM,
using ALSA,
loading saved configs off the second partition on my hard drive (hda2),
using a persistent home dir from a USB thumb drive (sda1), and
loading the Knoppix image off my NTFS partition, where it's saved as C:\Knoppix\Knoppix.iso,the entire boot line would look like this:

boot: knoppix26 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/Knoppix/Knoppix.iso noapm alsa myconf=/dev/hda2 home=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img

(I've been trying to get Knoppix to boot entirely from the NTFS partition using GRUB. Haven't been successful yet. It still wants to look at the loop file on the CD before it switches and loads it off the NTFS partition.)

[eco2geek]

Hey! Just got it to work with no CD! (Posting from it now.) The drawback is that the loopback file (the big /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file on the CD) has to be on another partition.

So, here's how it looks:

The Knoppix ISO ("KNOPPIX.iso"), the kernel ("linux26"), and "minirt26" are saved in C:\KNOPPIX. The loopback file is saved on the 2nd partition (it's got Kanotix on it, formatted as ext2) as /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX.

The GRUB stanza that loads it:

# For booting Knoppix off the hard disk
title Boot Knoppix 3.4 from hard disk
kernel (hd0,0)/KNOPPIX/linux26 fromhd=/dev/hda2 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX.iso lang=us keyboard=us alsa
initrd (hd0,0)/KNOPPIX/minirt26.gz


Trying to have the loopback file and the ISO on the same partition isn't working...

Anyway, if you had a 1GB thumbdrive to put the loopback file on, and put the ISO on your NTFS partition, looks like you could boot that way. ("Poor man's install"? How much does a 1GB thumbdrive cost? :wink: )

<edit>
Further experimentation reveals that if you've got a 2nd ext2 partition, and the loopback file saved as /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX on it, you don't have to have the ISO on the NTFS partition at all -- you can just boot it using the "fromhd=/dev/hda2" code and omit the "bootfrom=" code.

But then you can't restore your saved configs from hda2, since you've booted from the loopback file on hda2. (I still maintain that saved configs, persistent home dirs, and whatnot all have to be loaded from separate partitions.)

In other words, still looking for a way to boot Knoppix from just one NTFS partition without having to have the Knoppix CD in the drive.

Now if you had a big enough thumb drive...
</edit>

[ruymbeke]

I have been able to boot knoppix 3.4 from the loop back file system image
file being on a logical fat32 partition using Grub 0.95 + the grub4dos patch. Grub was loaded from the boot.ini of the XP boot loader being on the primary and active NTFS partition. Yes grub can now be loaded from a NTFS partition and do not need to have it's stage1 in the master boot record of the disk !
I am trying now to boot knoppix entirely out of a single NTFS partition without CD, floppy nor any change in the disk mbr... I am looking for the minimum amount of changes to get a very easy and safe knoppix boot. Grub does a great job so far to load the kernel and the ramdisk from the NTFS partition but knoppix hangs when the linuxrc is looking for the loopback file system what ever it is included within the iso file or not. I have added the ntfs.o within the miniroot.gz and modified the linuxrc to have a chance to mount the ntfs. This is where I am right now and don't know how to move forward. Please advise. Thanks, Gilles

[eco2geek]

You might have better luck asking on the Knoppix developers' mailing list (http://mailman.linuxtag.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-knoppix).

(Looks like NTFS is the only file system Knoppix won't boot from this way.)

Topologilinux (http://www.topologilinux.com) also has a version of "GRUB for Windows" that uses the NT boot loader. It's great.

[ruymbeke]

You might have better luck asking on the Knoppix developers' mailing list (http://mailman.linuxtag.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-knoppix).
(Looks like NTFS is the only file system Knoppix won't boot from this way.)
Topologilinux (http://www.topologilinux.com) also has a version of "GRUB for Windows" that uses the NT boot loader. It's great.

I will give it a try. Thanks !

[j.drake]

I have been able to boot knoppix 3.4 from the loop back file system image
file being on a logical fat32 partition using Grub 0.95 + the grub4dos patch. Grub was loaded from the boot.ini of the XP boot loader being on the primary and active NTFS partition. Yes grub can now be loaded from a NTFS partition and do not need to have it's stage1 in the master boot record of the disk !
I am trying now to boot knoppix entirely out of a single NTFS partition without CD, floppy nor any change in the disk mbr... I am looking for the minimum amount of changes to get a very easy and safe knoppix boot. Grub does a great job so far to load the kernel and the ramdisk from the NTFS partition but knoppix hangs when the linuxrc is looking for the loopback file system what ever it is included within the iso file or not. I have added the ntfs.o within the miniroot.gz and modified the linuxrc to have a chance to mount the ntfs. This is where I am right now and don't know how to move forward. Please advise. Thanks, Gilles

Gilles,

Would you mind going into a little more detail on what you did? I'm thinking that maybe you can help me! I'm very interested, but a bit confused. If you or other posters get a chance, I posted a question of my own here http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=53064#53064 , and I could sure use whatever help I can get on booting a "fromhd" poor man's using a USB thumbdrive. Booting from CD is wicked slick, but I sure would like to do the USB thing. OTOH, with what you're doing, sounds like I wouldn't even need it (of course, I'm still very reluctant to mess with Windows bootloader)

Eco2Geek, if you're still peeking in, please stop by and weigh in on this also (along with anyone else willing to help).

jd

[ruymbeke]

Phase 1: I would like to boot from a USB key, in my case, it's /dev/sda1/. There is a lot of info on the WIKI and this forum about doing that with previous versions, but I couldn't find anything relevant to version 3.4. I think bootfloppies are pointless.
As far as I know, the Knoppix CD can access USB keys and other 1394 peripherals after having mounted the loopback file (/knoppix/knoppix). Now what you are trying to do is different, you want the kernel (linux24) and the ramdisk (minirt24.gz) to be able to access the content of the USB dongle to mount the loopback file. This means that the kernel and the ramdisk should have the ressources to mount a USB device and the filesystem in it, and also the script (linuxrc) to to look for the loopback file. I am not sure if that is already the case, but if not it could probably be done. If I remember right the minirt24.gz ramdisk of the Knoppix 2.3 CD (which is a compressed ext2 filesystem) doesn't include any scsi driver, and I think that a USB dongle is seen as such a device. Now the question is: how can it be done and if someone have already done it, where can it be found ? This is quite similar to what I am trying to achieve right now... execpt that I am looking for a boot from a single NTFS partition already hosting XP and with a minimum of changes and risk for the user.



Phase 2: I would like to integrate my cheatcodes into this boot image if possible. The idea being that if I want Windows running, I simply leave out the USB key and boot with the stock Windows XP bootloader. When I want Knoppix, I simply plug in the USB key, reboot, go get a beer, and when I come back from the kitchen, my knoppix 3.4/2.6 desktop is up and
waiting for me, printer file installed and apps in my PH available to me. IOW, I want to integrate the following cheatcode line"knoppix26 home=/dev/hdb5 myconfig=scan bootfrom=/dev/hdb5".
This could be done by using the proper boot loader (lilo or preferably grub) on your USB dongle and using the right boot parameters after the kernel command line, assuming that your BIOS can boot on a USB device. If not you can use grub.exe from the dos, or grldr (grub version which can be started from the NT/XP boot loader using a extra line in the boot.ini). Grldr can be located on either a fat16/32 or NTFS partition.



Phase 3: When I can afford a 1 GB USB thumbdrive or larger (probably much larger), I want to integrate the Knoppix image, PH, configuration file and data into the thumbdrive as well, so that I can have access to my entire system, apps, preferences and data available to me from any x86 PC I can find with a USB port.
If the 1) can be done, then just add the loopback file system image in your dongle fat32 partition, add the right cheatcode and go drink your beer...

BTW: have you seen this: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5257&start=0

Hoping this will help a little bit... Cheers, Gilles

[eco2geek]

JD -- Here's some ideas for you. Happy to be a guinea pig. :wink: I expect you or someone else will catch some errors.

So, you set your BIOS's boot order to boot first off the USB key, then off the hard disk. If it doesn't find a USB key, it boots into Windows. That what you're looking for?

Do you have a spare partition that's formatted any other way than NTFS? Because my experiments indicate that Knoppix won't boot from NTFS without the CD in the drive (it's accessed at that "Accessing KNOPPIX CDROM at..." line). It will boot without the CD from ext2 for sure, probably FAT32, ext3, and ReiserFS as well (not tested).

So, say you have hda2 formatted as ext2 (or anything else but NTFS). You create a /KNOPPIX directory on it and copy the big 679MB /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file off the CD to it.

Next, connect your USB key and run Knoppix from the CD. Get root in a console. If the USB key's not formatted, format it:

mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda1

Then, mount it -- mount /mnt/sda1

Copy the following files from the /boot/isolinux directory on the Knoppix CD (which is already mounted as /cdrom if you're running from the live CD) to the USB key:

boot.cat
german.kbd
linux24
logo.16
minirt24.gz
isolinux.cfg
boot.msg
linux26
memtest
minirt26.gz

Change the name of "isolinux.cfg" to "syslinux.cfg".

Say you want to use kernel 2.6. Edit syslinux.cfg so the first 2 lines read:

DEFAULT linux26
APPEND lang=us noapm vga=791 initrd=minirt26.gz fromhd=/dev/hda2 alsa

(Substitute your cheat codes, but leave the reference to "initrd=" and leave the "fromhd=" line -- that's what tells Knoppix to boot from hda2/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX.)

Finally, umount your USB key and make it bootable with syslinux:

umount /mnt/sda1
syslinux /dev/sda1

(A new file, "ldlinux.sys", should be on the key now.)

Test it. It should boot to the familiar Knoppix boot screen. Since you've added all your cheatcodes to "syslinux.cfg" all you have to do is press Enter -- or wait for the default timeout. I'm posting from Knoppix run that way now.

[ruymbeke]

JD: in the same order, if you have an extra non-ntfs partition to store your loop back file system image (cd/knoppix/knoppix), you can use the autoexec.bat of a dos formatted and active partition on your dongle to run grub.exe and start knoppix. Cheers, Gilles

[j.drake]

JD -- Here's some ideas for you. Happy to be a guinea pig. :wink: I expect you or someone else will catch some errors.

So, you set your BIOS's boot order to boot first off the USB key, then off the hard disk. If it doesn't find a USB key, it boots into Windows. That what you're looking for?

Do you have a spare partition that's formatted any other way than NTFS? Because my experiments indicate that Knoppix won't boot from NTFS without the CD in the drive (it's accessed at that "Accessing KNOPPIX CDROM at..." line). It will boot without the CD from ext2 for sure, probably FAT32, ext3, and ReiserFS as well (not tested).


Yes, more details here: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=53297#53297 , but that's what I want. Just like it currently boots into Windows if Knoppix CD is not present - I want to do the same with the USB key and fromhd cheatcode. As you can see in the linked post, my persistent home hdb5 is ext2, and I have a FAT32 at hdb1.



So, say you have hda2 formatted as ext2 (or anything else but NTFS). You create a /KNOPPIX directory on it and copy the big 679MB /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file off the CD to it.

Next, connect your USB key and run Knoppix from the CD. Get root in a console. If the USB key's not formatted, format it:

mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda1

Then, mount it -- mount /mnt/sda1

So far, I've done all that.


Copy the following files from the /boot/isolinux directory on the Knoppix CD (which is already mounted as /cdrom if you're running from the live CD) to the USB key:

boot.cat
german.kbd
linux24
logo.16
minirt24.gz
isolinux.cfg
boot.msg
linux26
memtest
minirt26.gz

Change the name of "isolinux.cfg" to "syslinux.cfg".

Say you want to use kernel 2.6. Edit syslinux.cfg so the first 2 lines read:

DEFAULT linux26
APPEND lang=us noapm vga=791 initrd=minirt26.gz fromhd=/dev/hda2 alsa

(Substitute your cheat codes, but leave the reference to "initrd=" and leave the "fromhd=" line -- that's what tells Knoppix to boot from hda2/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX.)

Finally, umount your USB key and make it bootable with syslinux:

umount /mnt/sda1
syslinux /dev/sda1

(A new file, "ldlinux.sys", should be on the key now.)

AHA! That's the missing step I need! Just out of curiosity why german.kbd?


Test it. It should boot to the familiar Knoppix boot screen. Since you've added all your cheatcodes to "syslinux.cfg" all you have to do is press Enter -- or wait for the default timeout. I'm posting from Knoppix run that way now.

Thank you so very, very much, sir. I cannot wait to try it out.

jd

[j.drake]

Well, I'm back. On reboot, white characters against a black screen "error loading operating system" (before the knoppix boot screen). Well, at least I know that the boot order in BIOS is working.

I retraced my steps and fixed some mistakes, but the same result. Only thing of note occurred when I followed these steps:



Finally, umount your USB key and make it bootable with syslinux:

umount /mnt/sda1
syslinux /dev/sda1

(A new file, "ldlinux.sys", should be on the key now.)

I received the following prompt after that step:

"Total number of sectors not a multiple of sectors per track! Add mtools_skip_check=1 to your .mtoolsrc to skip this test"

The first time, I assumed it was advisory and blew it off, but it happened again. Also, there was no "ldlinux.sys" file visible with the others when I issued an ls command.

While I have you here, a few other questions:
1. In the syslinux.cfg edit I did, I left in a few default values (for the ramdisk size and the like) and did not add the "alsa". I changed the ones you indicated and added the ones you indicated, as well as my own. From what you said, I assume that was ok. As for the alsa, I just left it out because I never use that cheatcode. Sound OK?

2. Is there any way to stop the linuxtag thing from popping up in Konqueror, and the knoppix icon on the desktop that points to all the linuxtag stuff? I'd prefer to leave that out

I know there's a way to deal with kmix popping up, so I'll lok for that myself unless you happen to know off the top of your head.
:)

Thank you so much for your efforts. When this gets debugged, I'd like to update the WIKI with this for poor man's install and USB booting in version 3.4, because it's very outdated. May I attribute your contribution to you?

jd

[eco2geek]

You do realize that I'm just Googling for info, trying stuff out, and reporting back -- i.e. I'm making this all up I go along? :)

Try doing exactly what the error message says -- make a /root/.mtoolsrc file that contains the line "mtools_skip_check=1" and see if that works. If it doesn't, try pulling everything off your thumbdrive that you want to save, reformat it in Knoppix using vfat, and try syslinux again. (I don't think it matters if you run syslinux before or after you copy files onto the drive.)

I think that many of the parameters that are in the default "isolinux.cfg" file (like the ramdisk size) are also set by the startup script in the miniroot image.

I think that the bare minimum you have to copy to the thumbdrive are the kernel and miniroot image pair you plan to use, boot.cat, boot.msg, logo.16, and isolinux.cfg.

You can keep konqueror from popping up by deleting ~/.kde/Autostart/showindex.desktop from your persistent home. I think the way to keep kmix and the Knoppix icon from coming back is to start up the KDE Control Center, go to KDE Components > Session Manager, and enable "Restore manually saved session". You'll find a new entry near the bottom of the K Menu called "Save Session". Click on it when your desktop's set the way you want.

[ruymbeke]

Please find below an other way to boot Knoppix 3.4 boot from a USB dongle:
1) Create a Fat (16) partition on your USB dongle and make if active so you your BIOS will boot from it. You can use fdisk.exe, partition magic, or qtparted from linux/knoppix ...
2) install a dos boot on it: fdisk/mbr to install the master boot record, and sys.com to transfert the system io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com.
3) create in the root of the USB dongle an empty config.sys and create an autoexec.bat with 1 line like grub.exe.
4) in the root of the USB dongle, copy the grub.exe and create a file /boot/grub/menu.lst with a content like this, x being your fat partition on your hard drive: (type "root (hd, " + tab at the grub prompt to have a list of the partitions, grub has autocompletion...)
title Knoppix 3.4 kernel 2.4
kernel (hd,x)/knoppix/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix lang=us
initrd (hd,x)/knoppix/minirt24.gz
boot
5) copy the linux24, minirt24.gz and knoppix files from the CD into /knoppix of the fat partition of your hard drive
This should work as well as the other option proposed by eco2geek.
Grub will nevertheless boot from the net, in case your network card doesn't do PXE and will also boot from a floppy disk image which can be very useful if you don't have a floppy drive in your laptop...
Cheers, Gilles
PS: you can download temporarily grub.exe from this link: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub.exe

[eco2geek]

Gilles:

- Is there a web site about your version of GRUB? Did you compile it yourself? (Topologilinux's version of GRUB only works in NTFS.)

- When I was trying to get syslinux to work, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to transfer the DOS system to my USB key to make it boot to DOS. I've got several Win9x boot floppies laying around, but there's no DOS driver for my USB key (Memorex thumbdrive). Do you know of a generic one?

- I couldn't find a precompiled syslinux binary for DOS that worked. Puppy Linux (http://www.goosee.com/puppy/) has an old one up on their download page, but it didn't work. I was happy to find that it worked fine from Knoppix. Do you know where I could get a current precompiled syslinux binary for DOS?

[ruymbeke]

Gilles:
- Is there a web site about your version of GRUB? Did you compile it yourself? (Topologilinux's version of GRUB only works in NTFS.)
Yes there is a couple of websites: https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/grub/ and http://denbbs.angelskyarea.com/YaBB.cgi?board=discuss
But I recompiled grub myself to include several patches all together: Grub-0.95+dos/ntfs patch+network patch


- When I was trying to get syslinux to work, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to transfer the DOS system to my USB key to make it boot to DOS. I've got several Win9x boot floppies laying around, but there's no DOS driver for my USB key (Memorex thumbdrive). Do you know of a generic one?

You may try this link: http://denbbs.angelskyarea.com/YaBB.cgi?board=discuss;action=display;num=10878781 45


- I couldn't find a precompiled syslinux binary for DOS that worked. Puppy Linux (http://www.goosee.com/puppy/) has an old one up on their download page, but it didn't work. I was happy to find that it worked fine from Knoppix. Do you know where I could get a current precompiled syslinux binary for DOS?
Have a look here: http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php
But I am not sure to understand your question. Syslinux is compiled for x86 and is usually started at boot time from the (PXE) BIOS via the CD/HD/Floppy/Network/... A hard way to do it from DOS would be to use grub.exe to load a floppy disk image which contains a syslinux boot...

But generally speaking, the goal of grub is to be a generic boot loader. Via floppy emulation you can almost boot everything. Network and NTFS boot are very usefull. Binaries for DOS, CD/Floppy/HD boot sectors make it very versatile. Recently the capability to boot from the CD when the bios doesn't support it has been added. Well, there is a lot of activities around Grub these days and the next big challenge will be to get all these great patches merged and accepted by Okuji for the next official release of Grub !
Hope this will help... Gilles

[j.drake]

You do realize that I'm just Googling for info, trying stuff out, and reporting back -- i.e. I'm making this all up I go along? :)

Try doing exactly what the error message says -- make a /root/.mtoolsrc file that contains the line "mtools_skip_check=1" and see if that works. If it doesn't, try pulling everything off your thumbdrive that you want to save, reformat it in Knoppix using vfat, and try syslinux again. (I don't think it matters if you run syslinux before or after you copy files onto the drive.)

Sure, as far as I can tell from searching around, I haven't found anyone who had done this and published a method, at least not for version 3.4. No question it's possible, easy perhaps, for people with more BASH experience than me. Problem is, the error message doesn't describe how. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that a filename beginning with a dot is hidden, so I obviously haven't seen it before, and had no idea on Earth where to "find" the file they suggested that I edit. Second, I'll look around to see if I can figure out how to edit a hidden file - I think I will be able to - we'll see. But third, I was really more interested in the fact that there might be diagnostic value in the message.

At any rate, you have by far more skill and insight on this than I. I'm doing the best I can fumbling my way in the dark. Believe me, I have about 4-5 hours invested in Google searches here and elsewhere, and I try my best not to trouble anyone else with my issues until I hit a brick wall.

I'm going to play around with the suggestions both of you offered. I have a couple of USB drives to play with, so I'll try some permutations out. Eco2geek, you obviously got it working with your method, so I'm focusing on it first. I think I understand it - your instructions are detailed and clear, and you were kind enough to educate me on the process Thanks againd to you and Gilles for your suggestions and assistance. I'm sure I'll get it working. In fact, I'm rather intrigued by Gilles' fixed that eliminate the need for the USB altogether, and once I get the USB working, I'll probably check them out.

[ruymbeke]

Please find below ALL you will need to get a Grub Multi Boot from a NTFS (or FAT) partition:
You can download temporarily grub.zip from this link: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub3.zip
This is my temporary compilation of grub with network and dos/ntfs patches, thanks to all the contributors !

In this zip you will find 2 directories: grub.bin with includes some binaries useful for other people setup and
Root_Of_NTFS which you will need to copy the content ino the root of your NTFS partition.
But before doing it, it would be probably a goof idea to backup your boot.ini into boot.bk and then
add "c:\bootgrub="Start Grub" at the end of your boot.ini to have grub as a boot option.
I included my boot.ini in the zip as an example. If your fat32 is not in /dev/hda3 as in my setup,
you may also need to modify the file \BOOT\GRUB\MENU.LST to match your setup.
In your case, you probably will replace hda3 --> hda2 and (hd0,2) --> (hd0,1)

So to summarize, you don't need a USB dongle to make a XP/Knoppix dual boot, just follow these steps:
1) Backup the boot.ini of your NTFS partition.
2) Download my grub.zip file
3) Copy the content of Root_Of_NTFS of my zip file into the root of your NTFS partition, but the BOOT.INI file
4) Add "c:\bootgrub="Start Grub" at the end of your BOOT.INI in your NTFS partition
5) Update the \BOOT\GRUB\MENU.LST to match your hd configuration and upate your cheatcodes for knoppix
6) reboot and enjoy an easy life...
Good Luck and let me know the result.
Cheers, Gilles

PS1: I would also to take this opportunity to thanks ALL the GREAT people
having worked very hard on Grub and Knoppix to make this easy setup possible !

PS2: I am still looking for help to get an even nicer boot of knoppix from the ISO file being in a NTFS partition...

[ruymbeke]

Please find in this link what is required to make a GRUB floppy disk from windows 2K/XP: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/makeflo2.zip
Note for j.drake:
By replacing /dev/fd0 by the device used for your USB dongle the macro FLOMAKE.BAT should work as well to install a bootable Grub into your dongle. You may also loose the data on your USB dongle. But be careful, dd (disk dump) is a very dangerous and powerful command. You may need administrator rights to use it and you may erase the content of your hardrive very quick if not properly used ! Let me know the results ...
Gilles

[ruymbeke]

Thanks to Okajima, I finally got it working with the Knoppix 3.4 from AIST Japan. Here is the bit torrent file: http://unit.aist.go.jp/it/knoppix/knoppix_v3.4_20040517-20040629.iso.torrent
It doesn't boot from the iso yet, but it boots from a single NTFS partition. I even got the capture (NTFS rw) working with the -o force flag... and a sync before rebooting ! But this is still kind of tricky.
Cheers, Gilles

[probono]

I am still looking for help to get an even nicer boot of knoppix from the ISO file being in a NTFS partition...[/b]
Hi ruymbeke, thanks for your great howto, are there progresses on booting the ISO from within a NTFS partition using your method? It would be extremely useful for Windows users to be able to boot the ISO from NTFS.

[ruymbeke]

Hi ruymbeke, thanks for your great howto, are there progresses on booting the ISO from within a NTFS partition using your method? It would be extremely useful for Windows users to be able to boot the ISO from NTFS.Yes I got it working using the bootfrom= cheatcode.
I didn't try yet the new version of the japan flavor of knoppix with should also have ISO from NTFS capability: http://unit.aist.go.jp/it/knoppix/knoppix2win-20040517-20040820.zip.torrent

[Berk Yavuz OZBERK]

With the help of these messages, now I can run Quantian-Knoppix from ntfs harddisk. I hope this trick also helps to you. I found a trick to boot knoppix from usb sticks. As you know, in order to boot from ntfs using bootfrom=, you need big knoppix file in another partition and it is too big to fit usb stick. To avoid this problem, I downloaded Quantian.0.5.9.2.iso which is only 8 MB(it is just for booting procedure) from mirrors then I copied knoppix file, linux24, minirt24.gz from iso to my ext2 partition(I think you can also copy these files to usb stick to use this trick). Then I used cheat code like fromhd=/dev/hda7 (my ext2 partition) and bootfrom=/dev/hda5/quantian.iso.

[ruymbeke]

Hi Fabianx,
First of all, thank you for your great work on Knoppix. Very well done !
I have a couple of question about the knoppix boot: ramdisk / scripts ...
And I would really appreciate if you would have some time to help me on this.

I really like knoppix and I believe that it would be even more popular if people working with a corporate computer running XP on a single NTFS partition could have a clean hardrive install. Basically I am talking about what you call the poor man install, and by clean I mean no change in the Mater Boot Record nor the partition table.

I already managed to boot GRUB from the boot.ini of the nt/xp boot loader. This boot.ini is a text file and everybody can understand that there is no risk to modify it and that it is very easy to remove this hook and the other "files" required by the knoppix boot (grub, kernel, ramdisk, and iso), to remove everything quickly in case of a corporate audit or IT issue...

I got grub with ntfs support in order to read the Knoppix kernel and ramdisk from the NTFS partition. I also got the Japanese flavor of knoppix 3.4 including the ntfs driver in the ramdisk and a modified linuxrc which allow me to boot Knoppix from the KNOPPIX loop back file out of the NTFS partition.

==> Well, it basically works, but I am trying now to
1) boot from the ISO file instead of the KNOPPIX file and
2) I would like to make it work on the 3.6 release.

==> So, could you please tell me:
1) How / when should I use or what is the meaning of the "bootfrom" and "fromhd" cheatcodes ?
2) The official 3.6 release si supposed to have NTFS support according to the knoppix-cheatcodes.txt file. What should I do to get my knoppix boot to work out a single ntfs partition as described above ?

Thank you for your time and answer,
ruymbeke

[j.drake]

Fabian, please help this guy. He's on a mission from God. We desperately need a script to perform a simple poor man's installation on the typical factory-configured XP computer, as a one-click option in Knoppix-installer!! This is the very key to Linux-Windows convergence!!

This is our future!

This is our destiny!

This is our quest!

Gilles, if you're simply asking how to use the cheatcodes, I put something here (http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/PoorMansInstall) that might help.

jd

[McBlade]

(of course, I'm still very reluctant to mess with Windows bootloader)

No worries... You can mess around with the Win boot loader as much as you like. As long as you have an original windows-CD, all you have to do if you mess up is:
- Insert the wincd
- reboot
- wait for winsetup to start
- press F2 (automatic systemrecovery)
I know this feature kinda sucks, but it fixes pretty much any possible boot problem. And if this does'nt save you, you can allways choose Repair in Win XP setup (You'll need an XP CD, of course), and type fixmbr. This works fabulously.

[j.drake]

This works fabulously.

Unless, of course, you're one of the overwhelming majority of people (myself included) who bought a computer from a name-brand manufacturer, in which case, you don't have an original Windows CD - you just have a stupid recovery partition that stupidly restores the computer to its original factory defaults. :cry:

[knauserix]

Hi,


In this zip you will find 2 directories: grub.bin with includes some binaries useful for other people setup and
Root_Of_NTFS which you will need to copy the content ino the root of your NTFS partition.

since I am a total Linux newbie I dismissed your post at first and tried my hand at the topologilinux grub version [which also works]. Since I didn't fancy having to fix after every defrag or copy, I googled and thought a bit further and tried your solution.

Reason for my post: the above sentence threw me of track, since my goal was to have grub on a FAT16 active partition, and then loading Knoppix from my OS-NTFS-partition. Your solution works for this case as well: perhaps evident for any old linux hand, but not for everybody just leaning a bit out of windows <g>. It also works loading Knoppix from the same partition and from a FAT32 (just tested it for the fun of it).

Now I just have to figure out which cheatcodes [what is bootfrom ??] to put where in the grub menu file and perhaps play a bit with DOS-floppy images for old times sake before jumping deeper into pinguin infested seas :D

thx a lot

thomas

[ruymbeke]

thx a lot, thomas Glad to see it is helpful to someone...
Actually you are ritht, this way to boot knoppix (or other linux flavor) can be used not only to boot from an ntfs partition, but also from fat16, fat32, ext2/3, BSD fs, network, cd, ...

Grub can be started from:
- the disk or partition boot sector (stage1,1.5,2)
- from the NT/XP BOOT.INI (grldr)
- from DOS (grub.exe without emm386)
- from the NETwork (pxegrub, nbgrub) via pxe, dhcp/bootp and tftp
- from a boot CD (stage2_eltorito)

Gilles

PS: Fabianx, could you please give me some feedback ?

[wslkevin]

Try bootfrom=/dev/hda1/k*.iso

Not sure why it would make a difference, but this is what the cheatcode said, and it worked for me (although I wasn't using an NTFS partition)

HTH
jd

I am using GRUB for multi-os loader manager. How can I make a bootable floppy image to boot up my computer, so that I can type the cheatcode at the command line?

Thank you very much for your help.

[eco2geek]

I am using GRUB for multi-os loader manager. How can I make a bootable floppy image to boot up my computer, so that I can type the cheatcode at the command line?

If you're using GRUB, you can put all the Knoppix cheatcodes you need to use in "menu.lst" (GRUB's configuration file), in the stanza that boots Knoppix, at the end of the line that starts with kernel.

If you absolutely have to have boot floppies, Knoppix containes a utility to make them (Knoppix menu > Utilities > Create bootfloppies for Knoppix). It takes two, and they'll have syslinux on them, not GRUB. But why use them, if your system boots from the CD or from GRUB?

[Granny]

Guys,

We need to play with the linuxrc script in de minitrd34.gz (or whatever). (Only cheatcodes will not work here)

I am getting close, however still no lluck, this is where I stand now in booting knoppix from NTFS.
* Booting the kernel + initial ramdisk works
* Looking for CD -> Error

First mount the root image disk
cd /whereeveryourmini4d34.gz is
gunzip minird34.gz
mkdir /mnt/root
mount -o minird34 /mnt/root

Ok now, the /mnt/root is our playground, first lets make sure we have the ntfs module upon booting, so copy the ntfs.o module to /mnt/root/modules
Next make sure that one of the first lines in the /mnt/root/linuxrc is actually the insmodding of the ntfs module, and mounting the ntfs partition.

Now what i tried is mounting the /dev/hda to /isoimage, and creating a symlbolic link from /dev/pscd8 to /isoimage/k*.iso, because I noticed that the linuxrc searches all the /dev/pscd? devices. (This is where I am stuck, mounting works, linking works...)
However It's still not able to mount the /dev/pscd? because it needs the loopback driver to do it,... I think I can make this work...
Just a little more time...
Linuxrc is the key...

After you finished modifieying the root, don't forget to unmount and gzip the rootdisk again.

Regards,

Harm Jan

P.S> I'm trying knoppix 3.6

[wslkevin]

I am using GRUB for multi-os loader manager. How can I make a bootable floppy image to boot up my computer, so that I can type the cheatcode at the command line?

If you're using GRUB, you can put all the Knoppix cheatcodes you need to use in "menu.lst" (GRUB's configuration file), in the stanza that boots Knoppix, at the end of the line that starts with kernel.

If you absolutely have to have boot floppies, Knoppix containes a utility to make them (Knoppix menu > Utilities > Create bootfloppies for Knoppix). It takes two, and they'll have syslinux on them, not GRUB. But why use them, if your system boots from the CD or from GRUB?

Thanks very much for your kindly replay, eco2geek, but I still got some questions. Could you help me to solve them?

1. Which files should I copy from the ISO to the hard disk, says, C:\?
2. What configuration should I make in the GRUB menu,lst file?

Could you give the details?

After reading this thread, I know there are still some technical issues haven't been solved. However, I am a Linux newbie and really like Knoppix, and want to "install" (actually just store the ISO image in C:\) to my office notebook (because I can't/don't want to mess it). So that, I want to follow your step to the success.

[eco2geek]

Ah, you want to boot the ISO. Well, I (like the guys up higher in the thread) have never been successful at booting the ISO from my C:\ (NTFS formatted) drive using GRUB.

However, the folks who maintain the Japanese version of Knoppix recently came out with a version that you can boot entirely from your NTFS partition. It's available at

http://unit.aist.go.jp/it/knoppix/win/index-en.html

and you can either use their installer, which is completely automated, or, if you already have GRUB installed, set it up manually. (It uses the ~700MB /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file, their modified "miniroot," and the kernel, copied to your C:\ drive).

If you're interested, I can post manual installation instructions.

[ruymbeke]

If you're interested, I can post manual installation instructions.
I think that I already have posted some installation instructions in this thread ...
I am still working on the 3.6 linuxrc to boot from the iso directly.
BTW, there is not much changes in the 3.7 version besides the firewall.

[probono]

Fabian, please help this guy. He's on a mission from God. We desperately need a script to perform a simple poor man's installation on the typical factory-configured XP computer, as a one-click option in Knoppix-installer!! This is the very key to Linux-Windows convergence!!

This is our future!

This is our destiny!

This is our quest!

Gilles, if you're simply asking how to use the cheatcodes, I put something here (http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/PoorMansInstall) that might help.

jd

http://unit.aist.go.jp/it/knoppix/win/index-en.html seems to do it! Has anyone tested it yet?

[ruymbeke]

Fabian, please help this guy. He's on a mission from God. We desperately need a script to perform a simple poor man's installation on the typical factory-configured XP computer, as a one-click option in Knoppix-installer!! This is the very key to Linux-Windows convergence!!

This is our future! This is our destiny! This is our quest!

Gilles, if you're simply asking how to use the cheatcodes, I put something here (http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/PoorMansInstall) that might help.jd

http://unit.aist.go.jp/it/knoppix/win/index-en.html seems to do it! Has anyone tested it yet?

Yes it does work, but ... only with 3.4 and not from an ISO ...
Gilles

[Granny]

Ok I made some very simple modification to the minirt24

I copied the ntfs.o in modules/scsi, and added ntfs.o in the list of scsi modules, as well as in the filesystem list.

After rebooting, it recognizes the knoppix/KNOPPIX folder on the NTFS volume:

Accessing <bla bla bla>

And after that in the insmod with the cloop.o crashes with a derefenced data (Had to put kernel debug backj on echo 6 bla bla printk)?!? Is this the original reason why NTFS was not included in the knoppix kernel in the first place?!?


I do not want to use the Japanase version, because I want to be able to use the newest Knoppix distro. I am not interested in Grub bec, I use the syslinux loader from my usb stick.

[ruymbeke]

... Is this the original reason why NTFS was not included in the knoppix kernel in the first place?!? ...
According to some previous discussion on older knoppix release (3.3) it looks like that the NTFS module have to be compiled within the kernel to get it working. In an other hand, the japanise version use the kernel 2.6 with the ntfs.ko module. Does it mean that NTFS only works with the 2.6 kernel ?
But whatever I use the 2.4 or 2.6 kernel, I get the same problem on my side.

[wslkevin]

Ah, you want to boot the ISO. Well, I (like the guys up higher in the thread) have never been successful at booting the ISO from my C:\ (NTFS formatted) drive using GRUB.

However, the folks who maintain the Japanese version of Knoppix recently came out with a version that you can boot entirely from your NTFS partition. It's available at

http://unit.aist.go.jp/it/knoppix/win/index-en.html

and you can either use their installer, which is completely automated, or, if you already have GRUB installed, set it up manually. (It uses the ~700MB /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file, their modified "miniroot," and the kernel, copied to your C:\ drive).

If you're interested, I can post manual installation instructions.

Thank you very much, could you provide the installation instrution?
So I need to recompile the kernel. I am a newbie in Linux, could you also mentioned the software used and how to compile the kernel.
Thanks again

a_chih 寫道:

那麼可以外接一台usb CD-ROM嗎？
我猜你NB內原本已裝有一套win了吧,如果是這樣,那你可以參考以下這個方式看看.
http://knoppix.tnc.edu.tw/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=899&forum=1

希望幫的到你,加油! :-)

那可是要有額外的FAT partition 的，是嗎？
而且是要安裝，不是boot from ISO, right?
anyway, thanks very much for your help

[j.drake]

Gilles, a few pages back, you posted an "ALL you need to get . . . " post. I tried it, and I got close, but now I'm kind of stuck. See http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=53357#53357 . At first, I got an error that dropped me to a limited shell, but at least I was in the Knoppix boot process. Then I discovered that I had the hd designations wrong, so I corrected them. But now, I'm not even getting that far.

I get past the boot.ini menu into the Grub menu, and select the 2.6 kernel option. Then the selected stanza from the menul.lst shows at the top (except for the word "boot" at the end), it claims to be booting, but nothing happens.

My NTFS is hda1 - the only partition on the hda drive. On hdb, hda1 is my linux data partition, occupied by my persistent home and configuration in ext2 format. hdb5 is where the tohd files are loaded. Would you please look at my menu.lst and tell me where I'm going wrong? It appears at c:\boot\grub\ .


color blue/white yellow/green
timeout=15
default=0

# GvR July 11th 2004 Modified by JD 091604
# All this can be booted from the NTFS partition if all the files are copied from the zip
# and the loopback file /knoppix/knoppix is on the root of /dev/hdb5 === (hd1,4) for grub !

title Default Windows Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.4, fromhd=/dev/hdb5
kernel (hd1,4)/boot/knoppix/linux24 home=/dev/hdb1 myconfig=scan ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet fromhd=/dev/hdb5 knoppix_name=knoppix
initrd (hd1,4)/boot/knoppix/minirt24.gz
boot

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6, fromhd=/dev/hdb5
kernel (hd1,4)/boot/knoppix/linux26 home=/dev/hdb1 myconfig=scan ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet fromhd=/dev/hdb5 knoppix_name=knoppix
initrd (hd1,4)/boot/knoppix/minirt26.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd1,4)/boot/knoppix/memtest

title Reload menu.lst from (hd1,4)/knoppix
configfile (hd1,4)/knoppix/menu.lst

Here is my boot.ini


[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\window s

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
c:\bootgrub="Start Grub"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understood your directions correctly, I do NOT need to put the grub.bin folder anywhere, right?

OTOH, the contents of the Root_OF_NTFS folder (except boot.ini) get copied to C:, right?

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Would you recommend that I abandon this for the Japanese solution anyway? Personally, I would prefer to keep to your original design, if possible. And, I'm not interested in booting from .ISO.

TIA

j.drake

[probono]

j.drake, we should better find out what changes were made in the Japanese edition so that we can boot the regular Knoppix poor man's from NTFS, too.

[ruymbeke]

j.drake, we should better find out what changes were made in the Japanese edition so that we can boot the regular Knoppix poor man's from NTFS, too.
I am still working on the ramdisk and the linuxrc but no success so far with knoppix 3.6 and ISO from NTFS...


Gilles, a few pages back, you posted an "ALL you need to get . . . " post. I tried it, and I got close, but now I'm kind of stuck. See http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=53357#53357 ... Any idea what I'm doing wrong? ... j.drake
My deep apologizes. I did not properly uploaded the zip file containing grub. Please download again the correct grub3.zip file from this link: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub3.zip Inside Root_Of_NTFS, you should now have a directory called /boot/knoppix.new containing, on top of the linux26 kernel, the ramdisk miniroot_ntfs.gz that I got from the japanese knoppix distribution. You should also find the correct /boot/grub/menu.lst in order to boot everything from C:\ (hda1, NTFS):

##################################
# GvR Sept 17th 2004
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=5
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

# Knoppix Boot from a single NTFS partition hda1 c:\
# All the files within the directory "Root_Of_NTFS" of the grub3.zip
# have to be copied into the root of the NTFS hda1 partition c:\
# but the boot.ini file (which is just here as an example)
# and the 700MB loopback file knoppix has to be extracted from the ISO
# and copied into c:\boot\knoppix.new\knoppix
title Knoppix 3.4 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/linux26 init=/etc/init lang=us hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi vga=791 ro quiet knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.new knoppix_name=knoppix
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/memtest

title Win311 from Dos from Floppy image 1.44Mb, just for fun...
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memdisk
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/win311.img
boot
##################################

Since you already get grub running, your boot.ini file is correct and you don't need to update the file grldr with the content of grub3.zip. (This new version of grldr (grub3.zip) can be started directly from the boot.ini and do not require the file bootgrub anymore). Let me know ...
Cheers, Gilles

PS: this should work as well with fat16/32, ext2/3, ...
I also added in the grub3.zip the required files to make a grub boot floppy from a win2k/xp system and the files required by grub to install itself on the disk/partition boot sectors. This version of grub can also boot from the network with some network cards: eepro100, e1000, rtl8139, rtl8169, 3c905, ng310, ... assuming that a server has been setup properly. Usefull if your network card doesn't support PXE !
PS2: I didn't try the 3.6 japanese version yet ...

[Granny]

Ok, on my corporate computer I finally got it to work,
I use my USB key to boot, so that I do not have to modify ANY of the windows files.
This is what I did:
Downloaded Knoppix 3.6 & Knoppix 3.6 Japanese Version

Copied from the Knoppix 3.6 Japanese version the boot/isolinux folder to /mnt/sda1 (My 64Mb USB stick). Then copied from the Knoppix 3.6 cd the isolinux.cfg to /mnt/sda1 and renamed it to syslinux.cfg (To get rid of the Japanese languages etc...). After that I copied the knoppix/KNOPPIX file to my c: (NTFS) from the original Knoppix 3.6 version. Also I used the ntfsrootdisk (in the root folder of the japanese version)), copied it to /mnt/sda and renamed it to minirt36.zip (So it overwrites the old one).
Lastly I made my usb stick bootable by unounting /mnt/sda1 and doing a syslinux /dev/sda.

Now it works with the 2.6 kernel only it seems, but it worx and I am happy :)

Just plug in the usb key if your boss is not around :) and type knoppix26 fromhd (Or just modify the syslinux.cfg so it does this automaticly), it now boots perfectly without cd from usb & ntfs.

[j.drake]

j.drake, we should better find out what changes were made in the Japanese edition so that we can boot the regular Knoppix poor man's from NTFS, too.

No, I think that's a great idea. But what I'm doing now is to work on an enhancement to address the boot option to load the fromhd installation, because I already have a second disk partitioned and ready to go. I'm hoping that this option will allow me to edit the Knoppix image while running live CD, effectively modifying the system for when I reboot with the fromhd cheatcode.

The critical feedback I've been receiving on PMI mostly relates to the fact that the partition where knoppix resides is rendered unwriteable by the fs (stands to reason), and therefore the persistent home must reside in a different partition altogether. Meanwhile, the script for PH (as a partition) forces an ext2 fs on the installer, meaning that yet another partition is needed if you want a fat32 area for sharing data. It's getting to the point where you need to set so many partitions (which is fairly advanced stuff for a newbie), plus mess with a bootloader, that the advantages of a PMI over a knoppix-style hd installation are disappearing, especially given that the knoppix-style is scripted to do a lot of this automatically. Add to that the fact that partitioning for the tohd is wasteful unless you size it to be just barely big enough to handle that aspect alone.

What I would really like to see for new users is to develop something like the Japanese/Ruymbeke solution to load from the NTFS ISO file, so that a program partition is no longer necessary, and restructure the PMI concept to rely upon a persistent home file instead, giving the advantages of a hd install without calling upon new users to create partitions, other than to save data. Taken a step further, if we could debug the captive NTFS installer to allow writing to NTFS reliably, we might be able to dispense with the need for partitioning at all. Lastly, and I think this is something you would know far more about, could Klik accommodate a proc file for all of this, such that the typical person with a factory-built WinXP computer with a single NTFS partition at hda1 could run a klik recipe from a live boot and have it set up for them? (with appropriate disclaimers, of course)

For now, though, I'm looking after my own selfish interests on my computer. :wink:

jd

[j.drake]

What I would really like to see for new users is to develop something like the Japanese/Ruymbeke solution to load from the NTFS ISO file, so that a program partition is no longer necessary, and restructure the PMI concept to rely upon a persistent home file instead, giving the advantages of a hd install without calling upon new users to create partitions, other than to save data. Taken a step further, if we could debug the captive NTFS installer to allow writing to NTFS reliably, we might be able to dispense with the need for partitioning at all. Lastly, and I think this is something you would know far more about, could Klik accommodate a proc file for all of this, such that the typical person with a factory-built WinXP computer with a single NTFS partition at hda1 could run a klik recipe from a live boot and have it set up for them? (with appropriate disclaimers, of course)

Probono,

Alternatively, I suspect that a lot of new users check out this forum from a Windows browser before they even download Knoppix. I think I did, IIRC. The newbies we get here are not ignorant sheep - most are very capable "power users" of Windows, just unfamiliar with Linux. This solution is intriguing because the "surgery" is all performed on the Windows side - no prior Linux knowledge required. If a mistake is made, it is repaired in Windows, where the new user has familiarity already. Speaking from personal experience, it is very intimidating to try to fix a botched operation in an unfamiliar OS, particularly using BASH in a console. If the details of this boot from NTFS ISO get finally ironed out and simplified, it would be great to put into the WIKI, and possibly as a sticky in the MSWindows forum. Ideally (IMO), the new user would read the how-to, make the necessary changes in Windows, and even download the ISO in Windows, THEN run Knoppix without even the necessity of ever burning a CD. All things considered, I think this has the potential of being an even better option for Windows immigrants than the fromhd PMI.

jd

[ruymbeke]

... The critical feedback I've been receiving on PMI mostly relates to the fact that the partition where knoppix resides is rendered unwriteable by the fs (stands to reason), and therefore the persistent home must reside in a different partition altogether... jd
This not totally true: I don't remember how I did it (some flag -o ... need to be added to the re-mount), but you can still grant write access to the ntfs partition where the 700MB knoppix resides. The disk is mounted as /cdrom and you need the capture ntfs drivers/script to be run. Obviously you don't want to move or delete the knoppix file since you are using this file but I remember having modified my menu.lst in the NTFS partition using knoppix having booted from it... But I don't know yet about a config or persistent home being as well on that NTFS partition...

Granny: Glad to see that the japanese version looks like working for you. I will try the japanese 3.6 version this we. I like to boot from the hd, and I am using my USB dongle to store my data.
FYI I have been able to run successfully Lotus Notes (corporate Email), MS Office and other Windows only applications from my Dongle using CrossOver, an improved flavor of wine: http://www.codeweavers.com/
Gilles

PS: the command line I used to get write access to the NTFS partition was:
mount -t captive-ntfs -o force /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1

[j.drake]

This not totally true: I don't remember how I did it (some flag -o ... need to be added to the re-mount), but you can still grant write access to the ntfs partition where the 700MB knoppix resides. The disk is mounted as /cdrom and you need the capture ntfs drivers/script to be run. Obviously you don't want to move or delete the knoppix file since you are using this file but I remember having modified my menu.lst in the NTFS partition using knoppix having booted from it... But I don't know yet about a config or persistent home being as well on that NTFS partition...

Right, I said that it was the feedback, not that it was true. In fact there was a period of time in which I had PH, image and configs all in the SAME partition without problem. But this does not appear to be consistent. Recently, I had problems, and I'm at a loss to explain why.

For that matter, I'm at a loss to explain why, from time to time, Knoppix "forgets" that it has a PH set up. The data are still in the partition - but the Klik wrappers don't work and the "home" button pulls up maybe two files, neither of which I put there. Of course, I can typically dig around and find shells to launch the programs, but like with Firefox, all the extensions and preferences are gone, and none of the desktop or menu shortcuts work. Sometimes it recovers, and sometimes I just have to redo the PH (on a positive note, it's a good way to make sure my programs are up to date - if Klik weren't so darn easy and fast, I'd be really PO'ed).

Does anyone know enough about the mechanics of the PH setup to offer a guess as to why the PH magically disappears from time-to-time? For an OS that's reputed to be so stable, I sure am getting a lot of random stuff happening! :roll:

jd

[j.drake]

My deep apologizes. I did not properly uploaded the zip file containing grub. Please download again the correct grub3.zip file from this link: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub3.zip Inside Root_Of_NTFS, you should now have a directory called /boot/knoppix.new containing, on top of the linux26 kernel, the ramdisk miniroot_ntfs.gz that I got from the japanese knoppix distribution. You should also find the correct /boot/grub/menu.lst in order to boot everything from C:\ (hda1, NTFS):

##################################
# GvR Sept 17th 2004
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=5
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

# Knoppix Boot from a single NTFS partition hda1 c:\
# All the files within the directory "Root_Of_NTFS" of the grub3.zip
# have to be copied into the root of the NTFS hda1 partition c:\
# but the boot.ini file (which is just here as an example)
# and the 700MB loopback file knoppix has to be extracted from the ISO
# and copied into c:\boot\knoppix.new\knoppix
title Knoppix 3.4 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/linux26 init=/etc/init lang=us hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi vga=791 ro quiet knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.new knoppix_name=knoppix
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/memtest

title Win311 from Dos from Floppy image 1.44Mb, just for fun...
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memdisk
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/win311.img
boot
##################################

Since you already get grub running, your boot.ini file is correct and you don't need to update the file grldr with the content of grub3.zip. (This new version of grldr (grub3.zip) can be started directly from the boot.ini and do not require the file bootgrub anymore). Let me know ...
Cheers, Gilles

PS: this should work as well with fat16/32, ext2/3, ...
I also added in the grub3.zip the required files to make a grub boot floppy from a win2k/xp system and the files required by grub to install itself on the disk/partition boot sectors. This version of grub can also boot from the network with some network cards: eepro100, e1000, rtl8139, rtl8169, 3c905, ng310, ... assuming that a server has been setup properly. Usefull if your network card doesn't support PXE !
PS2: I didn't try the 3.6 japanese version yet ...

2damcool!

A few problems, though:

Several fatal errors crossed by screen on boot:

1. PnP BIOS fault - suugested I use the nobiospnp cheatcode. Never needed that before

2. A whole bunch of modprobe "could not load lib/modules/2.6.6/modules.dep no such directory"

3. OS would not recognize an ext3 partition.

4. I cannot get access to the internet through any browser

Does this have anything to do with the Japanese file? I copied the stuff you told me to the root directory, including a copy of the 700MB Knoppix file. Here is the menu.lst file, showing bootcodes:


##################################
# GvR Sept 17th 2004 Modified by jd 091704
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=15
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

# Knoppix Boot from a single NTFS partition hda1:
# All the files within the directory "Root_Of_NTFS" of the grub3.zip
# have to be copied into the root of the NTFS hda1 partition c:\
# but the boot.ini file (which is just here as an example)
# and the 700MB loopback file knoppix has to be extracted from the ISO
# and copied into c:\boot\knoppix.new\knoppix
title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/linux26 init=/etc/init lang=us vga=791 ro quiet knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.new knoppix_name=knoppix home=/dev/hdb1 config=scan
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.new/memtest


##################################




Thanks,

jd

[ruymbeke]

... Does this have anything to do with the Japanese file? ...
Well, when I posted this yesterday I didn't get the new 3.6 japanese version yet, and as you can tell by the menu.lst I posted, the miniroot_ntfs.gz included in my grub3.zip was for the 3.4 knoppix release, not the 3.6 !
If you want to run 3.6 you should try the new miniroot_ntfs.gz (1'135'675 bytes) from the new japanese version.
You can fin a copy of this file here: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/miniroot_ntfs.gz
This should work better...
Cheers, Gilles

PS: the updated grub4.zip can be downloades from here: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub4.zip
I will try the 3.6 Boot from NTFS using these files asap ...

[eco2geek]

PS: the command line I used to get write access to the NTFS partition was:
mount -t captive-ntfs -o force /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1

OK, you've made a believer out of me. This works. I'm running a Knoppix PMI entirely off my NTFS partition (well, except for the persistent home, that is), loaded with GRUB from NTLdr, and I've got read-write access to the NTFS partition.

ruymbeke, did you write the modified "miniroot_ntfs" file in the Japanese version?

And, for those installing this, you can put the kernel and miniroot from the Japanese version of Knoppix anywhere you like on the NTFS partition. You just have to tell GRUB where they are (in menu.lst).

Plus, I haven't played with it yet, but it looks like you can rename the 700MB "KNOPPIX" file anything you want, and put it anywhere you want, specifying what it's named, and where it is, using the "knoppix_name=" and "knoppix_dir=" parameters.

[probono]

I contacted the author of Japanese-Knoppix and he is happy to see their inventions going back into regular Knoppix. Here is the reply I got:


It is easy to integrate install2win to KNOPPIX. Integration is just to
copy of "/install2win" file and "/boot/grub" directory.

Can anyone who has Japanese-Knopix please upload these two directories somewhere?

Thanks in advance,
probono[/quote]

[ruymbeke]

ruymbeke, did you write the modified "miniroot_ntfs" file in the Japanese version?
No I did not. I tried to modify it, so I can boot from the ISO file being in the NTFS partition instead of the 700MB knoppix file. But so far no success. But I have been playing for quite a while with grub and other great grub contributors. Why ?
==> The japanese version of knoppix install grub into the boot sector of the disk which is not acceptable for me and people using a windows corporate computer. Instead I proposed to use an improved version of grub being started from either 98/DOS (grub.exe) or XP/NT (grldr) using an extra entry in the the boot.ini, which is a text editable file, easy to modify and backup. In this case the grub binary data is just a file for windows and do not resides in any special location like boot sectors or mbr. If required, the knoppix installation can be easily removed by deleting a couple of windows files and removing the extra entry in the text file boot.ini, which do not require any special tool or skill !


Can anyone who has Japanese-Knopix please upload these two directories somewhere? Thanks in advance, Probono
Even if I am not for this solution, please find it here: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/probono.zip
(install2win.bat is not a directory but a dos batch file)
Cheers, Gilles

[j.drake]

OK, you've made a believer out of me. This works. I'm running a Knoppix PMI entirely off my NTFS partition (well, except for the persistent home, that is), loaded with GRUB from NTLdr, and I've got read-write access to the NTFS partition.

Well, and appropriately so. I'm convinced that the NTFS partition is the best place for this.

1. It allows the setup to be done from Windows, where new users will most comfortable and competent, and

2. Since the partition containing the program is forced into read only status anyway, what better than the NTFS Windows partition to force into a read only status?? I mean, you'd be crazy to NOT want this to bea read only, right? Where better to have a read only partition? This is great!

jd

[probono]

Even if I am not for this solution, please find it here: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/probono.zip

Thank you very much. But it seems what I also need is the Japanese kernel and the Japanese initrd. Could you please upload those as well? Thanks so much in advance!


Now we should try to combine the japanese possibility to boot from NTFS with the possibility to boot grub through the extra entry in the the original Windows boot.ini. Then, we need to figure out how to boot from inside the ISO. Then, we have to script it all (in a Windows script). And voila, we will have: a "poor poor man's installation" ;)

[ruymbeke]

...But it seems what I also need is the Japanese kernel and the Japanese initrd...
Here it is: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/probono2.zip


Now we should try to combine the japanese possibility to boot from NTFS with the possibility to boot grub through the extra entry in the the original Windows boot.ini.
This is exactly what I have done... http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub5.zip


Then, we need to figure out how to boot from inside the ISO.

What I am working on...


Then, we have to script it all (in a Windows script). And voila, we will have: a "poor poor man's installation" ;)
YAKA... (means just do it in French...)
Cheers, Gilles

[j.drake]

Is the makeflo folder necessary to the installation. If so, where does it go?

jd

[j.drake]

... Does this have anything to do with the Japanese file? ...
Well, when I posted this yesterday I didn't get the new 3.6 japanese version yet, and as you can tell by the menu.lst I posted, the miniroot_ntfs.gz included in my grub3.zip was for the 3.4 knoppix release, not the 3.6 !
If you want to run 3.6 you should try the new miniroot_ntfs.gz (1'135'675 bytes) from the new japanese version.
You can fin a copy of this file here: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/miniroot_ntfs.gz
This should work better...
Cheers, Gilles

PS: the updated grub4.zip can be downloades from here: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub4.zip
I will try the 3.6 Boot from NTFS using these files asap ...

I got a number of errors:

1. The same PnP BIOS fault as before
2. RAMDISK: incomplete write(=28 !=32768) 4194304
3. Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root FS on ram3

jd

[eco2geek]

2. RAMDISK: incomplete write(=28 !=32768) 4194304
3. Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root FS on ram3

I got that error as well, with their Knoppix 3.6 miniroot_ntfs. The Knoppix 3.4 version works fine.

[ruymbeke]

Is the makeflo folder necessary to the installation. If so, where does it go? jd
NO. This is an extra tool running on NT/XP (thanks to the dd.exe of cygwin) to create a bootable floppy with grub on it. This version of grub can then boot from ntfs, network, fat, ... I use it to boot from the network when my net card doesn't support PXE.

2. RAMDISK: incomplete write(=28 !=32768) 4194304
3. Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root FS on ram3
I got the same error when I just tried 3.6 with the miniroot_ntfs.gz of the japanese version. My solution: change the kernel line of the grub menu.lst as follow: (basically inspired from the isolinux.cfg default boot)

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.36 knoppix_name=knoppix
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

Cheers, Gilles

[j.drake]

2. RAMDISK: incomplete write(=28 !=32768) 4194304
3. Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root FS on ram3
I got the same error when I just tried 3.6 with the miniroot_ntfs.gz of the japanese version. My solution: change the kernel line of the grub menu.lst as follow: (basically inspired from the isolinux.cfg default boot)

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.36 knoppix_name=knoppix
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

Cheers, Gilles

Doing that got rid of the kernel panic, but gave me three insmod errors inserting the modules, '/modules/ntfs.o', '/modules/nls_cp932.0', and 'modules/nls_euc-jp.o'. All three errors indicated "-1 Invalid module format". Then the response "Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry. Dropping you to a (very limited) shell."

:idea: By any chance, when you got it to work, were you using the Japanese version of the KNOPPIX 700 MB file? I'm wondering if the miniroot_ntfs.gz is trying to load modules which aren't found natively on the stock KNOPPIX 3.6 file. Do I need to switch to it?

jd

[ruymbeke]

...By any chance, when you got it to work, were you using the Japanese version of the KNOPPIX 700 MB file? ...
No. I am using the regular KNOPPIX (725'253'780 bytes long) loop back 3.6 file, the regular linux26 kernel and the japanese miniroot_ntfs.gz ramdisk.
PS: Do you have anywhere on one of your partirion of one of your disks, a /knoppix/KNOPPIX file ? As far as I know, the linuxrc script within the miniroot ramdisk is looking for the knoppix loopback file on every possible media available before looking for the location you have specified in the kernel parameters line. This means that if you still have a 3.4 knoppix file somewhere, the 3.6 boot is still going to load your old 3.4 loop back file... This is the reason why I have renamed the knoppix directory to knoppix.36 and have no knoppix directory anywhere...
Hope this will help, Gilles

[j.drake]

Hmm, I DO have another 3.6 file elsewhere. When I was looking to copy the KNOPPIX file to my C: drive, I did a "tohd" temporarily on my hdb3 to copy it. Then it dawned on me that I could just copy from the CD, so i did that instead. (D'oh!! :roll: ). Anyway, I didn't erase that old image. I'll try that.

Also, I have an ISO image that I stored after downloading, in order to make CDs. Couldn't be that, could it? It's the same version.

jd

[ruymbeke]

... Also, I have an ISO image that I stored after downloading, in order to make CDs. Couldn't be that, could it? It's the same version ...
An ISO should be fine as long you do not have a bootfrom=*.iso. If the KNOPPIX file is the same image that the one in C:\, it should't matter, but you will not need/use the one from the NTFS... Are you sure you use the 26 kernel ? ntfs japanese boot only works with the new 2.6 kernel. Gilles

[j.drake]

I nuked out two "tohd" images, one in hdb3 and one in hdb5. The only KNOPPIX file image should be in C:\BOOT\Knoppix.36. Same problem.

Here is my menu.lst:


# GvR Sept 17th 2004 modified by jd 091904
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=15
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

# Knoppix 3.6 Boot from a single NTFS partition hda1:
# All the files within the directory "Root_Of_NTFS" of the grub4.zip
# have to be copied into the root of the NTFS hda1 partition c:\
# but the boot.ini file (which is just here as an example)
# and the 700MB loopback file knoppix has to be extracted from the ISO
# and copied into c:\boot\knoppix.36\knoppix
title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.36 knoppix_name=knoppix home=/dev/hdb1 config=scan noprompt
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/memtest

##################################

The 2.6 kernel is all I've ever used, ever since Knoppix 3.4 first made it available in May 2004. So, yes, I'm very sure that I've been using 3.6 with the 2.6 kernel. Remember - I was able to boot this way before (http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=60654#60654) - I just didn't have access to the modules. As for the kernel, all files came from your latest Grub5.zip. I just copied the KNOPPIX file over to the BOOT/Knoppix.36 directory, straight from the 3.6 CD.

jd

[ruymbeke]

I nuked out two "tohd" images, one in hdb3 and one in hdb5. The only KNOPPIX file image should be in C:\BOOT\Knoppix.36. Same problem... I just copied the KNOPPIX file over to the BOOT/Knoppix.36 directory, straight from the 3.6 CD...
Everything looks righ... And it works on my IBM T41 laptop...
Just as a check, please find here the md5 of the files within the grub5.zip: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub5.md5 (but the zip already includes a crc)
I will try again with a cut and paste of your setup asap. Gilles

[j.drake]

Well, I changed everything to exactly the way you have it - nuked my own cheatcodes, etc. No change.

Can you explain what's going on when the error says that insmod had an error inserting the modules: '/modules/ntfs.o', '/modules/nls_cp932.0', and 'modules/nls_euc-jp.o'? I don't know much about inserting modules, but it sounds almost as if 3.6/2.6 doesn't have these modules that GRUB is trying to use, but the KNOPPIX file from my 3.6 disk won't accept them. That's why I keep coming back to the idea that maybe I need the Japanese version of the KNOPPIX file, or that I need to hope that the next version of Knoppix incorporates these modules. Maybe I'm jsut not understanding the nature of this error.

jd

[ruymbeke]

...Can you explain what's going on when the error says that insmod had an error inserting the modules: '/modules/ntfs.o', '/modules/nls_cp932.0', and 'modules/nls_euc-jp.o'? I don't know much about inserting modules, but it sounds almost as if 3.6/2.6 doesn't have these modules that GRUB is trying to use, but the KNOPPIX file from my 3.6 disk won't accept them...
Well, as I understand it, the script linuxrc inside the miniroot_ntfs.gz, is trying to load the ntfs kernel driver ntfs.o using the insmod program, these 2 files (ntfs.o and insmod) being inside the ramdisk created at boot time from the the same miniroot_ntfs.gz. (I know that the 2.6 kernel driver being on the KNOPPIX file have the .KO extension, but the ntfs.o of the ramdisk and the ntfs.ko of the KNOPPIX file look like the same, 130'865 bytes). This kernel ntfs.o driver need to be loaded by the kernel in order to read the loopback file KNOPPIX being in the ntfs partition. The ntfs.o kernel driver could have been compiled within the kernel, but for obvious reasons of size, it is better to have it loaded from the ramdisk later on. So the problem that you have is happening before the KNOPPIX loop back file is loaded and after grub have give the hand to the linux26 kernel. None of them should be in cause, but the linuxrc script may do something unexpected with your previously saved setup...
==> Could you please, just as a test, try to remove the "home=/dev/hdb1 config=scan noprompt" from your setup, just in case there is something wrong or not compatible in your config/customization files ?
Thanks, Gilles
PS: I just got it running again on my laptop but I have no home or config files...

[probono]

There is a nice article, containing images (unfortunately in Japanese) of how GRUB can load Knoppix from inside the NT/XP bootloader:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr?url=http%3A//www.itmedia.co.jp/enterprise/articles/0408/19/news019.html&lp=ja_en
(Translation by Babelfish)

Btw, the Japanese Installer uses grubinstall http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/ to install GRUB inside the NT/XP bootloader.

[j.drake]

==> Could you please, just as a test, try to remove the "home=/dev/hdb1 config=scan noprompt" from your setup, just in case there is something wrong or not compatible in your config/customization files ?
Thanks, Gilles

That's the last thing I did:


Well, I changed everything to exactly the way you have it - nuked my own cheatcodes, etc. No change.

I just figured that I would try to remove all doubt, since you got it working and I didn't. Especially since a saved home doesn't do any good if you can't even boot. :wink:

Maybe some of this about my setup may trigger an idea:
HP Pavilion 735n, 512 RAM, 250gb hda1, 80 GB hdb (~40gig hdb1 in ext2 for PH, ~10gb in ext2 for toram image or future root - no longer used, ~1 GB linux swab, remainder hdb3 in FAT32), WinXP w/sp2, Norton Antivirus, Windows tsr's for Open Office, thunderbird, epson scanner, eraser, nVidia graphics, hp5100 printer. Can't think of anything else relevant.

I did accidentally run the Japanese batch file that you posted for probono when I was trying to look inside it, but I manually took out everything it put in, and reloaded all your files just in case. The menus work fine.

Gilles, did you install sp2 on your Windows? Just a thought.

jd

[ruymbeke]

...Gilles, did you install sp2 on your Windows? Just a thought...
I don't see anything wrong with your setup, and yes I do have SP2 installed on my XP laptop. I tried on some other XP boxes, and so far all of them are working without any special trick ... Who else did get it working ?
Since you get the grub menu and the kernel + ramdisk loaded and running, grub is out of cause. The problem is not in the loopback file (KNOPPIX ) either, because, it is not even loaded yet. The only thing I can think of now, is a version missmatch between the kernel (linux26) and the ramdisk (miniroot_ntfs.gz).
Could you please try to modify the menu.lst in order to read all these 3 files out of your fat32 partition but still start grub from the boot.ini / ntfs boot loader ?


There is a nice article, containing images (unfortunately in Japanese) of how GRUB can load Knoppix from inside the NT/XP bootloader:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr?url=http%3A//www.itmedia.co.jp/enterprise/articles/0408/19/news019.html&lp=ja_en
(Translation by Babelfish)
Btw, the Japanese Installer uses grubinstall http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/ to install GRUB inside the NT/XP bootloader.
Interesting. Thank you for the links. I got my sources from from the savannah.gnu.org and recompiled grub 0.95 with some patches like grub4dos and network. Thank you again to all the contributors...
Gilles

[eco2geek]

This thread is getting long. :wink:

With the addition of the "nomce" cheatcode (thanks, ruymbeke), Knoppix 3.6 Japanese Edition now loads entirely off the NTFS partition using GRUB as the bootloader and both the "fromhd" and "bootfrom" cheatcodes!

In other words, you can now boot the ISO off the NTFS partition!

Looking through the "linuxrc" file in "regular Knoppix's" miniroot, I can see why it has to have access to the CD. It has to load the ntfs module, which isn't in the miniroot, it's on the CD. Knoppix Japanese Edition has the ntfs module in the miniroot, so it doesn't. (Take a look at the "linuxrc" file in the Japanese Edition and you can see how they modified it.)

Example 1: "fromhd"
- kernel (linux26) and miniroot (miniroot_ntfs.gz) in C:\knx36ntfs
- 700MB "KNOPPIX" image in C:\knx36ntfs
- C: = hda1 = NTFS partition

GRUB stanza:

# For booting Knoppix 3.6 off the NTFS partition
title Knoppix 3.6 (kernel 2.6) from NTFS (persistent home on hda2)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knx36ntfs/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 \
knoppix_dir=/knx36ntfs knoppix_name=KNOPPIX init=/etc/init \
nomce lang=us hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi vga=773 \
noapm home=/dev/hda2/knoppix.img ro
initrd /knx36ntfs/miniroot_ntfs.gz

Example 2: "bootfrom"

- kernel ("linux26") and miniroot ("miniroot_ntfs.gz) in C:\knx36bootfrom
- Knoppix v3.6 ISO (the regular one, not the Japanese Edition) in C:\knx36bootfrom
- C: = hda1 = NTFS partition

GRUB stanza:

# For booting Knoppix 3.6 from ISO off the NTFS partition
title Knoppix 3.6 (kernel 2.6) from ISO from NTFS (persistent home on hda2)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knx36bootfrom/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 \
bootfrom=/dev/hda1/knx36bootfrom/KNOPPIX*.iso init=/etc/init \
nomce lang=us hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi vga=773 \
noapm home=/dev/hda2/knoppix.img ro
initrd /knx36bootfrom/miniroot_ntfs.gz

I'm posting from the "bootfrom" PMI now. :)

What exactly does "nomce" do, anyway?

[probono]

In other words, you can now boot the ISO off the NTFS partition!

greeeeeeat!

Only the Japanese ISO or also the regular Knoppix ISO (using the Japanese initrd, of course?)

I think now it's time to ask Klaus Knopper to modify his initrd...

[eco2geek]

This is using the regular Knoppix 3.6 ISO (KNOPPIX_V3.6-2004-08-16-EN.iso).

I agree. No reason why Fabian couldn't have done it already. :?

[ruymbeke]

...In other words, you can now boot the ISO off the NTFS partition!...
Well done !!! It works for me, I just tried !
I can't believe it was so simple. I was always trying to boot from the ISO using the regular minirt26.gz. I never tried the bootfrom cheatcode with the miniroot_ntfs.gz. I should have...
BTW, the miniroot_ntfs.gz and ISO boot are both working with the cluster knoppix 3.6 (open mosix kernel)...
Thanks eco2geek, Good job,
Gilles

[wslkevin]

This thread is getting long. :wink:

Example 1: "fromhd"
- kernel (linux26) and miniroot (miniroot_ntfs.gz) in C:\knx36ntfs
- 700MB "KNOPPIX" image in C:\knx36ntfs
- C: = hda1 = NTFS partition

GRUB stanza:

# For booting Knoppix 3.6 off the NTFS partition
title Knoppix 3.6 (kernel 2.6) from NTFS (persistent home on hda2)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knx36ntfs/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 \
knoppix_dir=/knx36ntfs knoppix_name=KNOPPIX init=/etc/init \
nomce lang=us hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi vga=773 \
noapm home=/dev/hda2/knoppix.img ro
initrd /knx36ntfs/miniroot_ntfs.gz


eco2geek, could you post all of the steps?
Why aren't there "fromhd" in the example 1?
Thank you very much.

[j.drake]

There's no fromhd because it is literally loading linux from the Windows partition using GRUB, and "fromhd" has no meaning to GRUB - only to the isolinux loader on the Knoppix disk. The files copied into the Windows partition are telling GRUB where Knoppix is loaded already, so any bootcode giving a location for Knoppix files would simply be redundant. It's a really cool concept - if I could only get the damn thing to work on my machine! :cry: Clearly, it works on other people's machines, so the concept is sound. I even got it to work to a limited degree myself, but I had less functionality than with a liveCD.


Could you please try to modify the menu.lst in order to read all these 3 files out of your fat32 partition but still start grub from the boot.ini / ntfs boot loader ?

I'm sorry, but I'm confused. Could you please be more specific? If I understand you correctly, I need to essentially insert the CD, reboot, and perform a "toram" to /dev/hdb3 (my FAT32 partition, which Windows recognizes as D:\ ), reboot into Windows, and change the locations in the menu.lst from (hd0,0) to (hd1.2), and then I suppose you want me to copy the miniroot_ntfs.gz file to D:\Knoppix also? I'm just not sure I know what you mean by "all these three files". Do I also need to change the "rootnoverify (hd0,0)" to "rootnoverify (hd1,2)"?

One thought - I'm not sure that my Windows knows how to deal with gzipped files. Does it even know what to do with miniroot_ntfs.gz? Do you maybe have a gzip unzipper that I don't? (OK, desperation sometimes provokes ridiculous thoughts, and logically I know that Windows isn't loaded, so never mind).

Maybe I'll also try eco2geek's variations. Maybe it will load from the ISO.

Guys, I really appreciate all of you sticking with me to help, even though you've clearly proven the concept. I really hate seeing all of you having all the fun.

jd

[wslkevin]

There's no fromhd because it is literally loading linux from the Windows partition using GRUB, and "fromhd" has no meaning to GRUB - only to the isolinux loader on the Knoppix disk. The files copied into the Windows partition are telling GRUB where Knoppix is loaded already, so any bootcode giving a location for Knoppix files would simply be redundant. It's a really cool concept - if I could only get the damn thing to work on my machine! :cry: Clearly, it works on other people's machines, so the concept is sound. I even got it to work to a limited degree myself, but I had less functionality than with a liveCD.


So, in eco2geek's example 1, does he copy the loopback file D:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX from CD-Rom.

And, in the example 2, he just use KNOPPIX*.iso instead of the loopback file, right?

Thanks in advance.

[eco2geek]

So, in eco2geek's example 1, does he copy the loopback file D:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX from CD-Rom.

And, in the example 2, he just use KNOPPIX*.iso instead of the loopback file, right?

Yes, correct. And also correct that those two cheatcodes -- "fromhd", which uses the KNOPPIX loopback file, and "bootfrom", which uses the ISO -- don't mean anything to GRUB, they're parsed by the script called "linuxrc" in the miniroot.

Amazing job by those Japanese Knoppix guys!

So, in a nutshell, the steps to boot from NTFS either way are:

- Install GRUB
- Copy the miniroot and kernel from the Japanese Knoppix CD to somewhere on your hard drive
- Copy the ISO or the KNOPPIX file to somewhere on your hard drive
- Edit menu.lst

[wslkevin]

So, in a nutshell, the steps to boot from NTFS either way are:

- Install GRUB
- Copy the miniroot and kernel from the Japanese Knoppix CD to somewhere on your hard drive
- Copy the ISO or the KNOPPIX file to somewhere on your hard drive
- Edit menu.lst

But it won't work in some computer, right?
Anyway, I will try it. Thank you very much.

[j.drake]

Everything looks righ... And it works on my IBM T41 laptop...

Wait a minute. If you have a T41 laptop, then why do you have '"hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi " in your menu.lst? Clearly, you don't have 4 SCSI HDs. And I noticed that eco2geek had that line in as well. Does this have anything to do with it? I nuked those out of mine, because I assumed that they were inapplicable to my two EIDE HDs. Could that make the difference between success and failure?

jd

[ruymbeke]

... If you have a T41 laptop, then why do you have '"hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi " in your menu.lst? Clearly, you don't have 4 SCSI HDs. And I noticed that eco2geek had that line in as well. Does this have anything to do with it? I nuked those out of mine, because I assumed that they were inapplicable to my two EIDE HDs. Could that make the difference between success and failure?jd
I don't know. Did you try a cut and paste of our configs, just as a trial ?
PS: I updated my link with the "Knoppix ISO BOOT from NTFS using GRUB" package: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub6.zip
Gilles

[wslkevin]

Everything looks righ... And it works on my IBM T41 laptop...

Wait a minute. If you have a T41 laptop, then why do you have '"hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi " in your menu.lst? Clearly, you don't have 4 SCSI HDs. And I noticed that eco2geek had that line in as well. Does this have anything to do with it? I nuked those out of mine, because I assumed that they were inapplicable to my two EIDE HDs. Could that make the difference between success and failure?

jd

I have tried, it works with "hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi ", however I haven't tried it without these parameters. My notebook is IBM ThinkPad X31 with CD-ROM, and I don't have SCSI device. Could anyone tell me what's the mean of these parameters?

[wslkevin]

I have tried it by following the instructions of this thread, and it works for the English version KNOPPIX, Japanese version KNOPPIX, and Traditional Chinese version KNOPPIX. Work both for loopback file and ISO-image.

But I still have some questions about it.
1. I use the batch file "install2win.bat" from the Japanese version CD-Rom, it install GRUB for DOS and copy the loopback file to my NTFS partition.
2. the batch file "install2win.bat" will call the other batch file "setup.bat".
3. There is a line in the "setup.bat" batch file:
%GRUBHOME%\grubinstall -d %SystemDrive% -1 %GRUBHOME%\stage1 -2 %GRUBHOME%\stage2 -m (hd%RDISK%,%PARTITION%)%GRUBDIR%\menu.lst > %GRUBHOME%\grub-installed.txt

My question is that whether it will still work if I just use the files "linux26" and "miniroot_ntfs.gz", and then use the GRUB for DOS installed by me.

What's the following line doing?
%GRUBHOME%\grubinstall -d %SystemDrive% -1 %GRUBHOME%\stage1 -2 %GRUBHOME%\stage2 -m (hd%RDISK%,%PARTITION%)%GRUBDIR%\menu.lst > %GRUBHOME%\grub-installed.txt

[eco2geek]

I have tried, it works with "hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi ", however I haven't tried it without these parameters. My notebook is IBM ThinkPad X31 with CD-ROM, and I don't have SCSI device. Could anyone tell me what's the mean of these parameters?

Both Kanotix and Knoppix Japanese Edition seem to want the "hda=scsi...(etc)" parameter when booting the CD from GRUB. I use "hda=scsi" through "hdd=scsi" because I have two hard drives and two optical drives (hda through hdd). Whether it will work without that parameter, I do not know. If you've just got two drives, just use "hda=scsi" and "hdb=scsi", although the extras won't hurt anything.


My question is that whether it will still work if I just use the files "linux26" and "miniroot_ntfs.gz", and then use the GRUB for DOS installed by me.

Yes, it will.


What's the following line doing?

Knoppix Japanese Edition uses a version of GRUB for Windows (http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/) originally made for a Linux distro named Topologilinux (http://www.topologilinux.com), which will run off your NTFS partition. It actually writes to your hard drive during installation and must be reinstalled if you defrag. That line you quoted is installing it using "grubinstall.exe".

ruymbeke's version of GRUB evidently does not write to the hard drive during installation.

Whichever one you use, the format of "menu.lst" should be exactly the same.

[ruymbeke]

...ruymbeke's version of GRUB evidently does not write to the hard drive during installation...
The standard grub installer copy or dd (disk dump) the stage1 and stage2 grub binaries into the boot sectors of the floppy, partition or disk which I don't really like when running a corporate xp/ntfs computer. These modified sectors are not seen as a file by the ntfs file system and cannot be simply deleted or removed by the explorer, as an example. You need some special tool, or the xp install cd to revert back the way it was before installing grub.
The grldr and boot.ini hook is for me much more "clean" and much easier to install and remove: modify the boot.ini text file and copy/delete some files. For the 98/me users, grub.exe can be started from dos and from a fat 16/32 partition, floppy disk, or even a usb key ...
Please note that all the files required to boot knoppix from the ISO could be located anywhere on the disk assuming that the menu.lst and boot.ini are modified accordingly, but the c:/boot/grub/menu.lst which default location is hardcoded within the grub binary. To be exact the /boot/grub/menu.lst of the first partition of the first drive.
PS: I can boot from the ISO file being in my NTFS partition without using any of these "hda/b/...=scsi". Please find below what I am using to boot from the ISO in my menu.lst:

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/*.iso config=scan home=scan
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

Gilles

[wslkevin]

I have tried, it works with "hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi "quote]

Both Kanotix and Knoppix Japanese Edition seem to want the "hda=scsi...(etc)" parameter when booting the CD from GRUB. I use "hda=scsi" through "hdd=scsi" because I have two hard drives and two optical drives (hda through hdd).

[quote=wslkevin]My question is that whether it will still work if I just use the files "linux26" and "miniroot_ntfs.gz", and then use the GRUB for DOS installed by me.

Yes, it will.


What's the following line doing?

Knoppix Japanese Edition uses a version of GRUB for Windows (http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/) originally made for a Linux distro named Topologilinux (http://www.topologilinux.com)

Thanks, eco2geek.

I have successfuly boot KNOPPIX up off the NTFS partition without the parameter "hda=scsi ............".

===

Could I ask a question about Topologilinux here? I have tried Topologilinux and can boot it up using CD-Rom. However, it failed when I use GRUB to boot up. There are two situations:
a. Use the grubinstall/ntfsinstall of the CD-Rom, and it stopped at "stage2" and displayed "blocklist failed". As a result, I can boot it up using GRUB.

b. I use my pre-installed GRUB for DOS to boot it, the content of men.lst is
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/loop7 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.gz

or

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/loop7 ro
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.gz

Then it said "Inconsistent filesystem struction" when running the "kernel ..." line.

What should I do to solve this problem?

[wslkevin]

...ruymbeke's version of GRUB evidently does not write to the hard drive during installation...
The standard grub installer copy or dd (disk dump) the stage1 and stage2 grub binaries into the boot sectors of the floppy, partition or disk which I don't really like when running a corporate xp/ntfs computer. These modified sectors are not seen as a file by the ntfs file system and cannot be simply
Gilles

1. I have used the batch file "install2win.bat" from the Japanese KNOPPIX CD-Rom, and it installed GRUB to my computer using "grubinstall.exe".
How can I remove the grub now? Is it just simply remove the folder "C:\boot"? In which command, the installer will write something to my boot sector?

2. Before installed the GRUB from Japanese KNOPPIX CD-Rom, I have installed (actually just as what you said - copied all files to C:\ and C:\boot). I can find stage1 and stage2 under the folder C:\boot? Did it also influe my boot sector?

3. Is it possible to use a image file located in a NTFS partition for "home" in the cheatcode? For example, "knoppix ..... home=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX/home.img" (It assume /dev/hda1 is a NTFS partition in which the KNO*.ISO located)?

[wslkevin]

1. I have used the batch file "install2win.bat" from the Japanese KNOPPIX CD-Rom, and it installed GRUB to my computer using "grubinstall.exe".
How can I remove the grub now? Is it just simply remove the folder "C:\boot"? In which command, the installer will write something to my boot sector?

2. Before installed the GRUB from Japanese KNOPPIX CD-Rom, I have installed (actually just as what you said - copied all files to C:\ and C:\boot). I can find stage1 and stage2 under the folder C:\boot? Did it also influe my boot sector?

3. Is it possible to use a image file located in a NTFS partition for "home" in the cheatcode? For example, "knoppix ..... home=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX/home.img" (It assume /dev/hda1 is a NTFS partition in which the KNO*.ISO located)?

Let me asnwer my question first, then could you tell me whether I am right or wrong? Thanks.

3. It definetly can set the "home" to hda1 which is a NTFS partition before the Japanese kernel has the ntfs.o built-in. After boot to knoppix, it is must to mount the partition /dev/hda1 as captive-NTFS, then the user can read/write/modify the content of "home". However, it isn't a safe way to modify NTFS partition because captive use the MS NTFS driver which isn't stable for Linux.

Am I right? Could you also please answer question 1 and 2?
Thanks very much.

[ruymbeke]

1. I have used the batch file "install2win.bat" from the Japanese KNOPPIX CD-Rom, and it installed GRUB to my computer using "grubinstall.exe".
How can I remove the grub now? Is it just simply remove the folder "C:\boot"? In which command, the installer will write something to my boot sector?
Removing the C:\boot will free up some disk space, but will not remove the grub boot hook. I suppose that the grubinstall.exe writes into the boot sectors. You should probalby have look at: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3311 , and/or try
1) Boot w/ win98 boot floppy, at the a: propmt enter: fdisk /mbr
2)Boot w/ XP or WIN2k cd into recovery mode and run: fixmbr


2. Before installed the GRUB from Japanese KNOPPIX CD-Rom, I have installed (actually just as what you said - copied all files to C:\ and C:\boot). I can find stage1 and stage2 under the folder C:\boot? Did it also influe my boot sector?
No. You have to start grub and run the installer to do it, or an other installer program as grubinstall.exe. BTW, I do not use stage1 and stage2 since they are already part of both the grldr and grub.exe I have been talking about in my zip and setup.


3. Is it possible to use a image file located in a NTFS partition for "home" in the cheatcode? For example, "knoppix ..... home=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX/home.img" (It assume /dev/hda1 is a NTFS partition in which the KNO*.ISO located)?
Let me asnwer my question first, then could you tell me whether I am right or wrong? Thanks.
3. It definetly can set the "home" to hda1 which is a NTFS partition before the Japanese kernel has the ntfs.o built-in. After boot to knoppix, it is must to mount the partition /dev/hda1 as captive-NTFS, then the user can read/write/modify the content of "home". However, it isn't a safe way to modify NTFS partition because captive use the MS NTFS driver which isn't stable for Linux.
I did not try it yet, and I would be very carefull with that. Try it on a test system, not a corporate computer. As I understand it, ntfs read only is the default after a knoppix boot and is totally safe. This linux driver cannot be easily used and is not safe to use for write access. For that reason people use the capture script and the linux read only driver to look for the MS drivers into the nt partition and then use these MS drivers to write into the ntfs partition.
So, I may be wrong, but I think that since you may want to have write access into your home directory, you would need at boot time to: first use the linux ntfs driver and the capture script to get the MS drivers and then remount the ntfs partition in rw mode and finally mount the /home/knoppix directory from the knoppix.img being into that ntfs partition. This can be done, but ... YAKA (just do it...)
Cheers, Gilles

[ruymbeke]

Being inspired by the japanese boot ramdisk, I modified the minirt24.gz to allow knoppix 3.6 to boot from ntfs with the kernel 2.4. Here is the link:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt24_ntfs.gz
I also modified the the /ramdisk memory allocation to use 3/5 (instead of 4/5) of the total memory available. This should help KDE to run when using a persistent home. Here is the link for the modified boot ramdisk for the 2.6 kernel:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt26_ntfs.gz
And my updated zip package:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub7.zip
And my menu.lst entries are as follow:

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/*.iso config=scan home=scan
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.4 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/*.iso config=scan home=scan
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/minirt24_ntfs.gz
boot

Enjoy, Gilles

PS for Fabianx:
Since we finally got the ISO NTFS Boot working for knoppix 3.6 with both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel. Would you please consider adding this feature in the next Knoppix release ? Thank you for your time and consideration.

[ruymbeke]

... Could that make the difference between success and failure? ...
j.drake, my deep apologizes again. The linux26 kernel I was using in my zip file was the one from the 3.4 release which explain all your errors. Could you please replace the \boot\Knoppix.36\linux26 kernel with this file:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/linux26
I updated also the link: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub7.zip
Please forgive me... Gilles

[probono]

we finally got the ISO NTFS Boot working for knoppix 3.6 with both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel.

AWESOME!!! :) thank you so much, this is _great_!

Now, a Windows .bat that does all (including editing the Windows boot loader textfile to load GRUB to load Knoppix) automagically would be nice...

[ruymbeke]

Now, a Windows .bat that does all (including editing the Windows boot loader textfile to load GRUB to load Knoppix) automagically would be nice...
Something like this should do it...

set path1="Root_Of_NTFS"
set path2="*.iso"
xcopy/S %path1 c:\
copy %path2 c:\boot\Knoppix.36
attrib -R c:\boot.ini
echo c:\grldr="Start Grub" >> c:\boot.ini
attrib +R c:\boot.ini
set path1=
set path2=

Cheers, Gilles

[j.drake]

The linux26 kernel I was using in my zip file was the one from the 3.4 release which explain all your errors. Could you please replace the \boot\Knoppix.36\linux26 kernel with this file:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/linux26
I updated also the link: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub7.zip
Please forgive me... Gilles

FNA!!!! IT WORKS!!!

I'm writing this from an ISO 3.6/2.6 boot, straight from your menu.lst!! Now to make my changes for PH, etc.

No apologies needed. I'm just glad I didn't have to give up in frustration.

Thank you -- U DA MAN, GILLES!!!

jd

[ruymbeke]

...I also modified the the /ramdisk memory allocation to use 3/5 (instead of 4/5) of the total memory available. This should help KDE to run when using a persistent home...
I still have the problem: When using a PH (persistent Home) having larger a size than the Ram memory of the computer, KDE doesn't start. I have an error message from KDE saying that it requires at least 88MB of Ram to run properly. Reason why I modified the /ramdisk size allocation within the linuxrc of the minitxx.gz. I now do have more Ram available since the ramdisk doesn't use it all, but KDE is still complaining about more free memory...
Does anyone experience the same problem ? Any solution ?
Thanks, Gilles

[ruymbeke]

...I also modified the the /ramdisk memory allocation to use 3/5 (instead of 4/5) of the total memory available. This should help KDE to run when using a persistent home...
I modified the the /ramdisk memory allocation again: I put back the 4/5 as a default as it was before, but I added a cheatcode: "ramdisk=xxx" xxx being the size of the ramdisk in kb. So if ramdisk=32000 exists ==> a /ramdisk of 32MB will be created otherwise a /ramdisk of 4/5 of the system memory will be created. Here are the links and my menu.lst:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt24_ntfs.gz
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt26_ntfs.gz
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub8.zip

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.4 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/minirt24_ntfs.gz
boot

Enjoy, Gilles

[j.drake]

Just wanted to suggest appending the cheatcode "noprompt" in the GRUB stanzas. At shutdown or restart, Knoppix won't prompt you to remove the CD and push Enter, Given that this method doesn't use a CD, it seemed appropriate, and saves a little time and annoyance.

jd

[wslkevin]

There is just one HDD in my notebook, there are two partitions in the HDD. The KNOPPIX ISO-image is stored in the first partition.

I can boot up the KNOPPIX, and can mount /dev/hda1 successful. But can't mount /dev/hda5 (the second partition). [The command is "mount -t ntfs /dev/hda5 /mnt/hdz5"] It displays:

"/dev/hda5 has already mounted, or /mnt/hda5 is busy".

What can I do? Thank you very much.

[ICPUG]

First of all congratulations to Ruymbeke, Eco2Geek, J.Drake and the nameless Japanese for driving this project to the end we have all been wanting. I have been following this thread since its inception, eagerly awaiting its outcome.

Being away from work for a few days I have today spent some time reading the thread in total, in order to decide what I need to download and the steps I need to take to implement the grub boot, both on an NTFS machine and on a Windows 98 FAT32 machine.

I have some questions, specifically to Ruymbeke, I guess.

When grub3.zip was released it was for 3.4 Knoppix only and worked with NTFS, FAT16, FAT32.

As I understand it grub4.zip introduced stuff which in theory made it work with 3.6 Knoppix. And was only for kernal 2.6.

I am not sure what grub5.zip or grub6.zip introduced.

Grub7.zip included the capability to boot kernal 2.4, adjusted memory allocation and then the correct 3.6 version of the linux26 was added to it. I presume the new 2.4 stuff was reason for a sudden jump in file size (over 5MB to over 8MB - a bit annoying as I only have dial up when not at work!)

Grub8.zip makes memory allocation more flexible.

The question now is does grub8.zip work with NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32 and can it be used on a Windows 98 computer? If not, which version of grub.zip is required to provide the boot up on a Windows 98 computer?

Earlier in the thread it was pointed out that Makeflo needs Windows 2K/XP to make Grub floppies. Can you confirm this will NOT work with Windows 98. Making floppies does not seem to be a task specific to later Windows versions.

It seems that the zip file has to be updated for each new Knoppix version that gets released, because the miniroot and kernal files have to change. Does that mean we are reliant on the Japanese to provide these updates for future versions?

Does anyone else think it is strange that the Linux Tag German Knoppix forum, the Developers Forum and Fabian have all seem to have disappeared within the last 2 months? I'm sure Fabian would have been very useful to solving this problem if he had responded to Ruymbeke's plea for help. I know we cannot expect Klaus or Fabian to do more than the invaluable work they have already done but I do find these disappearances slightly worrying.

Thanks for any help you can provide to my queries above.

ICPUG

[ruymbeke]

... /dev/hda5 has already mounted, or /mnt/hda5 is busy
Are you using the home=scan or config=scan cheatcode ? Do you have something like a /dev/hda5/knoppix.img ? If so, the partition is already mounted and used by your home directory.


Just wanted to suggest appending the cheatcode "noprompt" in the GRUB stanzas. At shutdown or restart, Knoppix won't prompt you to remove the CD and push Enter, Given that this method doesn't use a CD, it seemed appropriate, and saves a little time and annoyance.
Very good idea, I will try it asap... but I will gone most of next week.



The question now is does grub8.zip work with NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32 and can it be used on a Windows 98 computer?
Yes. Grub.exe can be launched from DOS/98/ME (without emm386.exe): either from the command prompt, from the autoexec.bat, or from the config.sys using SHELL=grub.exe. NTFS support has been added to the existing FAT16/32, ext2, ... functionality.


Earlier in the thread it was pointed out that Makeflo needs Windows 2K/XP to make Grub floppies.
I confirm that makeflo will NOT work with Windows 98. The tool dd.exe (part of the cygwin distribution) that I am using requires 2000 or XP to have a low level (block device) access to the drives. This is not available within 98/ME. I can make a grub boot floppy disk image if you want, ... Or you can make it yourself from knoppix using this:
dd if=stage1 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1
dd if=stage2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 seek=1


It seems that the zip file has to be updated for each new Knoppix version that gets released, because the miniroot and kernal files have to change. Does that mean we are reliant on the Japanese to provide these updates for future versions?
No. It took me a while to understand the changes made in the japanese version, and I hope that I will be able to update the next release without too much trouble, if this patch is not going to be part of the next release.


...8MB file, a bit annoying as I only have dial up when not at work!
Most of the time I also have provided links to the updated files: minirt24_ntfs.tgz, minirt24_ntfs.tgz, ...


Does anyone else think it is strange that the Linux Tag German Knoppix forum, the Developers Forum and Fabian have all seem to have disappeared within the last 2 months? ... I do find these disappearances slightly worrying...
Agreed !

Cheers, Gilles

[wslkevin]

... /dev/hda5 has already mounted, or /mnt/hda5 is busy
Are you using the home=scan or config=scan cheatcode ? Do you have something like a /dev/hda5/knoppix.img ? If so, the partition is already mounted and used by your home directory.
Cheers, Gilles

The content of menu.lst is
title KNOPPIX BV1AL (ISO)(Tranditional Chinese,normal, BV1AL, short)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knoppix/linux26 bootfrom=/dev/hda5/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram
initrd /knoppix/miniroot_ntfs.gz

Could you tell me how to access the partition /dev/hda5? Thanks in advance.

[ruymbeke]

...kernel /knoppix/linux26 bootfrom=/dev/hda5/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram ...Could you tell me how to access the partition /dev/hda5?
You are booting from /dev/hda5/KNOPPIX*.iso !
So /mnt/hda5 is already mounted by the boot script as read only, and as far as I know, it would be very dangerous to remount this partition as rw using ntfs-capture even if you could force it. But you should be able to mount /dev/hda1.
Gilles

[wslkevin]

The method provided in this thread can make one Traditional Chinese KNOPPIX ISO-image (say, K1) booting up off NTFS, but it doesn't work for another one Traditional Chinese KNOPPIX ISO-image (say, K2).

The content of my menu.lst for "K2":

### The kernel file linux24 is from ruymbeke, it can't boot up KNOPPIX K2, and said "Inconsistent Filesystem Structure" when running the line "kernel ..."
title KNOPPIX pureKDE (ISO)(kernel 2.4.26, Tranditional Chinese,normal, pureKDE, short)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knoppix/linux24 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram
initrd /knoppix/minirt24_ntfs.gz

### The kernel linux26 is from the Japanese one, it can boot up KNOPPIX K2, but said "can't find the file /lib/modules/2.6.7/modules.dep", and some devices, i.e. NIC, doesn't work
title KNOPPIX pureKDE (ISO)(kernel 2.6.7, Tranditional Chinese,normal, pureKDE, short)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knoppix/linux26 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram
initrd /knoppix/miniroot_ntfs.gz

### The kernel file linux265 is from the CD of KNOPPIX K2, and I rename it to linux265, it can't boot up KNOPPIX K2, and said "Inconsistent Filesystem Structure" when running the line "kernel ..."
title KNOPPIX pureKDE (ISO)(kernel 2.6.5, Tranditional Chinese,normal, pureKDE, short)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knoppix/linux265 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram
initrd /knoppix/miniroot_ntfs.gz

P.S. There are two folders name 2.4.27 and 2.6.5 under /lib/modules.

Is that a problem of the kernel file? How can I solve it?
Thanks very much in advance.

[j.drake]

Hope no one minds, but I summarized this method into the WIKI here (http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/WinPartition), and linked it from the PoorMan'sInstall page. I also separated out the Basic Poor Man's instructions into a different file, so now a new user has introductory information to a PMI, with links to either a Basic or WinPartition PMI how-tos. At 11 pages so far, it's gotten to be quite a chore to sift through the successes and frustrations of this thread to get to the method.

Ruymbeke, if you have any concerns about pointing back to your site to download the files, we can always point somewhere else if you'd prefer. I linked to the grub8 version.

jd

[ruymbeke]

...Is that a problem of the kernel file? How can I solve it? Thanks very much in advance.Well, you have to be sure that the kernel, the drivers within the ramdisk, and the ISO match the same release. I suggest that you use the full name of the ISO file in the bootfrom cheatcode (to be sure that you use the correct ISO file), use the kernel extracted from that ISO file, and if the drivers of the ramdisk minirt2x_ntfs.gz are compatible with your ISO file, ... it may work.


... I summarized this method into the WIKI here (http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/WinPartition), and linked it from the PoorMan'sInstall page ...Great job !


Ruymbeke, if you have any concerns about pointing back to your site to download the files, we can always point somewhere else if you'd prefer. I linked to the grub8 version...No problem, you can keep it as is.
Thank you, Gilles

[wslkevin]

...Is that a problem of the kernel file? How can I solve it? Thanks very much in advance.Well, you have to be sure that the kernel, the drivers within the ramdisk, and the ISO match the same release. I suggest that you use the full name of the ISO file in the bootfrom cheatcode (to be sure that you use the correct ISO file), use the kernel extracted from that ISO file, and if the drivers of the ramdisk minirt2x_ntfs.gz are compatible with your ISO file, ... it may work.


Yes, the kernel file is extract from the ISO file.

There is just one ISO file in /dev/hda1, so I think it is okey to use the short form.

What is the driver within the ramdisk? How can I verify that the drivers are compatible with my ISO file? If they are not compatible, how can I make it compatible?

I am so sorry that I have such questions, maybe they are very simple questions, but could you kindly tell to how to?

Thanks very much in advance.

[ruymbeke]

... What is the driver within the ramdisk? How can I verify that the drivers are compatible with my ISO file? If they are not compatible, how can I make it compatible? ...Here are the links to the gzipped tar (tgz) of the content of the ramdisks I am using at boot time:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt24_ntfs.tgz
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt26_ntfs.tgz
And hopefully you will verify that the /modules files from these tgz match the ones you have in your system after having booted from your ISO file. You can do that by comparing their md5 or just by looking at the file length and date. If the drivers are different you may need to make your own boot ramdisk ... What distribution or ISO file are you using ?
Good luck, Gilles

[wslkevin]

... What is the driver within the ramdisk? How can I verify that the drivers are compatible with my ISO file? If they are not compatible, how can I make it compatible? ...Here are the links to the gzipped tar (tgz) of the content of the ramdisks I am using at boot time:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt24_ntfs.tgz
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/minirt26_ntfs.tgz
And hopefully you will verify that the /modules files from these tgz match the ones you have in your system after having booted from your ISO file. You can do that by comparing their md5 or just by looking at the file length and date. If the drivers are different you may need to make your own boot ramdisk ... What distribution or ISO file are you using ?
Good luck, Gilles

I am using KNOPPIX34pureKDE20040720m3.iso which is downloaded from ftp://ftp3.tnc.edu.tw/KNOPPIX/health, and it's a Traditional Chinese version of KNOPPIX.

After I boot it up using CD-Rom, I foudn that there are two folders name 2.4.27 and 2.6.5 under /lib/modules. I am already using the files you provided.

Could you specify which two folder should I compare to each other?

I tried three config in menu.lst

###
### The kernel file linux24 and ramdisk (minirt24_ntfs.gz) are from ruymbeke, it can't boot up KNOPPIX K2, and said "Inconsistent Filesystem Structure" when running the line "kernel ..."
###
title KNOPPIX pureKDE (ISO)(kernel 2.4.26, Tranditional Chinese,normal, pureKDE, short)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knoppix/linux24 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram
initrd /knoppix/minirt24_ntfs.gz

###
### The kernel linux26 and ramdisk miniroot_ntfs.gz is from the Japanese one, it can boot up KNOPPIX K2, but said "can't find the file /lib/modules/2.6.7/modules.dep", and some devices, i.e. NIC, doesn't work
###
title KNOPPIX pureKDE (ISO)(kernel 2.6.7, Tranditional Chinese,normal, pureKDE, short)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knoppix/linux26 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram
initrd /knoppix/miniroot_ntfs.gz

###
### The kernel file linux265 is from the CD of KNOPPIX K2, and I rename it to linux265, and the ramdisk miniroot_ntfs.gz is from Japanese one , it can't boot up KNOPPIX K2, and said "Inconsistent Filesystem Structure" when running the line "kernel ..."
###
title KNOPPIX pureKDE (ISO)(kernel 2.6.5, Tranditional Chinese,normal, pureKDE, short)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /knoppix/linux265 bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNOPPIX*.iso knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ro lang=tw vga=791 noprompt noapm lcd ttf2ram
initrd /knoppix/miniroot_ntfs.gz

Thank you very much in advance.

[semreh]

ruymbeke - thank you *VERY* much for the work you have put in on this. I am posting from a laptop I've just booted from a USB flash disk with the ISO on an NTFS partition - no CD required in the drive. This is what I wanted. I need to hone some of the boot 'cheatcodes' and create a permanent home on the second partition of the flash disk - but it looks to be mostly there.

Many, many thanks again. I echo the request to make this part of Knoppix' standard functionality.

Regards,

semreh

[ruymbeke]

Just wanted to suggest appending the cheatcode "noprompt" in the GRUB stanzas. At shutdown or restart, Knoppix won't prompt you to remove the CD and push Enter, Given that this method doesn't use a CD, it seemed appropriate, and saves a little time and annoyance.jd
Done in http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grub9.zip

... I am using KNOPPIX34pureKDE20040720m3.iso ...Just by looking at the filename, is this file a knoppix 3.4 flavor ?
The files I provided are for knoppix 3.6 and are not compatible with 3.4.
You may try the miniroot_ntfs.gz of the japanese 3.4 release...
Cheers, Gilles

[ICPUG]

I have been using the approach outlined in this thread to boot Knoppix 3.6 from My Windows 98 PC which has a FAT 32 partition. My menu.1st, based on what Eco2Geek suggested on Page 8 is as follows:

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.4 from FAT32 hda1 cloop scan
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 knoppix_dir=/boot/knoppix.36 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX init=/etc/init lang=uk nomce
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/minirt24_ntfs.gz


title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/memtest

I have got it to work but there are two problems.

First - As Knoppix boots up it still looks to the CDROM for the cloop file before eventually giving up and then, after appearing to search every device imaginable, starts off from where I put it in \boot\knoppix.36 directory. Is there any way to stop it searching for the CD-ROM and start the boot instantly from \boot\knoppix.36?

The second problem is that I have to use a floppy formatted as a system disk with Windows 98 and a simple autoexec.bat file which says:

c:
cd \
grub

This is OK, but I would much prefer to have it boot up from the hard drive, like has been done with the NTFS system. Ruymbeke suggested 3 approaches; start grub from the command prompt, the autoexec.bat or config.sys with device=grub.exe.

From the command prompt I got the message:

Must run in real mode or ring 0 of protected mode. Cannot run in vm86 mode.

I guessed this meant that starting Windows 98 put things into the wrong mode so decided to modify my config.sys to give a menu system as follows:

[menu]
menuitem=WINDOWS, Start Windows
menuitem=KNOPPIX, Start Knoppix
menudefault=WINDOWS,30
menucolor=7,0

[KNOPPIX]
device=grub.exe

[WINDOWS]
device=c:\realmode\oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001
dos=high,umb
buffers=40
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE
device=c:\windows\himem.sys /testmem:off
device=c:\windows\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
Country=044,850,c:\windows\COMMAND\country.sys

I figured this would boot Knoppix before Windows took hold.

When I rebooted and chose Knoppix I still got the same error message and then a break into what looked like a short memory dump. Does anybody have any idea what I am doing wrong?

ICPUG

[ruymbeke]

... Is there any way to stop it searching for the CD-ROM and start the boot instantly from \boot\knoppix.36 ?
If you use the bootfrom= cheatcode it should not search for the cdrom, but as far as i know, it will still look for all the disk/devices


... The second problem is that I have to use a floppy formatted as a system disk with Windows 98 and a simple autoexec.bat file ... This is OK, but I would much prefer to have it boot up from the hard drive, like has been done with the NTFS system. Ruymbeke suggested 3 approaches; start grub from the command prompt, the autoexec.bat or config.sys with device=grub.exe.
You do not need to have a boot floppy, you can do it all from the HD. I have it working on my 98 machine. If during the 98 boot you press shift-F5 and force the boot into a prompt, just type grub.exe. You can also add a menu into the config.sys as you have done and start grub from the autoexec.bat using the %config% environment variable to recognize the linux boot selection and then run c:\your_path\grub.exe. But be sure to not have emm386.exe loaded (that would explain your error message) and not run it from a 98 dos box ! You can verify that from the prompt by typing mem/c/p. Hope this will help, Gilles

PS: it looks like that the minirtxx_ntfs.tgz are also working with knoppix 3.7...

[PyroFox]

improbably missing something obvious but...I can't get this to work! (and I want to :P)

ok, so I've wanted for a little while to get Knoppix running off of the HD, and I found this handy article: http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/WinPartition. I've followed that to the letter, and when I reboot, I get the option between the two OSes, and I select the GRUB. however, all it does is flash the little _ cursor at me and does nothing.

I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong, as I've tried multiple times (with multiple formats! -_-;)

I'm running Win2k Pro NTFS (obviously), and I modified the boot.ini accordingly, since it was set to WinXPpro.

my boot.ini contains :

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
c:\grldr="Start Grub"

and my menu.lst contains:

################################################## ####
# GvR Sept 24th 2004
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=15
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

# Knoppix Boot from a single NTFS partition hda1:
# All the files within the directory "Root_Of_NTFS" of the grub7.zip
# have to be copied into the root of the NTFS hda1 partition c:\
# but the boot.ini file (which is just here as an example,
# the line "c:\grldr="Start Grub" has been added at the end of the boot.ini)
# Copy the also the 700MB knoppix ISO file into c:\boot\knoppix.36\ directory

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/knoppix.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.4 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/knoppix.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/minirt24_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/memtest

title Win311 from Dos from Floppy image 1.44Mb, just for fun...
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memdisk
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/win311.img
boot

################################################## ####

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan (original japanese miniroot_ntfs.gz)
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.36/knoppix.iso config=scan home=scan
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.36/miniroot_ntfs.gz
boot

################################################## ####



thanks in advance for any help! If you need more info, plz ask
I'm gonna keep working on it some more :P

-PyroFox

[ruymbeke]

... when I reboot, I get the option between the two OSes, and I select the GRUB. however, all it does is flash the little _ cursor at me and does nothing... I'm running Win2k Pro NTFS (obviously), and I modified the boot.ini accordingly, since it was set to WinXPpro...
You may want to try to add an other line in your boot.ini as follow:
c:\bootgrub="Start Grub (old method)" (after c:\grldr="Start Grub")
and copy the file c:\bootgrub from the GRUB.BIN directory of grub9.zip.
Let me know, cheers, Gilles

[PyroFox]

yup, that did the trick!

I guess an old computer needs a old method to work....;)

thanks you very much for your help. excellent work too :P

-PyroFox

[ICPUG]

I have today been playing with this PMI on a friend's Windows XP machine. This is the first time I have had the chance to try the procedure on an XP machine.

I have a major problem with it!

Ruymbeke stated, and J. Drake put in the procedure, that you modify the boot.ini to add the line:

C:\bootgrub="Knoppix Submenu"

I did not see how this would start grldr but did as instructed.

The result was to come up with an error message saying Windows was missing a dll (whose name I did not note), and then start Windows.

I then followed my own lead and used the following as the last line of the boot.ini:

C:\grldr="Knoppix Submenu"

This seemed to work and display the Knoppix Submenu defined by menu.1st.

Could someone explain how C:\bootgrub is supposed to call up grldr? There is no file or directory called bootgrub??? Alternatively, if I got it right with my last line the instructions need changing.

<Seeing the reply to Pyrofox after I prepared this post, maybe you missed the bootgrub file from grub8.zip which I am using??>

I am still having problems using bootfrom be it on my friend's machine or my own Windows 98.

Please bear in mind I am trying to boot the cloop file NOT an iso.

Can it be done on Windows XP at all? If so - what is the menu.1st to use?

Can it be done on Windows 98, without a delay while it searches unsuccessfully the CD-ROM drive. If so, what is the menu.1st to use?

ICPUG

[ruymbeke]

... you modify the boot.ini to add the line: C:\bootgrub="Knoppix Submenu". I did not see how this would start grldr...
"grldr" will work on XP machines. "bootgrub" will work on both 2000 and xp machines but it requires an extra file (c:\bootgrub) to load grldr. As described previously, the file c:\bootgrub is in the directory boot.bin of the grubx.zip. Note: bootgrub, which is already included at the beginning of the grldr file, is the run time ntldr patch required to start grub from the boot.ini.
PS: you should use menu.Lst and not menu.1st
Cheers, Gilles

[quiet_voice]

I have made the changes to boot.ini and copied the files to the root of my C: drive as instructed. When I restart my computer and select gurb from the menu, I am dumped at a command prompt.

What did I do wrong? My other opperating system is windows XP if that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance for your help

[ruymbeke]

I have made the changes to boot.ini and copied the files to the root of my C: drive as instructed. When I restart my computer and select gurb from the menu, I am dumped at a command prompt.
Do you have the "c:\boot\grub\menu.lst" file in the first partition of the first disk drive ? You got a prompt because Grub did not find the menu.lst file... If your setup is different, you should try to copy the file menu.lst into the /boot/grub directory of the first partition of the first drive.

What did I do wrong? My other opperating system is windows XP if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance for your help.
No it works with all the plaforms I have tried: dos, 98, 2000, XP, Linux, OpenBsd, ...
Please let me know the result. Cheers, Gilles

[quiet_voice]

I had a clue that the reason for the prompt was that it couldn't find the menu.lst file. I double checked and it is there as expected.

I did some further investigation and found that grub could see all the files in the root of my c: drive but not in any of the sub directories. So 'find /boot/grub/menu.lst' or 'find /boot/memdisk' returns file not found.

If I move all the files into the root of the c: drive and modify the menu.lst file accordingly then I can sucessfully boot by using 'configfile (hd0,0)/menu.lst'.

So I am closer than I was before, but.... how do I either make grub understand sub directories or change the path it looks for the default config file. Obviously the latter is a second best option.

[ruymbeke]

I had a clue that the reason for the prompt was that it couldn't find the menu.lst file. I double checked and it is there as expected. I did some further investigation and found that grub could see all the files in the root of my c: drive but not in any of the sub directories. So 'find /boot/grub/menu.lst' or 'find /boot/memdisk' returns file not found. If I move all the files into the root of the c: drive and modify the menu.lst file accordingly then I can sucessfully boot by using 'configfile (hd0,0)/menu.lst'. So I am closer than I was before, but.... how do I either make grub understand sub directories or change the path it looks for the default config file. Obviously the latter is a second best option.
Done. Grub is already supposed to understand sub directories and it works on my computers. Nevertheless I recompiled grub with an integrated menu.lst with the "configfile (hd0,0)/menu.lst" as a default menu and 0 timeout. Or in other words, Grub (grldr, grub.exe, stage...) will first look for the configfile (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst' and if not found it will try then the configfile (hd0,0)/menu.lst'. So it is bakward compatible and just add the root menu.lst as a second menu location option. This should solve your problem. Here are the links for just the grldr file and the full grub package:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grldr
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubb.zip
Please let me know the result of you tests. Cheers, Gilles

[j.drake]

Gilles, will this help my current situation (see below)? Doesn't look like it to me.

After I got this working in my home computer, I tried setting it up on my daughter's . No dice - dumps me to a command prompt. My daughter's computer is a stock HP Pavilion, meaning that it is set up with a FAT32 recovery partition as hda1 (Drive D:\ ), and the remainder of the hd is hda2 (NTFS) (Drive C:\ ). I installed everything to the C: drive, but changed all the menu.lst addresses from hd(0,0) to hd(0,1). Same result. My computer is also an HP Pavilion, but just before I tried this, I upgraded the hd and dumped the recovery partition, so C:\ = hda1 on mine, not hda2 as on my daughter's. Will your recompiled grldr find my daughter's menu.lst at C:\boot\menu.lst, if c: is hda2 or hd(0,1)? I would prefer not to dump her recovery partition. I suppose I might be able to cram menu.lst into the recovery partition (there may be room), but I'd rather find a solution that's easier for other HP users.

As to that last point, I went to update the how-to, and found that the link to your files now points to a gruba.zip. Is that where you keep the latest now? If we can't make grub look for the config file on stock HPs, I think I should at least add a note for HP users (I assume Compaq also). Thanks

jd

[ruymbeke]

...Will your recompiled grldr find my daughter's menu.lst at C:\boot\menu.lst, if c: is hda2 or hd(0,1)?
I recompiled grub and included a menu.lst within the grub binary which will look for the menu.lst file in different locations, as directories, partitions, and drives. Here are the links for just the grldr file and the full grub package:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grldr
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubc.zip

As info, find below the menu.lst I included within the grub binary to do the menu.lst search across the partitions and drives:
timeout=0
default=0
fallback=1

title Default: /boot/grub/menu.lst (GvR Oct 6th 2004)
findroot /boot/grub/menu.lst
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Fallback: /menu.lst
findroot /menu.lst
configfile /menu.lst


... I went to update the how-to, and found that the link to your files now points to a gruba.zip. Is that where you keep the latest now?
As you can see, my latest version is grubc.zip and the next one will be grubd.zip, and so on ... I will also try to keep your wiki help link http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/WinPartition updated.

PS: Sorry for the mistake, but to start grub from the dos config.sys, use "shell=grub.exe" instead of "device="...

I hope this will help. Could you please post some feedback about these changes ?
Thank you, Gilles

[quiet_voice]

Thanks for doing that, now at least I can boot without having to type in command line details. It picks up the menu in the root nicely.

The problem for me is still that the disk and cdrom images also need to be in the root otherwise they are not found. While this works it is not the most tidy of solutions, and it also means that documenting how to install is also more complicated.

Is there anything I can do to help you track down what the problem is in reading files from subdirectories? I presume that it is nothing to do with permissions or something silly.

[ruymbeke]

...Is there anything I can do to help you track down what the problem is in reading files from subdirectories? I presume that it is nothing to do with permissions or something silly.
I recompiled grub from CVS, applied the latest patches and manually solved all the rejects, but it looks like that the problem is still there: in some cases, grub cannot access some files and directories when most of them are perfectly readable. As I understand, this has nothing to do with permissions but more about the fact that the file or directory may not be contiguous on the disk or something else in the ntfs topology. I looks like that the problem shows up on pretty full disks. Speedisk doesn't help. It may also be a bug or restriction in the fsys_ntfs.c file. It is a simplified and customized version of the Linux driver. Anyone else have a idea ? I have to look at it ...
Could you please help me to figure out what are the conditions to make the reading not to work ? You can type something like "kernel (hdx,x)/" and use the "tab key" for autocompletion to check if you have access to the content of the directories and press the "enter key" to check if you can read the file.
Thanks, Gilles

[quiet_voice]

I have done as you ask, and you were correct, there is some directories that it can read and others it cannot, however I have been unable to find a pattern in them yet. My disk is not particually fragmented, and it is only about half full.

Looking at the root of (hd0,0) it will list all the files present, including all the sub directories. If I type the '/win', it will complete the name to '/winDOWS/' and a slash character and then presssing tab will list all the files in the directory. However if I look at a directory that it does not understand, typing '/boo' will complete the name to '/boot' but will not add the slash that it should if it thought it was a directory entry.

I then tried to select three different files to check the error messages returned. I am retyping from a different machine so the spacing may not be as expected.

kernel (hd0,0)/msdos.sys
Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format
kernel (hd0,0)/windows/
Error 16: File not found
kernel (hd0,0)/windows
Error 2: Bad file or directory type
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/
Error 16: File not found
kernel (hd0,0)/boot
Error 2: Bad file or directory type

I will carry on to see if I can find a pattern and report back what I find, however if there is anything more specific you want me to try, please let me know.

[ICPUG]

Ruymbeke said:
PS: Sorry for the mistake, but to start grub from the dos config.sys, use "shell=grub.exe" instead of "device="...

I hope this will help. Could you please post some feedback about these changes ?
Thank you, Gilles

At last - with this mod I can boot to the cloop file on my Windows 98 machine without the need for a boot CD or boot floppy.

If only I could stop it searching the CD-ROM before it goes to the \boot\knoppix.36 directory I would be really happy. Previous suggestion of using bootfrom does not work. It still searches the CD-ROM. By the way, if you are using the cloop file you still have to put it in as c:\knoppix\knoppix and use bootfrom=/dev/hda1 - you cannot bootfrom it in c:\boot\knoppix.36.

Thanks Gilles for the correction. Keep up the good work!

ICPUG

[quiet_voice]

I am not sure why, but if I delete the boot directory in the root of my C: drive and then re-create all in manually, including creating the subdirectories, and then copy in the files from the zip, everything works perfectly.

It could be something to do with how winzip creates directories when extracting from a zip, as my original boot directory would of been created as I extracted the zip then just moved to the correct location.

Thanks very much for your help in getting this to work.

[ruymbeke]

I am not sure why, but if I delete the boot directory in the root of my C: drive and then re-create all in manually, including creating the subdirectories, and then copy in the files from the zip, everything works perfectly...Thanks very much for your help in getting this to work.
Thanks a lot for the info. I will try to recompile with debug enabled and investigate. Gilles

[j.drake]

I recompiled grub and included a menu.lst within the grub binary which will look for the menu.lst file in different locations, as directories, partitions, and drives. Here are the links for just the grldr file and the full grub package:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grldr
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubc.zip

Could you please post some feedback about these changes ?
Thank you, Gilles

YES! That worked very, very well. :D

For other HP users, you may wish to consider adding the cheatcode pnpbios=off to avoid error messages, unless someone knows what the real problem is. Perhaps the error indicates why Knoppix won't recognize my USB thumbdrive unless I boot with it.

Thanks again, Gilles,

jd

[patelbhavesh]

Awesome,Awesome work guys!!!!!!. :D
Thanks to everyone involved in making this work.It makes life much easier.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Free Software,Free Speech,Free Society
http://bhavesh.freeshell.org

[patelbhavesh]

Will this feature be a part of the next release ??

It would be nice to have it in the standard release.

I was just curious to find out if it becomes a part of the standard release do we need to download grubc* , and make directories etc.Or will there be an easier way to do it??


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Free Software,Free Speech Free Society
http://bhavesh.freeshell.org

[ruymbeke]

Will this feature be a part of the next release ? It would be nice to have it in the standard release...
I tried to contact Fabianx several times, but no reply... Anybody have an other idea on how to proceed ?
Gilles

[fannymites]

I'm still not getting this. I followed the instructions here - http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/WinPartition and it sounds so simple
but all I'm getting is the first prompt then when I select "start grub" I just get a black screen with a blinking curser. I'm using XP Pro and have tried both the c:\grldr="Start Grub" and c:\bootgrub="Start Grub (old method)" in menu.lst.
As I understand it, this way I don't need to do anything with the disk I burnt the ISO image to, just the actual ISO I downloaded? Or am I supposed to copy something from the live cd first?
I just can't seem to get anywhere with linux at all in any way shape or form.

[shrek123]

I see the same behaviour as fannymites. I painstakingly followed every word of the latest instructions, and the machine just hangs after I select "Start grub". Things I did :

1. Downloaded and extracted gribc.zip except boot.ini
2. Edited boot.ini - mine is a simple case with just one hard drive and Win2k.
3. Downloaded Knoppix3.6.iso and placed it in the directory.
4. Edited menu.lst to just change the timeout from 5 to 15 seconds, nothing else.

I even tried removing the knoppix.iso lines, just to see if the memtest works - nah. I gave up after tons of reboot and file edits. Could somebody help.

Thanks,
Shrek. (Pittsburgh)

[artamangr]

Hi!
I did a PMI of knoppix 3.7 on my laptop.
Now i only have to boot using the knoppix cdrom and then i can load the knoppix installation from my hard drive (i copied the knoppix.iso file on the NTFS drive).
However, when i use this PMI i dont have read access anymore to the NTFS drive.
I get a message 'could not enter folder /cdrom2.loop'. It seems that dev/hda1 is mounted at /mnt/cdrom2.loop and i dont have access to it.
I dont have this problem when i run knoppix from the cdrom. I can see the contents of the NTFS drive without any problem.
Does anyone know why this happens? Is there a workaround?
Also, could anyone give me a hint how to create a bootfloppy so that i dont have to boot from the cdrom?

[patelbhavesh]

Hi!
I did a PMI of knoppix 3.7 on my laptop.
Now i only have to boot using the knoppix cdrom and then i can load the knoppix installation from my hard drive (i copied the knoppix.iso file on the NTFS drive).
However, when i use this PMI i dont have read access anymore to the NTFS drive.
I get a message 'could not enter folder /cdrom2.loop'. It seems that dev/hda1 is mounted at /mnt/cdrom2.loop and i dont have access to it.
I dont have this problem when i run knoppix from the cdrom. I can see the contents of the NTFS drive without any problem.
Does anyone know why this happens? Is there a workaround?
Also, could anyone give me a hint how to create a bootfloppy so that i dont have to boot from the cdrom?
I dont think the grubc which is mentioned in this thread has been ported for Knoppix 3.7.

[artamangr]

Hi again,
i set a password for root and now i can access the ntfs partition using the file manager in super user mode.

[bandoba]

I did PMI of KNOPPIX 3.6 on Toshiba TECRA 8100 laptop. It works fine except the GUI resolution. It always uses the lowest resolution 640x480. I then tried CD image of 3.6 and it seems to work fine when I use cheatcode "xmodule=fbdev vga=791" (or fb1024x768 which in turn does the same thing). Is this because of modified minirt files? If yes, how can I get it working like CD image?

TIA.

[fannymites]

Well I managed to get this working, sort of.
Going back through the thread I noticed there were a few references to grub not reading directory structures very well and someone posted that he had got it working by copying all the files from the grub zip directly into root.
I didn't want loads of files cluttering up the c: directory so I tried this -
I copied the boot folder into the c: directory as instructed as well as the loose files (menu.lst etc). I then copied all the files from the various folders (knoppix.36 etc) directly into the boot folder and changed the paths in menu.lst accordingly, eg /boot/knoppix.36/*.iso becomes /boot/*.iso.
After this I rebooted and now the grub menu comes up and it boots into knoppix normally without the cd.
At the moment though, my ntfs drive is mounted as writable and I would rather that drive was read-only because I have another partition to use as persitant home.

[patelbhavesh]

I did PMI of KNOPPIX 3.6 on Toshiba TECRA 8100 laptop. It works fine except the GUI resolution. It always uses the lowest resolution 640x480. I then tried CD image of 3.6 and it seems to work fine when I use cheatcode "xmodule=fbdev vga=791" (or fb1024x768 which in turn does the same thing). Is this because of modified minirt files? If yes, how can I get it working like CD image?

TIA.
Goto the file menu.lst in C: and C:\boot and add the cheatcodes in this file.

[bandoba]

Hi patelbhavesh,

Thanks for the reply. I think I should have phrased my question in better way. Let me try...

The KNOPPIX 3.6 GUI works fine when I boot off the CD and enter cheatcode xmodule=fbdev. But when I use same cheat code in menu.lst file and boot off the ISO image and minirt* files from NTFS partition, it doesn't work. It even shows that dotted X background in 1024x768 resolution but nothing happens further. On the console I see this message: "Error - No X-Server found for your card".

Hope this clearly states my problem.

[shrek123]

Hi fannymites,

Still doesnt work. I have tried all permutations and combinations, but to no avail. Things I tried :

1. Copied all files from subdirectories "GRUB" and "Knoppix.36" to "BOOT". Didnt work.

2. Deleted the 2 directories "GRUB" and "Knoppix.36". Still didnt work.

3. There are 3 locations of menu.lst - C:, C:\boot, C:\boot\grub. I made sure I sync all the files with all the changes I make.

4. The directory listing of "BOOT" directory looks as below :

KNOPPIX_V3.6-2004-08-16-EN.iso
linux24
linux26
memdisk
memtest
menu.lst
miniroot_ntfs.gz
minirt24_ntfs.gz
minirt26_ntfs.gz
win311.img

5. My menu.lst looks like :

#############################################
# GvR Oct 6th 2004
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=15
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

# Knoppix Boot from a single NTFS partition hda1:
# All the files within the directory "Root_Of_NTFS" of the grub9.zip
# have to be copied into the root of the NTFS hda1 partition c:\
# but the boot.ini file (which is just here as an example,
# the line "c:\grldr="Start Grub" has been added at the end of the boot.ini)
# Copy the also the 700MB knoppix ISO file into c:\boot\knoppix.36\ directory

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot

title Knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.4 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/minirt24_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memtest

title Win311 from Dos from Floppy image 1.44Mb, just for fun...
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memdisk
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/win311.img
boot

################################################

Please let me know about your files.

Shrek.

[artamangr]

Hi everyone,
i am using a PMI installation of knoppix 3.7 and i use the knoppix cdrom to boot.
is there an option during boot (by using a cheatcode -btw, i cannot access the docs section of the knoppix.net site, do u have the same problem?) to 'tell' knoppix to use a swap partition on my hard drive in addition to the RAM?
or is it that automatically, during boot, knoppix will recognise the swap formatted partition and use it?

[Gencho]

I even tried removing the knoppix.iso lines, just to see if the memtest works - nah. I gave up after tons of reboot and file edits. Could somebody help.

BTW, I have made the Poor Mans Install on an ex2fs partition with kernel ans loadlin on a FAT partition, and Knoppix starts and works, but memtest starts and shows the beginning of the screen, and after that nothing happens and I have to press reset. That's strange (but maybe hasn't nothing to do with the problem above - don't know; maybe it isn't - someone writes about DOS-specific problems related to HIMEM).

[bfree]

Some of you may be interested in a long post (http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=66005#66005) I have just made in the Remastering forum. Primarily it is outlining how to make a new set of minirt fils from another knoppix release to use with this method (i.e. patching the linuxrc and adding the modules). It's not foolproof and is more documenting how I did it then providing a simple way to do it.

In trying out this method of doing a pmi, I had a fair bit of confusion caused by primarily a combination of 2 things. First that it can take a while for the grub to find menu.lst, in the meantime it just says "Booting Default ... findroot /boot/grub/menu.lst" or similar. When this was on my hda2 (first ntfs drive, origanlly where Dell pre-installed windows, I've shrunk it since to make room for more partitions) or hda6 (actually the 4th real partition on the drive, a fat partition, hda5 is a ext3 partition) I ended up waiting around 10 seconds for it to finally find the menu.lst. When I made a boot folder in /dev/hda1 (31M fat partition for Dell's license etc.) and put everything except the iso images in there it took all of about 0.1 seconds. The problem really was that it just didn't seem to want to work initially at all until eventually for no apparent reason, that hda1 suddenly became unhidden (it ships hidden and I'd left it like that, untouched) and it all came to life. Perhaps I just never waited long enough at first and it hadn't in fact hung.

So if you have a computer with a first hidden partition, you may need to unhide it, or just wait quite a long time, while grub tries to find your menu.lst!

[patelbhavesh]

Any news on whether this feature will be included in the next release.

[ruymbeke]

Any news on whether this feature will be included in the next release.
The minirt24_ntfs.gz included in my last link (grubc.zip) works also on Knoppix3.7. The 3.7 drivers are the same as in 3.6 (at least for the 2.4 kernel) but I didn't check about the linuxrc script yet. I will do more check (kernel 2.6 and linuxrc) this WE...
I have been asking Klaus and Fabianx in the mailing list for including this within the next release, but so far no response from them, and I am not sure it would ever happen...
As a recall, here is my last link:

http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubc.zip

Cheers, Gilles

[patelbhavesh]

Any news on whether this feature will be included in the next release.
The minirt24_ntfs.gz included in my last link (grubc.zip) works also on Knoppix3.7. The 3.7 drivers are the same as in 3.6 (at least for the 2.4 kernel) but I didn't check about the linuxrc script yet. I will do more check (kernel 2.6 and linuxrc) this WE...
I have been asking Klaus and Fabianx in the mailing list for including this within the next release, but so far no response from them, and I am not sure it would ever happen...
As a recall, here is my last link:

http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubc.zip

Cheers, Gilles

To reduce the load on your server I have mirrored the content on my webserver.

http://bhavesh.mdns.org/pub/grubcknoppix36/grubc.zip

[patelbhavesh]

Any news on whether this feature will be included in the next release.
The minirt24_ntfs.gz included in my last link (grubc.zip) works also on Knoppix3.7. The 3.7 drivers are the same as in 3.6 (at least for the 2.4 kernel) but I didn't check about the linuxrc script yet. I will do more check (kernel 2.6 and linuxrc) this WE...
I have been asking Klaus and Fabianx in the mailing list for including this within the next release, but so far no response from them, and I am not sure it would ever happen...
As a recall, here is my last link:

http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubc.zip

Cheers, Gilles
I tried this grubc with Knoppix 3.7 .
I think kernel 24 works fine.I didnt play around with it a lot.
But kernel2.6 gives a couple of errors of modules not found as it looks for in the 2.6.7 directory and with knoppix 3.7 the modules are in the 2.6.9 directories.

[ruymbeke]

I tried this grubc with Knoppix 3.7. I think kernel 24 works fine.I didnt play around with it a lot. But kernel2.6 gives a couple of errors of modules not found as it looks for in the 2.6.7 directory and with knoppix 3.7 the modules are in the 2.6.9 directories.
I finally found the time to update the minirt26_ntfs.gz for knoppix 3.7 and kernel 2.6 (linuxrc and drivers updated). I also updated the full package grubd.zip. Find below the links:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/37minirt26_ntfs.gz and http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubd.zip
Cheers, Gilles

[patelbhavesh]

I tried this grubc with Knoppix 3.7. I think kernel 24 works fine.I didnt play around with it a lot. But kernel2.6 gives a couple of errors of modules not found as it looks for in the 2.6.7 directory and with knoppix 3.7 the modules are in the 2.6.9 directories.
I finally found the time to update the minirt26_ntfs.gz for knoppix 3.7 and kernel 2.6 (linuxrc and drivers updated). I also updated the full package grubd.zip. Find below the links:
http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/37minirt26_ntfs.gz and http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubd.zip
Cheers, Gilles

I tested the new 37minirt26_ntfs.gz and minirt26_ntfs in the grubd.zip file.
Both give me the following error


insmod : error inserting '/modules/ntfs.o' : -1 invalid module format
insmod : error inserting '/modules/nls-cp9320.o' : -1 invalid module format
insmod : error inserting '/modules/nls_euc_jp.o' : -1 invalid module format
Looking for CDROM in: /dev/hdh16
insmod error inserting 'modules/loop.o' : -1 Invalid module format
mount : Could not find a spare loop device


After that it throws me to the limited shell.Where in pretty much I have to reboot.
Has anyone else faced this problem.

[ruymbeke]

I tested the new 37minirt26_ntfs.gz and minirt26_ntfs in the grubd.zip file.
Both give me the following error


insmod : error inserting '/modules/ntfs.o' : -1 invalid module format
insmod : error inserting '/modules/nls-cp9320.o' : -1 invalid module format
insmod : error inserting '/modules/nls_euc_jp.o' : -1 invalid module format
Looking for CDROM in: /dev/hdh16
insmod error inserting 'modules/loop.o' : -1 Invalid module format
mount : Could not find a spare loop device

After that it throws me to the limited shell.Where in pretty much I have to reboot.
Has anyone else faced this problem.
Did you verify the date (12162004) of the linuxrc script in the multicolor knoppix ?
Do you have more than one iso file in the same directory ?
Do you load the kernel, initrd and iso of the same knoppix 3.7, dec 8 2004 release ?
It works on both my laptop and destop ... It should work on yours as well...
Cheers, Gilles

[patelbhavesh]

Yeah it works.I was using the older linux kernel.Thanks for all the help.

Also I have mirrorred the grubd.zip on my website.
http://bhavesh.mdns.org/pub/grubdknoppix37/grubd.zip

[probono]

Any news on whether this feature will be included in the next release.

Kanotix has the two features "Boot from NTFS" and "Boot from ISO" included since version BH X, and Kano seems to be open about including a "very poor man's installer" (a Windows bat script to set it all up).

Greetings,
probono

[bfree]

Any news on whether this feature will be included in the next release.

Kanotix has the two features "Boot from NTFS" and "Boot from ISO" included since version BH X, and Kano seems to be open about including a "very poor man's installer" (a Windows bat script to set it all up).

Greetings,
probono
You can find some instructions on using fromiso with Kanotix (http://kanotix.mipooh.net/viewtopic.php?p=22204#22204) on the kanotix forum. The quick version is use "fromhd=/dev/hdXN fromiso=path/to/K*FIX2.ISO" (for the latest FIX2 version of Kanotix) or even quicker just put the iso onto any vfat/ntfs/etx[2|3]/resiser[3|4] partition in a directory called KNOPPIX with the iso named KNOPPIX.ISO and just use "fromiso" (avoids you having to know how Linux names your partitions).

I have written a similar patch for the linuxrc in Knoppix (with some help from Fabian creating a truly minimal losetup) and sent it to the developers mailing list. It was probably too late for inclusion in 3.7 and I haven't heard anything back yet. It is worth noting that (as this thread has demonstrated) you can simply use a modified initrd with the original iso so we could maintain initrd's for knoppix even if the official cd itself does not contain the required initrd.

[j2m2t2]

I just wanted to say thanks for all the hard work that went into making this possible. I am now running Knoppix from an ISO on my hard drive after booting from a USB key. AWESOME :D

[Harry Kuhman]

after booting from a USB key. AWESOME
Please share, what did you have to do to make your USB flash drive bootable? I have several USB flash drives, but so far have not been able to make any of them bootable (my BIOS does have a "boot from USB" option and I have made that the first choice, but no luck so far).

[Alterscape]

Will Giles' GRUB-from-NTFS work if the boot partition isn't C:\ ? My system boots from H:\ (hda3). I tried using the line h:\grubldr="GRUB" in my boot.ini, but it didn't work.. got the line about Windows having trouble accessing the specified boot device. How could I alter the provided files to make it fly from the H drive?

[j.drake]

I haven't tried what you are describing, but I seem to recall hearing that you can boot from an image loaded elsewhere. I think that the Grub files need to be in the root directory of the partition where the boot.ini file is located, but his solution can boot Knoppix from wherever you want to put it.

I think your first steps are to find out what linux and Grub think your H: drive is, and change the references accordingly. Remember that 0 in Grub is the first, whether that be a drive or a partition. So, for example, if linux calls your H: drive hdb5, meaning the 5th (numerically) partition in the second drive, Grub would call it hd(1,4).

Can you give some more specifics about the way your drives fit the linux drive conventions, and where your boot.ini and Knoppix files are located? It would be easier for people to help if they could refer to specific locations, rather than speaking in vague generalities.

jd

[ruymbeke]

after booting from a USB key. AWESOME
Please share, what did you have to do to make your USB flash drive bootable? I have several USB flash drives, but so far have not been able to make any of them bootable (my BIOS does have a "boot from USB" option and I have made that the first choice, but no luck so far).
I found a program called HPUSBFW.EXE (included in the Root_Of_USB directory of my grubd.zip) which sadly only runs on XP but works great to reformat and make USB dongles bootable. You may also need an other bootable device to copy the dos boot files from and then update you USB dongle with my boot files. Good luck and let me know...
Happy Holidays, Gilles

PS: Do you have any idea of what is going on with the wiki documentation page ? It has been down for months now...

[Harry Kuhman]

Good luck and let me know...


PS: Do you have any idea of what is going on with the wiki documentation page ? It has been down for months now...

Thanks. I'm downloading your stuff now, but am dead on my feet and ready to crash, will play with it tomorrow or the next day and will let you know.

according to inormation at this link (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Main_Page), eadz felt he had to take the old wiki down because of very serious security problems in the php code. He and a couple of volunteers are reformatting the current information for the new wiki. I assume the new stuff is just not ready yet. You might want to see if eadz needs more help if you have some time to offer.

[Alterscape]

JD,
Sorry for the uninformative first post -- Standard Newbie In A Hurry syndrome, I suppose. Anyway, okay, here's my system's hdd layout.

hda1: 18gb ext3 Linux partition, Knoppix installed, Debian-style, here.
hda2: 2gb Linux Swap
hda3: 20gb NTFS XP System partition (h:)

hdb1: 80gb NTFS data partition. (c:)

boot.ini and the GRUB files are located on hda3 -- hd(0,2) in GRUB-speak, I think, h:\ in Windows-speak. I want to load GRUB from the NT bootloader, and then use Grub to boot knoppix..

[ruymbeke]

...boot.ini and the GRUB files are located on hda3 -- hd(0,2) in GRUB-speak, I think, h:\ in Windows-speak. I want to load GRUB from the NT bootloader, and then use Grub to boot knoppix..
Could you please post your current boot.ini ?
Did you actually try: c:\grldr="Start Grub" and c:\bootgrub="Start Grub (old method)" ?
XP may do the letter swapping thing after having booted, so you may still want to try c:/
Cheers, Gilles

[Alterscape]

h:\boot.ini


[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
H:\grldr="Start Grub"


I should try the "old grub loader" method, but I haven't yet.

[edit]
Okay, I moved everything from Giles' zip to my C drive and made the requisite changes to boot.ini (c:\grldr="start grub", and on the next line, c:\bootgrub="old GRUB") .. I think something's working right-er, because when I use the grldr entry in the boot menu, I get the ever-informative "ERROR" message. Using the bootgrub entry, I get the error "can't find grldr." I'm going to mess with my menu.lst and see if maybe I can fix the error.

[edit]
Okay, I think there's something strange going on here. After I deleted the grub files from H (hda3) drive and rebooted (thinking that having put the files on C, hdb1, would make it happy, I started getting the same Windows-related errors as before)... so I moved the grub files back go hda3, but left the boot.ini reading c:\ .. which gets me the "ERROR" message (which smells to me like GRUB rather than Windows, since I've never seen that particular error on boot before..) .. I'm not sure if any of this info is useful, but there you have it.

[Harry Kuhman]

[Good luck and let me know...
Well, no joy so far. At first I had the wrong file (grobc.zip rather than grubd.zip). Once I figured that out I got the right file and found the utility you spoke of. Put it on my XP system and used it to reformat my USB flash drive. No luck. Did it again, this time giving the program a win98 boot floppy I have that it could install a system from. It copied some stuff from the floppy duing the format this time (including command.com and two .sys files), but on a reboot the Xp system on the hard drive still comes up. So I'm still trying to figure out how to make a USB flash drive boot on my notebook.

Perhaps j2m2t2 will still share what he did to get his working.

[j.drake]

Afterscape, be sure to check the paths closely in your menu.lst. Just recently, I had occasion to go through this when bfree wrote a script to allow Kanotix to boot from the Windows NTFS partition, and I was having a lot of problems. Turned out that in my menu.lst file, I was typing my paths in lower case, but some of the directories had upper case letters. Working from within Windows, I was thinking that typing with everything in lower case would work, but I guess that GRUB is kind of fussy about case sensitivity.

BTW, here's (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition) the wiki article if it helps. Markus was kind enough to convert it to the new format.

jd

[j2m2t2]

I am running windows 2000 on my Dell laptop. Here are the steps I took after downloading grubd.zip

-To boot a knoppix 3.6 or 3.7 ISO image from the Hard Drive using USB key or boot menu on CPU:

1st. Put the ISO image in the root directory of your CPU, hopefully partition 1.

-USB Key:
1. Format the USB Key using the HP USB Key utility HPUSBFW.EXE in the folder Root_of_USB. Select FAT and make it bootable by selecting the create a DOS startup disk, use the files located in the folder Root_of_USB.

2. Copy the contents of the Root_of_USB folder (except the HPUSB utilty) to the root of the USB Key, say no to overwrite files.

3. Copy the contents of the Knoppix.37 folder for version 3.7 or Knoppix.36 folder for version 3.6 located at Root_of_NTFS\BOOT\ to the root of the USB key

4. On the root of the USB key is a file called menu.lst, you can edit this file to change your home directory, config, etc. You may also have to change the reference to HDA1 if your ISO image is on partition 2 instead of 1.

-CPU boot menu:
Did not try yet.

Happy New Year :D

[Aaron]

As a linux newbie, I just want to thank everyone for their efforts here.

ruymbeke, your explanations and persistant file updates made this a very easy install....Thank You


Now to start learning.....think I need to start with the persistant home/settings.

[Alterscape]

Afterscape, be sure to check the paths closely in your menu.lst. Just recently, I had occasion to go through this when bfree wrote a script to allow Kanotix to boot from the Windows NTFS partition, and I was having a lot of problems. Turned out that in my menu.lst file, I was typing my paths in lower case, but some of the directories had upper case letters. Working from within Windows, I was thinking that typing with everything in lower case would work, but I guess that GRUB is kind of fussy about case sensitivity.

BTW, here's (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition) the wiki article if it helps. Markus was kind enough to convert it to the new format.

jd

JD, thanks for the link, although this discusses an install to an NTFS partition -- I have an ext3 partition and Knoppix installed, debian-style.

I should clarify that my "error" error message appears immediately when I select the Grbldr option from my NT bootloader. Grub does not load, I do not pass go, I do not collect $200, etc. Would a problem in menu.lst cause this error message? It was my understanding that menu.lst merely provides a list of options for the GRUB menu -- would an error in capitalization in menu.lst actually prevent GRUB from loading? I'd expect a problem like that to manifest after selecting an option from within GRUB.

[ruymbeke]

I should clarify that my "error" error message appears immediately when I select the Grbldr option from my NT bootloader. Grub does not load, I do not pass go, I do not collect $200, etc. Would a problem in menu.lst cause this error message? It was my understanding that menu.lst merely provides a list of options for the GRUB menu -- would an error in capitalization in menu.lst actually prevent GRUB from loading? I'd expect a problem like that to manifest after selecting an option from within GRUB.
You are correct. menu.lst is only used once grub is loaded, and in your case it looks like that grub do not start properly. To be honest I never tried to call my XP boot partition anything but c: (you use h: ) and that may be the problem. Since I don't have such a setup, could you please try to:
1) edit your boot.ini to use grldr and bootgrub from both partitions c: and h: (5 boot options including your XP)
2) put the same grldr, bootgrub and boot.ini in both partitions c: and h:
3) try all the 4 options and report the errors
Thank you, Gilles

[siveys]

I have just started tinkering with Knoppix a couple of days earlier and I did not find this thread before so I ended up doing basically the same thing you suggest here on my own using wingrub and files in knoppix 3.7 iso. I can't bother with reading all the 18 pages in this thread so I write this to give you a "fresh view" on how to get knoppix 3.7 iso-file booting from a ntfs partition using grub via XP bootloader (no partition resizing, no external boot media, no overwriting the mbr).

1. Download Knoppix 3.7 iso and place it to C:\knoppix\knoppix37.iso
2. Mount the iso with your favourite iso mounter utility, for example DAEMON Tools (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/)
3. Copy linux26 and minirt26.gz from F:\boot\isolinux\ (the mounted iso) and place them to C:\knoppix\
4. Download and install WINGRUB from SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/)
5. Run WinGrub and install bootloader to boot.ini in drive C:
6. Move the directory C:\Grub to C:\boot\Grub to avoid wingrub stalling on boot
7. Edit C:\boot\Grub\MENU.LST to contain only the following:


timeout=1
default=0
title Knoppix 3.7
kernel (hd0,0)/knoppix/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/knoppix/knoppix37.iso
initrd (hd0,0)/knoppix/minirt26.gz

8. Boot

This was actually very easy when compared to the first route I took, which was to repartition the ntfs-drive with burnt knoppix, copy the necessary files to an ext2 partition and install a fresh lilo to dual boot between XP and knoppix - which actuallty worked in the end, but caused some gray hair especially when qtparted, after resizing the partition correctly, messed up the partition table so that it hung up on itself when trying to reread it..

What is notable here is that at least with the recent knoppix 3.7 you don't need special nfts enabled minirt files but the ones supplied within Knoppix cd work fine.

[ruymbeke]

You can read some documentation which summarize this thread here (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition)

...What is notable here is that at least with the recent knoppix 3.7 you don't need special nfts enabled minirt files but the ones supplied within Knoppix cd work fine.
I did not try Wingrub to install Grub4Dos but it looks like a good idea to provide a GUI. I personally prefer to edit the boot.ini and copy a couple of files in the root of my partition so there is nothing hidden or magic and it is very easy to understand how to remove everything. BTW tinybit/gandalf author of wingrub and grub4dos is one of the guys to really thank because he/they wrote some of the grub patches I have been using.

I am glad to see that you got it working with the minirt supplied within the Knoppix iso file, but it didn't work for me. This is the reason why I had to modify the minirt file to add the ntfs drivers and modify the linuxrc script file. I maybe did something wrong. Which 3.7 version of knoppix did you use ? The one I tried has this md5: a98fb9823414dc3d33c5e53f120c0339 *KNOPPIX_V3.7-2004-12-08-EN.iso
PS: you can also use Isobuster (http://www.smart-projects.net/isobuster/) to access the content of the iso file.

[siveys]

I checked that I was using the same version as you had and I checked the boot process to confirm my root was mounted from the iso loop. Both of these held true so I started wondering why you didn't get it to work and checked my minirt26, which did not contain the ntfs modules - so they must be compiled into the kernel i thought - until I found out that that the cloop filesystem DOES contain the ntfs module. I was quite puzzled for a while since it was obivous I should not have been able to use the iso but then I noticed that upon booting knoppix tells me that it is searching for the knoppix filesystem first from hda2, which was the remainder of my previous tohd installation. I then renamed the KNOPPIX directory there and tried to boot again to find that it did not boot anymore. I didn't get into the details of linuxrc but somehow it must first mount the filesystem from hda2 to find the ntfs module, and then use it to load the iso from the ntfs partition.. Huh.. Some magic I'd say ;) So the files you posted still seem to be the way to purely boot from ntfs. I hope this issue will be fixed in upcoming releases since it is not very hard to fix and would make maintaining instructions for this method a lot less painfull..

About the wingrub gui.. In my opinnion the it was overly complex and thus probably not a very good option if you are writing a howto. A tiny program or a script bundled with a zip containing the necessary file structure would be much better if you wanted a really easy installation. Mos people probably just want it to work and there are many other (probably better) places to uncover that magic than reading such a script. Thus I'd probably write the script as small and as possible, include only the 2.6 kernel and a query for a) language and b) knoppix iso location. The procedure itself, when loading grub from boot.ini, is completely non-destructive so it would be possible to ship an official "windows installer" for poor mans HD-knoppix, which would probably be the preferred method for many users to try knoppix. It is still anyway quite a hassle to burn the CD for most people.

I'm personally not so accustomed to Windows programming and the only way I could write this kind of stuff would be to write a perl script and bundle it with par, which results in an executable that is initially something like 2 mb for a "hello world"-program ;) I also don't use knoppix very regularily so I'll take my burdens of maintaining somewhere where I have a bit more itches to scratch :)

Thanks for your time and efforts - my short visit to the knoppix land was very pleasant.

[bfree]

I didn't get into the details of linuxrc but somehow it must first mount the filesystem from hda2 to find the ntfs module, and then use it to load the iso from the ntfs partition.. Huh.. Some magic I'd say ;)
Yep you've got it in one, bootfrom requires you to have another cloop file available regularly not only for the ntfs module but also for the loop module and a mount capable of loading it. I wrote a patch for the linuxrc of Kanotix which was accepted and provides a fromiso cheatcode with no such limitation. I have also written a patch for Knoppix, but unfortunately the Knoppix minirt requires far more changes then just the linuxrc patch (it also needs the loop module and a losetup and if you want it to work on ntfs it also needs the ntfs module and if you want it to work nicely on ntfs or fat it also needs a better mount). If you can find an archive of the knoppix developers mailing list you can find the latest patch I wrote for Knoppix (though it needs an adjustment to use the replaced mount correctly if you add an extra mount program to get the full ntfs/fat support).

[omnix99]

Afterscape, be sure to check the paths closely in your menu.lst. Just recently, I had occasion to go through this when bfree wrote a script to allow Kanotix to boot from the Windows NTFS partition, and I was having a lot of problems. Turned out that in my menu.lst file, I was typing my paths in lower case, but some of the directories had upper case letters. Working from within Windows, I was thinking that typing with everything in lower case would work, but I guess that GRUB is kind of fussy about case sensitivity.

BTW, here's (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition) the wiki article if it helps. Markus was kind enough to convert it to the new format.

jd

JD, thanks for the link, although this discusses an install to an NTFS partition -- I have an ext3 partition and Knoppix installed, debian-style.

I should clarify that my "error" error message appears immediately when I select the Grbldr option from my NT bootloader. Grub does not load, I do not pass go, I do not collect $200, etc. Would a problem in menu.lst cause this error message? It was my understanding that menu.lst merely provides a list of options for the GRUB menu -- would an error in capitalization in menu.lst actually prevent GRUB from loading? I'd expect a problem like that to manifest after selecting an option from within GRUB.

Did you ever find a solution to this problem, Alterscape?

[jnewgas]

[quote="ruymbekeDid you verify the date (12162004) of the linuxrc script in the multicolor knoppix ?
Do you have more than one iso file in the same directory ?
Do you load the kernel, initrd and iso of the same knoppix 3.7, dec 8 2004 release ?
It works on both my laptop and destop ... It should work on yours as well...
Cheers, Gilles[/quote]

I think there might be one strange feature left. I set up as suggested using the files from GRUB3D and the Dec 8 2004 ISO Knoppix ISO. I changed the menu.lst to reflect that i was booting from the 2nd partion of my only hard drive ( HD0,1)
Booting to Knoppix 3.7 kernel 2.4 goes perfectly, but the same setup booting to kernel 2.6 gives two errors
-The first that it does not like the PNP Bios is minor, but then having used pnpbios=off, it still fails to boot fully.

I am welcomed to the multi-coloured Knoppix live and it then carries on looking for the Knoppix CD-ROM and gives up at /dev/hdh16 .. This is a little JVC Mini-note with neither floppy disk nor CD-ROM !

clearly it is not seeing the ISO whenbooting for kernel 2.6

Failure then continues
mount: could not setup loop device
accessing knoppix CDROM failed /cdrom2.loop/boot/knoppix.37/*.iso is not mount

The identical setup for Knoppix 37 with Kernel 2.4 works so there is nothing fundamentally wrong. Are there some hard coded addresses in the linuxrc for 2.6 ?

I am stumped :?
John

[ruymbeke]

...mount: could not setup loop device
accessing knoppix CDROM failed /cdrom2.loop/boot/knoppix.37/*.iso is not mount
The identical setup for Knoppix 37 with Kernel 2.4 works so there is nothing fundamentally wrong. Are there some hard coded addresses in the linuxrc for 2.6 ? I am stumped :? John
Just to double check, are you using the following miniroot file from the grubd.zip: Root_Of_NTFS\BOOT\Knoppix.37\minirt26_ntfs.gz which is 1'177'464 bytes long and dated from 12/16/2004 ?
Could you post your menu.lst ? It should work... Gilles

[jnewgas]

...mount: could not setup loop device
accessing knoppix CDROM failed /cdrom2.loop/boot/knoppix.37/*.iso is not mount
The identical setup for Knoppix 37 with Kernel 2.4 works so there is nothing fundamentally wrong. Are there some hard coded addresses in the linuxrc for 2.6 ? I am stumped :? John
Just to double check, are you using the following miniroot file from the grubd.zip: Root_Of_NTFS\BOOT\Knoppix.37\minirt26_ntfs.gz which is 1'177'464 bytes long and dated from 12/16/2004 ?
Could you post your menu.lst ? It should work... Gilles

Yes .. it is the 1,177,464 file. I include a copy of the menu.lst . The RAM is only 256Mb

What is a little unusual about the set-up is that there is a single hard drive, partitioned with three partitions
Partnition 1 DOS - not active- for emergency regeneration of XP = hda1
Partition 2 FAT32 - Active bootable - Contains Bootldr, Grub, Knoppix etc = hda2
Partition 3 FAT32 - Extended/Logical Vol - Contains pure data&unused for knoppix = hda5 ( this is not a typo - it is FIVE )

However as I said it runs kernel 2.4 without problems, but only fails on 2.6 where it does not see the knoppix iso file. If 2.4 could also not find the iso, I would understand. It is the difference that surprised me

################################################## ####
# GvR Dec 16th 2004
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=15
default=0

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
boot

title Knoppix 3.7 kernel 2.4 from NTFS hda2 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda2/boot/knoppix.37/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/minirt24_ntfs.gz
boot

title Knoppix 3.7 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda2 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda2/boot/knoppix.37/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.36/memtest

title Win311 from Dos from Floppy image 1.44Mb, just for fun...
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/memdisk
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/win311.img
boot

################################################## ####

[ruymbeke]

GRUBD.ZIP alternate download link: ==> http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grubd.zip <==
Windows Partition PMI: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition
(Original download link: http://s94592085.onlinehome.us/grub/grubd.zip , February 5GB quota exceeded)
(http://bhavesh.mdns.org/pub/grubdknoppix37/grubd.zip , looks like to be down)
# MD5 checksums generated by MD5summer (http://www.md5summer.org)
# Generated 2/12/2005 2:02:24 AM
ec37b5a9db080c8e747a3d37a6946039 *grubd.zip

[ruymbeke]

Yes .. it is the 1,177,464 file. I include a copy of the menu.lst . The RAM is only 256Mb ...

What is a little unusual about the set-up is that there is a single hard drive, partitioned with three partitions
Partnition 1 DOS - not active- for emergency regeneration of XP = hda1
Partition 2 FAT32 - Active bootable - Contains Bootldr, Grub, Knoppix etc = hda2
Partition 3 FAT32 - Extended/Logical Vol - Contains pure data&unused for knoppix = hda5 ( this is not a typo - it is FIVE )

However as I said it runs kernel 2.4 without problems, but only fails on 2.6 where it does not see the knoppix iso file. If 2.4 could also not find the iso, I would understand. It is the difference that surprised me
...
title Knoppix 3.7 kernel 2.4 from NTFS hda2 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda2/boot/knoppix.37/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/minirt24_ntfs.gz
boot

title Knoppix 3.7 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda2 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda2/boot/knoppix.37/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix.37/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot
...
I don't see anything wrong here. It should work... Does any one else have the same working setup ?

[j.drake]

Does any one else have the same working setup ?

Yes, I did, until I changed it to install a larger HD. Having the emergency thing on hda1 sounds like my HP, and it worked fine. One bit of hard-learned wisdom that I found is that GRUB, unlike DOS/Windows, is very, very case sensitive when it comes to file paths. Gilles' files that I downloaded had, by default a number of files in a folder called "BOOT", which I copied over without much thought. But, as I was setting up Kanotix BHX to boot this way, I got lazy and typed " kernel (hd0,1)/boot/knoppix...(etc)" into a file path - [in lower case, IOW], and it would not work. I note that jnewgas has the directory "boot" in lower case also, but if he(she) copied the folder as I did, that could very well be the problem.

jd

[ruymbeke]

I have been trying to update the linuxrc of Knoppix 3.8 (and also update the minirt.gz: ntfs,loop modules & busybox...), to allow to boot from NTFS, but no success so far... The 3.8 linuxrc has been changed significantly because of the unionfs and it is not that straight forward. If somebody would have some more time to spend on it, here is the link of my current file: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/k38.zip
But please let me know if you work on it, so we do not duplicate the work...
Cheers, Gilles

[brianez21]

h:\boot.ini


[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
H:\grldr="Start Grub"


I should try the "old grub loader" method, but I haven't yet.

[edit]
Okay, I moved everything from Giles' zip to my C drive and made the requisite changes to boot.ini (c:\grldr="start grub", and on the next line, c:\bootgrub="old GRUB") .. I think something's working right-er, because when I use the grldr entry in the boot menu, I get the ever-informative "ERROR" message. Using the bootgrub entry, I get the error "can't find grldr." I'm going to mess with my menu.lst and see if maybe I can fix the error.

[edit]
Okay, I think there's something strange going on here. After I deleted the grub files from H (hda3) drive and rebooted (thinking that having put the files on C, hdb1, would make it happy, I started getting the same Windows-related errors as before)... so I moved the grub files back go hda3, but left the boot.ini reading c:\ .. which gets me the "ERROR" message (which smells to me like GRUB rather than Windows, since I've never seen that particular error on boot before..) .. I'm not sure if any of this info is useful, but there you have it.

Don't know if this would help, but instead of H:\grldr="Start Grub" try
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\grldr="Start Grub"
or even use 'bootgrub' instead of 'grldr' :/

[peekaboo]

I'm having troubles while trying to follow described procedure in the win partiotion wiki.
I'm using a laptop dell latitude D800.
There is one drive with a hidden partition (EISA config?) a second NTFS partition with XP on it and a third data partition also NTFS.
Put contents of Root_Of_NTFS (extracted from grubd.zip) into C:\
Made modification to boot.ini and referred to hd0,1 (second partition of first disk) in menu.lst
After following the described procedure the only thing I get is a little blinking cursosr in the upper left corner of the screen.
Something seems to be eating system resources (or searching for menu.lst?), because the ventilation stays on full speed while waiting at that prompt.
It's not the grub prompt, I can hit some keys without any effect except a beep after some time.
I read through the thread, but cant'find a clue for what could be going wrong.
I'm using safeguard disk encryption software for the hard drive. Could this be a problem?

[peekaboo]

Don't know if this would help, but instead of H:\grldr="Start Grub" try
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\grldr="Start Grub"
or even use 'bootgrub' instead of 'grldr' :/

trying this syntax in my configuration gives me an errror referring to a missing hal.dll while "starting windows" (howerver I'm referring to hd0,1\grldr and hd0,1\bootgrub in boot.ini

[ruymbeke]

...I'm using safeguard disk encryption software for the hard drive. Could this be a problem?
Yes, I think it is. The ntfs support in grub is somewhat limited and can obviously be improved.
--Gilles

[pinjyoi]

I have been trying to update the linuxrc of Knoppix 3.8 (and also update the minirt.gz: ntfs,loop modules & busybox...), to allow to boot from NTFS, but no success so far... The 3.8 linuxrc has been changed significantly because of the unionfs and it is not that straight forward. If somebody would have some more time to spend on it, here is the link of my current file: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/k38.zip
But please let me know if you work on it, so we do not duplicate the work...
Cheers, Gilles

Hi, I used the 3.7 minirt26_ntfs.gz found in grubd.zip as a base. Mounted minirt26_ntfs as loop and modified it directly. This is what I did:

1) patched the 3.8.1 linuxrc using the 3.7 linuxrc26_ntfs.diff (no other modifications made to linuxrc)
2) updated the modules in /modules and copied over unionfs.ko
3) didn't update /modules/scsi but deleted some files to make space for unionfs.ko (got out of space msg otherwise)

Here's a link to the files: http://baasan.free.fr

It seems to work for me (so far)

[ruymbeke]

Hi, I used the 3.7 minirt26_ntfs.gz found in grubd.zip as a base. Mounted minirt26_ntfs as loop and modified it directly. This is what I did:
1) patched the 3.8.1 linuxrc using the 3.7 linuxrc26_ntfs.diff (no other modifications made to linuxrc)
2) updated the modules in /modules and copied over unionfs.ko
3) didn't update /modules/scsi but deleted some files to make space for unionfs.ko (got out of space msg otherwise)
Here's a link to the files: http://baasan.free.fr
It seems to work for me (so far)
Thank you.
I increased the size of the minirt_ntfs.gz file to 10MB in order to includes all the modules: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/minirt_ntfs.gz
and also updated the GRUBE.ZIP to work with knoppix 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8.1: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip
As a recall here is the link to the Windows Partition PMI: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition
Cheers, Gilles

[patelbhavesh]

Thank you.
I increased the size of the minirt_ntfs.gz file to 10MB in order to includes all the modules: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/minirt_ntfs.gz
and also updated the GRUBE.ZIP to work with knoppix 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8.1: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip
As a recall here is the link to the Windows Partition PMI: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Win_Partition
Cheers, Gilles

Thanks Gilles for consistently providing us grub with all the new versions of Knoppix.
I have mirrored grube.zip.Here is where you can download it from
http://bhavesh.mdns.org/pub/grubforknoppix/grube.zip

[ICPUG]

May I also add my thanks to Gilles and to Piniyoi for maintaining this fabulous technique through to the lastest 3.8.1Knoppix. I thought this UnionFS was going to cause trouble, bearing in mind the time it has taken this time!

I am somewhat disappointed that the revised files are not now part of the standard distro. It has been asked for enough times both here and the developers mailing list. I guess Klaus does not see this as part of his remit. A shame, but we have so much to thank Klaus for that we cannot demand these ideas are taken on board.

ICPUG

[Explorer2]

I am having the same problem. Booting to Knoppix 3.7 kernel 2.4 goes perfectly, but the same setup gives errors and gives up at /dev/hdh16 .. can not find knoppix file system when booting kernel 2.6 . I had managed to install a copy of kernel 2.4 into harddisk successfully.

I have try failsafe, nodma & noapic and still does not work.

The same error pop up even when I boot kernel 2.6 from CD that is created from the iso. I try booting kernel 2.6 from both Knoppix 3.7 and Knoppix 3.81 CD and the outcome is the same.

My computer has Silicon Image Raid Controller that drives two harddisks plus a SATA harddisk.

The identical setup for Knoppix 37 with Kernel 2.4 works so there is nothing fundamentally wrong.

I use the linux and minrt_ntfs (extracted from grube.zip) and knoppix 3.81 still fail to boot.

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init ramdisk=65536 apm=power-off bootfrom=/dev/hda1/*.iso lang=us keyboard=us vga=791 nomce quiet splash xmodule=nv vsync=60 screen=1280x768 home=scan myconfig=scan noprompt noeject
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot

Any comment?

[ICPUG]

Explorer2

Try adding the fromhd cheatcode before the bootfrom cheatcode.

If that doesn't work try:

fromhd=/dev/hda1

When I did this on an earlier release it stopped searching for the iso on every device it could find and went straight to the hard drive.

ICPUG

[shrek99]

Explorer2

Try adding the fromhd cheatcode before the bootfrom cheatcode.

If that doesn't work try:

fromhd=/dev/hda1

When I did this on an earlier release it stopped searching for the iso on every device it could find and went straight to the hard drive.

ICPUG

Tried that and it made no difference - except it got to the "Looking for CDROM in /dev/hdh16" much quicker - which is where it stops. It then says
mount : ioctl : LOOP_SET_FD: Bad file descriptor

A message flashes up - but then vanishes - it appears to say something like "cdrom2/ ... is not mountable"
it is replaced by a message which reads "mount: could not set up loop device"

It is clear that the HD is mounted since it is reading from the boot file: unlike when I boot from CD ROM it also states in the first line that NTFS is supported. So something is going right!


The Windows Partition PMI states that "No partitioning is needed to run HD based Linux ..."

I can run linux from CD on this machine which is the "typical single partition factory built computer" [NTFS] and use a thumb drive for the home and myconfig

I get the same error whether or not the thumb drive is in the USB port - and when the home and config are directed to the thumb /mnt/uba1 or left to scan

The wiki article in Tweak 2 states that you don't have to have a persistent home or saved config

And, by the way, the method on the wiki does work on another machine with a FAT32 C: drive

I should have said - I am running the 3.8.1 version of Knoppix

[Explorer2]

I try the fromhd cheat code on kernel 2.6 and the error 'cannot find knoppix file system' still appear.

According to the following link, kernel 2.6 does not support ataraid. This could be the reason why kernel 2.6 can not work on my PC that has silicon image raid controller.

http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~holzhey/plugscript/doc/knoppix_ataraid_howto.html

I would like to thank pinjyoi for pointing me to the above link.

[Crashogre]

Try changing the hda1 to hda2, worked for me and I was getting the exact same error that you are getting

[shrek99]

Try changing the hda1 to hda2, worked for me and I was getting the exact same error that you are getting

I am not sure who you are relpying to.

hda2 would only work on a partioned hard drive.

[Stefan61]

Hello
I simply like to say thank you for the new grub. :D
Booting 3.81 ISO form NTFS without problem.

Just as remark for other users ..


#----------------------------------------boot old 3.7 t ----------------------------------------------------

title Knoppix 3.7 kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/linux26 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=ge apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.37/knoppix.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt acpi=off nodma lang=de
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/minirt26_ntfs.gz
boot

#----------------------------------------can’t boot ----------------------------------------------------
title Knoppix 3.8.1 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.381/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=ge apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.381/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.381/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot

#------------------------------------boot’s perfect -------------------------------------------------------

title Knoppix 3.81 test kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=ge apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.381/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt acpi=off nodma lang=de
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot


It’s maybe only o problem from my XP that

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.381/linux don’t find the file “linux” even when I use the command line grub for editing and use the Tab for listing

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/linux
Using the command line and TAB shows all files in c:\boot\knoppix3.7

Bye
Stefan

[shrek99]

#------------------------------------boot’s perfect -------------------------------------------------------

title Knoppix 3.81 test kernel 2.6 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=ge apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/knoppix.381/*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt acpi=off nodma lang=de
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot




Well, this can only work if you have put the knoppix 3.7 into the boot file on the hard drive first.

First time I tried this I got "Eror 16: file not found". Since I happened to have an ISO of 3.7 I copied that over to boot/knoppix.37

Still cannot get 3.8.1 to boot. Or 3.7 with kernel 2.6 - same error each time - which is much earler in the boot process than with the original menu.lst in grub

But 3.7 with kernel 2.4 works like a charm - except I had to tell it I had a wheelmouse (which I have not needed to do when booting of the CD)
I am actually posting from the machine in question now

So my question is - is this a problem with 3.8.1, kernel 2.6 or grub? (Plus do not forget that I can run 3.8.1 on another machine that happens to have a partioned hard drive with C formatted to FAT32)

[Stefan61]

[quote=Stefan61]





I’m not quite sure I guess it’s a grub problem
Boot grub ; edit the Boot line down to “kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.37/” and press tab
grub will show me al possible Files and Folders
When I do the same with
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.381/
I can’t see the files .folders maybe just a NTFS / GRUB problem
BTW:
With the little work around store the files linux and minirt_ntfs.gz
in the Folder c: /boot/knoppix.37 and the knoppix381.iso in the folder
/boot/knoppix.381/ everything works perfect

bye
Stefan

[che_fox]

Hi all,

Thanks so much to you all for your hard work in getting GRUB to boot off an NTFS partition! It works like a charm for me (as long as I keep Linux mounting my NTFS filesystem in read-only mode; the NTFS read/write support in the 2.6 kernel that comes with Knoppix 3.8.1 is still very unstable, and corrupts my NT boot record).

I'm curious; where is the source code available for GRLDR, so I can rebuild it myself? I've found Ryumbeke's excellent GRUBE.ZIP, which has all the binaries, but I'd really like the diff against grub 0.95's source code if possible.

I found that the original home page of GRUB for DOS (and NT) (http://newdos.yginfo.net/grubdos.htm) is no longer available, although there is a Google cache (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:jb5FMGwJTM0J:newdos.yginfo.net/grubdos.htm+grldr&hl=en) available. However, the source code mentioned on that page is nowhere to be found.

Does anyone happen to have a copy of the original grub020.zip off that page? I assume that has the patch in it.

Thanks all!

[ruymbeke]

Hi all, I'm curious; where is the source code available for GRLDR, so I can rebuild it myself? I've found Ryumbeke's excellent GRUBE.ZIP, which has all the binaries, but I'd really like the diff against grub 0.95's source code if possible ... Does anyone happen to have a copy of the original grub020.zip off that page? I assume that has the patch in it. Thanks all!
Well, the binaries included in the http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip are the result of an october 2004 cvs 0.95 snapshoot patched with the http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grub020.zip (for ntfs and grldr support by Tinybit and Gandalf) and the http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grub-0.95-diskless-patch-1.zip (for the network support by Fengshuo).
I am working on new binaries based on the new grub 0.96 and the latest patches. I know that the ntfs module (fsys_ntfs.c ) is kind of "buggy" since it cannot always find the files/directories where the kernel amd initrd are located. As a short term work around I suggest to create a new directory (that grub will find) to store the boot files (kernel and initrd) and accordingly update the menu.lst until the ntfs module will be fixed.
BTW, if someone is willing to work on it, here is the link: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/fsys_ntfs.c (the patch to generate this file is included within the grub020.zip). Please keep me updated if you plan to work on it, so we don't duplicate the effort...
Best Regards, Gilles

[che_fox]

Well, the binaries included in the http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip are the result of an october 2004 cvs 0.95 snapshoot patched with the http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grub020.zip (for ntfs and grldr support by Tinybit and Gandalf) and the http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grub-0.95-diskless-patch-1.zip (for the network support by Fengshuo).

Excellent, this is perfect. (And apologies for misspelling your username, ruymbeke! :)

All the source seems to be properly tagged as GPL, too, so that seems to suit my purposes just fine. (I was worried that a binary-only distribution of some proprietary code had gotten out somehow..)

[ruymbeke]

According to http://distrowatch.com/ Knoppix 3.8.2 is out !!!

An updated version of the KNOPPIX live CD has been released.
From the http://ftp.tu-ilmenau.de/Mirrors/knoppix/KNOPPIX-CHANGELOG.txt V3.8.2-2005-05-05 (update):
dist-upgrade;
kernel 2.6.11 update;
the madwifi drivers are back;
kwifimanager in KNOPPIX/network menu;
OpenOffice 1.1.4 security update;
swapping on knoppix.swp on a NTFS partition should now work;
replaced Fabian Franz' original knoppix-installer with the version from Jörg Schirottke/Kanotix;
fixed SCSI drivers in bootimage.
KNOPPIX 3.8.2 is available for free download from one of its mirror servers: ftp://source.rfc822.org/pub/mirror/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V3.8.2-2005-05-05-EN.iso (694MB) or
ftp://source.rfc822.org/pub/mirror/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V3.8.2-2005-05-05-DE.iso (694MB).

So I updated the minirt_ntfs.gz for Knoppix 3.8.2 with the new scsi drivers:
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip

Cheers, Gilles

[kaiyer]

I have an old system,
HD is a C: partition, boot FAT 16, 2B
and a G: Partition. NTFS.
Copied ruymbeke's files and followed the How-To by J-Drake. All the files are on the C: partition. After the boot menu shows up and I choose GRUB, nothing happens. Flashing cursor on screen. Where do I start debugging this. I'm a Linux novice.
Windows boots ok. Tried to install Knoppix 3.8.1
any help is appreciated.
thanks

[ruymbeke]

I have an old system,
HD is a C: partition, boot FAT 16, 2B
and a G: Partition. NTFS.
Copied ruymbeke's files and followed the How-To by J-Drake. All the files are on the C: partition. After the boot menu shows up and I choose GRUB, nothing happens. Flashing cursor on screen. Where do I start debugging this. I'm a Linux novice.
Windows boots ok. Tried to install Knoppix 3.8.1
any help is appreciated.
thanks
If you can boot dos on your fat 16 partition c: from the xp bootloader, you could try to use grub.exe instead of grldr which may not work well on some old computers... Cheers, Gilles

[tablet_guy]

Hi Gilles,

to update your initrd to the new Knoppix, will replacing all the
modules in the image with the new ones suffice?

I don't think I followed all the instructions on this thread, but
with with boot stanza:

title Knoppix 3.8.2 from NTFS hda2 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/knx382/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda2/boot/knx382/KNX.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt nodhcp
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/knx382/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot,
it hangs (on 3.8.2) at reboot/halt, by saying something like "hanging process" etc. Am I missing
something?

Thanks,
Tom

ps: oh, BTW, this /dev/hda2 isn't even an NTFS volume. It's plain VFAT.

[ruymbeke]

Hi Gilles,
to update your initrd to the new Knoppix, will replacing all the modules in the image with the new ones suffice?
... it hangs (on 3.8.2) at reboot/halt, by saying something like "hanging process" etc. Am I missing something?
Thanks, Tom
The initrd and menu.lst updated files for 3.8.2 have been here for a while:
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip
I will work on 3.9 asap... Cheers, Gilles

[tablet_guy]

Hi Gilles,
to update your initrd to the new Knoppix, will replacing all the modules in the image with the new ones suffice?
... it hangs (on 3.8.2) at reboot/halt, by saying something like "hanging process" etc. Am I missing something?
Thanks, Tom
The initrd and menu.lst updated files for 3.8.2 have been here for a while:
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip
I will work on 3.9 asap... Cheers, Gilles

Actually, I meant whether the 3.8.2 minirt_ntfs.gz from this fileset will
work on 3.9 after a copying in the modules from 3.9 minirt and /lib/modules.

I was booting off my linux grub actually. I'll check out the menu.lst
from your files, and see if the hang goes away.

thanks,
Tom

[doobs]

My laptop's main OS is WinXP, but I'm looking to boot ISOs from the HDD (many knoppix-based, but not all). I already have Grub installed (from a botched Gentoo install) and an EXT2 partition (/dev/hda2). I've perused this thread, but I'm still a little confused. If I copy the ISOs to my NTFS partition, I'll need a special version of Grub, yes? And I'm also not guaranteed compatibility - especially older Knoppix-based distros, 2.6 kernels, etc., right? So, would I be better off copying the ISOs to my EXT2 partition? And if so, should I use the existing Grub install I have now? Would grub be able to handle menu selection of multiple ISO images? How do I configure that?

Thanks for your help!

[ruymbeke]

My laptop's main OS is WinXP, but I'm looking to boot ISOs from the HDD (many knoppix-based, but not all). I already have Grub installed (from a botched Gentoo install) and an EXT2 partition (/dev/hda2). I've perused this thread, but I'm still a little confused. If I copy the ISOs to my NTFS partition, I'll need a special version of Grub, yes? And I'm also not guaranteed compatibility - especially older Knoppix-based distros, 2.6 kernels, etc., right? So, would I be better off copying the ISOs to my EXT2 partition? And if so, should I use the existing Grub install I have now? Would grub be able to handle menu selection of multiple ISO images? How do I configure that?Thanks for your help!
Well, grldr (grub flavour started from a XP/NT boot loader) is required to read data (kernel and initrd file) from a ntfs partition.
Once the kernel is started, the initrd_ntfs ramdisk is required to both boot from a iso file and read the iso data from the ntfs partition. So if you have already grub as a bootloader and are willing to boot from an ext2/3 partition, the only thing you need is the initrd_ntfs file to have the option to boot from a iso file. You obviously need to add some entry lines into your grub menu.lst and add the iso, kernel and initrd_ntfs files somewhere in your ext2 partition and have the apropriate path for these files in your menu.lst. Hope this help, Gilles

[ruymbeke]

Actually, I meant whether the 3.8.2 minirt_ntfs.gz from this fileset will
work on 3.9 after a copying in the modules from 3.9 minirt and /lib/modules.
I was booting off my linux grub actually. I'll check out the menu.lst
from your files, and see if the hang goes away. thanks, Tom
Most likely yes. But you may need to update the linuxrc script file and do some more patch work...
I will work on a Knoppix39.zip package asap, hopefully tomorrow...
but it looks like that 3.9 is buggy regarding the unionfs, see the 3.9 forum news: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19285&start=10
so I may just wait for the 3.9.1

EDIT: actually my 3.8.2 minird_ntfs file also works with 3.9 !!!
Most of the drivers are the same but the linuxrc scripts slightly are different.
The unionfs.o kernel module is different but as the new one is buggy, I like to keep the old one for now.
I didn't get the time to look at all this in details... but I am writing this from knoppix 3.9 booted from the iso file on my ntfs partition...
So to summarize, use the new 3.9 kernel and iso file with the 3.8.2 initrd_ntfs file included in: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip
Have fun, Cheers, Gilles

[tablet_guy]

[quote=tablet_guy]
EDIT: actually my 3.8.2 minird_ntfs file also works with 3.9 !!!
Most of the drivers are the same but the linuxrc scripts slightly are different.
The unionfs.o kernel module is different but as the new one is buggy, I like to keep the old one for now.
I didn't get the time to look at all this in details... but I am writing this from knoppix 3.9 booted from the iso file on my ntfs partition...
So to summarize, use the new 3.9 kernel and iso file with the 3.8.2 initrd_ntfs file included in: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip
Have fun, Cheers, Gilles

After you put out a basic version of your initrd for 3.9, would you like to
iterate over linuxrc and affiliated files offline (over email?) to get the
unionfs overlay to work properly?

One idea I have it this:
mount the unionfs image overlay (i.e. knoppix.img image sitting on the HD) from initrd itself
(at perhaps the /ramdisk mount point) instead of handling it later with the
knoppix-image shell script once inside. A new directive (something like
"mount_ufs_overlay=/dev/hdxy/knx/knoppix.img") could be used for this
purpose.

Tom

[ruymbeke]

After you put out a basic version of your initrd for 3.9, would you like to
iterate over linuxrc and affiliated files offline (over email?) to get the
unionfs overlay to work properly? Tom
I am not sure to understand what you are asking for. Knoppix 3.9 seems to be buggy because of the unionfs and it is expected to have soon a new 3.9.1 release. Knoppix 3.9 can already boot from the iso files on a ntfs partition (or fat,ext,...) using my 3.8.2 initrd. So I will just wait for the new knoppix 3.9.1 to update my grub.zip.
Cheers, Gilles

[doobs]

So if you have already grub as a bootloader and are willing to boot from an ext2/3 partition, the only thing you need is the initrd_ntfs file to have the option to boot from a iso file. You obviously need to add some entry lines into your grub menu.lst and add the iso, kernel and initrd_ntfs files somewhere in your ext2 partition and have the apropriate path for these files in your menu.lst.
Well, to avoid having to boot into my crippled Gentoo install, I decided to try the NTFS way first. I downloaded the grube.zip file (and 3.8.2 updates) and now launch grub via boot.ini. I've got whoppix 2.7.1 (knoppix 3.8.2-based) launching, but it complains about the modules not being correct for the kernel ("xxx: version magic '2.6.11.9 SMP preempt 386 gcc-3.3' should be '2.6.11 SMP preempt 386 gcc-3.3'" all over the place). It launches the windowing system, but doesn't get beyond loading the background image -- i.e. none of the apps, control panel, etc. are loading. So, I'm guessing this is because they compiled a new kernel which isn't happy about what I've done here. I tried using the stock Whoppix kernel (copied 'linux' file off iso -- right?), but it complains immediately at boot about lack of ntfs support, etc., similar to earlier threads here.

So, my questions, I suppose, are:
1) Would booting this off my existing EXT2 partition help fix this issue?
2) If no, what will this require? Patching and then recompiling the kernel?
3) Is there an alternate way that I'm overlooking?

Thanks again for all your help!

[ruymbeke]

... So, my questions, I suppose, are:
1) Would booting this off my existing EXT2 partition help fix this issue?
2) If no, what will this require? Patching and then recompiling the kernel?
3) Is there an alternate way that I'm overlooking?
Thanks again for all your help!
Well, if the knoppix 3.8.2 drivers (inside the initrd) do not match the whoppix 2.7.1 kernel,
I am afraid that there is some work to be done to get it working...
To boot from ntfs you need the ntfs drivers matching your kernel version inside the inirtrd boot ramdisk.
To boot from an iso file you need a modified linuxrc script also inside the initrd file.
So you basically need to make a new initrd_ntfs boot ramdisk based on the whoppix 271 initrd
with at least a patched linuxrc and may want to add the ntfs drivers and other utilities as well
to have the option to boot from your xp ntfs partition.
FYI, I am also interested in whoppix, so when I have some time
I will update an initrd for the last release of whoppix.

EDIT: Here it is: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/WHOP271.ZIP

Cheers, Gilles

[doobs]

Gilles,
That worked perfectly -- thanks! I dug around the scripts a little and see what's going on now. Makes a lot more sense. I appreciate your help!

[scaremonger]

Dear experts,

I have been trying all the methods here to boot a Whoppix ISO from my NTFS partition.
I got stuck when grub is trying to locate menu.lst. After two default failures, I got down to command-line and attempt to troubleshoot.

When I tried to tab into my C:\BOOT directory using "(hd0,0)/BOOT", I get:
Error 17: Inconsistent filesystem structure.

Other folders seems fine. I logged out from my Windows domain logon and tried recreating the GRUB directories and files using my Computer Administrator account but to no avail.

Anyone has the same problem? Kindly advise if you have the solution.
Thank you.

[ruymbeke]

Dear experts,
I have been trying all the methods here to boot a Whoppix ISO from my NTFS partition.
I got stuck when grub is trying to locate menu.lst. After two default failures, I got down to command-line and attempt to troubleshoot.
When I tried to tab into my C:\BOOT directory using "(hd0,0)/BOOT", I get:
Error 17: Inconsistent filesystem structure.
Other folders seems fine. I logged out from my Windows domain logon and tried recreating the GRUB directories and files using my Computer Administrator account but to no avail.
Anyone has the same problem? Kindly advise if you have the solution.
Thank you.
Move your menu.lst file into the root of c: c:\menu.lst and check that there is no other file called menu.lst in any other partition/disk in any directoy /boot nor /boot/grub. (Grub is looking first for the menu.lst in the /boot/grub directory and if not found looking into /boot and if not found into /). Then if you have a problem to access the boot directory from the grub command line, move the boot files (kernel and initrd) in an other directory reachable for grub and update the menu.lst. I know the ntfs driver module built-in grub could be improved. (There is some directories which cannot be reached). If someone is willing to work on it ... let me know. This is just a work around. Hope this helps, Gilles

[scaremonger]

Move your menu.lst file into the root of c: c:\menu.lst and check that there is no other file called menu.lst in any other partition/disk in any directoy /boot nor /boot/grub. (Grub is looking first for the menu.lst in the /boot/grub directory and if not found looking into /boot and if not found into /). Then if you have a problem to access the boot directory from the grub command line, move the boot files (kernel and initrd) in an other directory reachable for grub and update the menu.lst. I know the ntfs driver module built-in grub could be improved. (There is some directories which cannot be reached). If someone is willing to work on it ... let me know. This is just a work around. Hope this helps, Gilles

Thanks for your reply. Following your advice, I have deleted all menu.lst and left one at c:\ root directory. The kernel and initrd files are also moved to the root. It still doesn't seem to work. When I get to GRUB command prompt, I tried the following:

rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /linux

I get "Inconsistent filesystem structure". Tabbing the root directory, I can still see linux, menu.lst, minirt_ntfs.gz, etc.

My c:\menu.lst looks like this:
---
################################################## ####
# GvR April 12th 2005
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=10
default=1

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

title Whoppix 2.7.1 from NTFS hda1 ISO scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hd0,0)/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init bootfrom=/dev/hda1/boot/whoppix271-final.iso myconfig=/dev/hde1 ramdisk=32768 noprompt noeject
initrd (hd0,0)/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memtest

title Win311 from Dos from Floppy image 1.44Mb, just for fun...
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memdisk
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/win311.img
boot

---

FYI, I'm running XP pro with NTFS C:\ partition.
Any idea?

Thanks.

[ruymbeke]

...I get "Inconsistent filesystem structure". Tabbing the root directory, I can still see linux, menu.lst, minirt_ntfs.gz, etc...
If you get the grub menu, it means that grub can load the menu.lst. This is really good. Then it looks like that grub has some problem accessing the root of your ntfs partition to load the kernel. So I would suggest to find a directory where grub can browse to and load the kernel/initrd files from, and update your menu.lst file accordingly. Early created directories have the best chance of success. And I think that grub does not like fragmented files, so a full disk may not help. You could try to delete temporary some big files, copy the kernel and try again. Hope this helps, Gilles

[bswinburne]

Hi All,

I have been following this thread for a while, it has been quite a journey. I think these live Cds are a great way forward, especially when they can be place don a hd and boot from iso. I was wondering if it would be possible for someone to post consolidated instructions on how to create a minirt_ntfs.gz for a knoppix distro and maybe even others such as kanotix. An earlier post alluded to what is necessary but did not go into enough detail. I'm fairly new to this sort of stuff but I would like to get envolved.

Best Regards

Brian

[scaremonger]

If you get the grub menu, it means that grub can load the menu.lst. This is really good. Then it looks like that grub has some problem accessing the root of your ntfs partition to load the kernel.

Thanks Gilles. I don't think it loaded the menu.lst I placed in the root. The menu that I got was the one with 'Default' and 'Fallback' items. Anyway, I free my HD to half-full and ran defrag. Even used some file defrag utility to make sure all GRUB related files and folders are fragment-free. Still getting the same "Error 17: Inconsistent filesystem structure" when I tried "configfile /menu.lst". I can now access the c:\boot folder after renaming an old folder to c:\boot. It's weird that only old files/folders are accessible by GRUB. Any more ideas?

[ruymbeke]

If you get the grub menu, it means that grub can load the menu.lst. This is really good. Then it looks like that grub has some problem accessing the root of your ntfs partition to load the kernel.

Thanks Gilles. I don't think it loaded the menu.lst I placed in the root. The menu that I got was the one with 'Default' and 'Fallback' items. Anyway, I free my HD to half-full and ran defrag. Even used some file defrag utility to make sure all GRUB related files and folders are fragment-free. Still getting the same "Error 17: Inconsistent filesystem structure" when I tried "configfile /menu.lst". I can now access the c:\boot folder after renaming an old folder to c:\boot. It's weird that only old files/folders are accessible by GRUB. Any more ideas?
If you can now access the c:\boot folder, you can try tu put the menu.lst, kernel and initrd files in there. Cheers, Gilles

[ruymbeke]

Hi All,
I have been following this thread for a while, it has been quite a journey. I think these live Cds are a great way forward, especially when they can be place don a hd and boot from iso. I was wondering if it would be possible for someone to post consolidated instructions on how to create a minirt_ntfs.gz for a knoppix distro and maybe even others such as kanotix. An earlier post alluded to what is necessary but did not go into enough detail. I'm fairly new to this sort of stuff but I would like to get envolved. Best Regards, Brian
I wish I would have the time to do that. If you know how to access the inside of the initrd file and understand how to patch a linuxrc script, it is quite simple to update the kernel drivers and other tools (busybox, mount,...) to make a ntfs/fromiso version of a initrd file. But a generic step by step instruction procedure is quite hard to write. It is almost a case to case basis, but I will do my best to provide updates ... Cheers, Gilles

[scaremonger]

If you can now access the c:\boot folder, you can try tu put the menu.lst, kernel and initrd files in there. Cheers, Gilles

Finally! I have managed to get it working. :D
Although I can access the c:\boot folder, the files in it are still unreadable by GRUB. What I did was to get the latest version of GRUB loader from http://grub4dos.sourceforge.net, replacing the one from grube.zip. Using WINGRUB, I installed GRLDR and rewrote MENU.LST. The new GRLDR by default looks into c:\boot\grub\menu.lst but WINGRUB writes to c:\Grub\menu.lst. I loaded up a Hex Editor on GRLDR to point it to c:\Grub\menu.lst.

Works perfectly now. Thanks for pointing me to the right direction Gilles.
Have a great day ahead! :wink:

[bswinburne]

Hi All,
I have been following this thread for a while, it has been quite a journey. I think these live Cds are a great way forward, especially when they can be place don a hd and boot from iso. I was wondering if it would be possible for someone to post consolidated instructions on how to create a minirt_ntfs.gz for a knoppix distro and maybe even others such as kanotix. An earlier post alluded to what is necessary but did not go into enough detail. I'm fairly new to this sort of stuff but I would like to get envolved. Best Regards, Brian
I wish I would have the time to do that. If you know how to access the inside of the initrd file and understand how to patch a linuxrc script, it is quite simple to update the kernel drivers and other tools (busybox, mount,...) to make a ntfs/fromiso version of a initrd file. But a generic step by step instruction procedure is quite hard to write. It is almost a case to case basis, but I will do my best to provide updates ... Cheers, Gilles

OK, I understand, thanks for taking the time to reply.

Regards

Brian

[cpeter]

Hi, I'd like to tell you that I succed boot Knoppix form NTFS, my PC is Acer Travelmate 230 and my HD (all NTFS):
C: hda1 , WindowsXP
D: hda5
E: hda6 , which hold the "knoppix.iso" image file
F: hda7
G: hda8

You need to boot with Grub ,edit "boot.ini" as a lot manual says, and the most important is you need to replace the "initrd" file with NTFS supported.

I am sorry I forget where did I got the file, but just in this forum, just search.

PS: the file may boot Knoppix up to version 3.8.1, and what I have is a 3.9 image, so I couldn't shutdown my laptop properly

[ruymbeke]

...PS: the file may boot Knoppix up to version 3.8.1, and what I have is a 3.9 image, so I couldn't shutdown my laptop properly
If you read carefully my previous posts, you will find:

Actually my 3.8.2 minird_ntfs file also works with 3.9 !!!
...
So to summarize, use the new 3.9 kernel and iso file with the 3.8.2 initrd_ntfs file included in: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip

Cheers, Gilles

[cpeter]

...PS: the file may boot Knoppix up to version 3.8.1, and what I have is a 3.9 image, so I couldn't shutdown my laptop properly
If you read carefully my previous posts, you will read:

Actually my 3.8.2 minird_ntfs file also works with 3.9 !!!
...
So to summarize, use the new 3.9 kernel and iso file with the 3.8.2 initrd_ntfs file included in: http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip

Cheers, Gilles

THX very much!

And the initrd file download url : http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip

PS: Could you please tell me what's the principle of your "intrd_ntfs"? That will be very nice of you.

[ruymbeke]

http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grube.zip contains the base PMI files and the kernel/initrd files for knoppix 3.6,3.7,3.81
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/Knoppix382.zip only contain the kernel/initrd files for knoppix 3.82,3.9 (same files)

...Could you please tell me what's the principle of your "intrd_ntfs"? That will be very nice of you.
As I said previously, I wish I would have the time to do that. If you know how to access the inside of the initrd file and understand how to patch a linuxrc script, it is quite simple to update the kernel drivers and other tools (busybox, mount,...) to make a ntfs/fromiso version of a initrd file. But a generic step by step instruction procedure is quite hard to write. It is almost a case to case basis, but I will do my best to provide updates. BTW I am currently downloading knoppix DVD 4.0 (http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19685&start=10)... Cheers, Gilles

[emiltcho]

Hi,

I've just downloaded and installed the WinPartion PMI with Knoppix 3.8.1 on my Desktop PC under Win XP Pro there was no problem. I am able to choose and start Knoppix 3.8.1 from ISO the file in my C:\BOOT\Knoppix3.81 folder.

On my Notebook (SONY C1 VE) under W2K however, following exact the same schema there is a problem - choosing Start Grub restarts the notebook after some seconds with only blinking cursor on top left of the screen, no grub menu is shown. Adding and choosing the "OLD METHOD" shows nothing - screen is black (PC hangs?) only reset helps.

What am I doing wrong? Please help

Best Regards

Emil Tchekov

[ruymbeke]

... On my Notebook (SONY C1 VE) under W2K however, following exact the same schema there is a problem - choosing Start Grub restarts the notebook after some seconds with only blinking cursor on top left of the screen, no grub menu is shown. Adding and choosing the "OLD METHOD" shows nothing - screen is black (PC hangs?) only reset helps. What am I doing wrong? Please help Best Regards Emil Tchekov
Could you please try this http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grldr and let me know ? Thanks, Gilles

[emiltcho]

Hi again (thank you very much for your help),

Downloaded http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/grldr (137 KB) and replaced the "old" one (171 KB). Got the same effect as by choosing the "Old method" - no more restarts, but hangs on black screen with no message/cursor, only reset helps.

Regards

Emil

[emiltcho]

Hi again,

this seems to be a deeper going problem.

I have installed Win XP Pro on my C1VE and GLDR still not work. Other laptop with same gldr problem under W2K, was able after upgrade to XP pro to boot Knoppix from iso without other changes.

Regards

Emil Tchekov

[ruymbeke]

Finally I got the Knoppix 4.0 minirt_ntfs.gz (almost) working !
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/k40.zip
It boots properly but not all applications are there yet.
I still have a small bug to fix in the linuxrc script which prevent the second KNOPPIX2 cloop to load.
Please be very careful with the "casing" of the ISO path used in the grub menu.lst,
it has to match the Knoppix ISO filename, see my grub menu.lst:
bootfrom=.../boot/knoppix.40/*.ISO (previous knoppix releases were using .../boot/knoppix.39/*.iso)
I will try to post an update asap.
Please give me some feedback.
Cheers, Gilles

[shrek99]

Well done Gilles. However, I am trying to boot from a FAT32 disc, and the new ISO is too big for the 4gb limit. Can someone produce a slightly smaller version of Konoppix 4 that will fit a FAT32 format?

[ruymbeke]

Well done Gilles. However, I am trying to boot from a FAT32 disc, and the new ISO is too big for the 4gb limit. Can someone produce a slightly smaller version of Konoppix 4 that will fit a FAT32 format?
Thank you. It should be possible and probably quite simple to regenerate an ISO image smaller than 2GB by removing the /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX2 file which only adds some extra features as eclipse and open office. But although I can do it, my server cannot handle such a large file nor bandwidth...
Regards, Gilles

Edit: I have done it. Do you have a ftp server I could store it to ?

[ruymbeke]

I found my bugs and I finally got the Knoppix 4.0 minirt_ntfs.gz working !
9GB of preinstalled software out of the 4GB DVD ISO file. Thank you Klaus !
http://s119307663.onlinehome.us/kno40.zip
Please be very careful with the "casing" of the ISO path used in the grub menu.lst,
it has to match the Knoppix ISO filename, see my grub menu.lst:
bootfrom=.../boot/knoppix.40/*.ISO (previous knoppix releases were using .../boot/knoppix.39/*.iso)
Please give me some feedback.
Cheers, Gilles

[knpxuser]

Gilles,

Just wanted to let you know, with your posted info and files, I was able to get the following working:

boot from hard drive on IBM T40 (knoppix.381)

boot from Lexar 1GB Jumpdrive on T42 (knoppix.39)

This is awesome !!!

Thanks for all the hard work ! :D

[hp_tc1100]

Hi, my tablet will not boot Knoppix from a USB cdrom, and I need some help getting the correct commands set in my grub.conf file to boot from my hard drive. I am dual booting my tablet with grub in the MBR. Here is a listing of my partitions:

hd0,0 : ntfs - c: (WinXP)
hd0,1 : ext2fs - / CentOS (Linux) - /dev/hda3
hd0,2 : ext2fs - /boot CentOS (Linux) - /dev/hda2
hd0,4 : linux swap
hd0,5 : fat - d: (WinXP) & /opt (Linux) - /dev/hda6

Where would be the best place to put the Knoppix iso file, or do I need it if I put the loopback file on the fat partition? My grub.conf looks like this:

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +!
title CentOS (Linux)
root (hdo,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-11.EL ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-11.EL.img
title Knoppix (Linux)
kernel ?????
initrd ?????

If I don't need the .iso, then where do the othe boot files reside and how do I point to them? Sorry if this is off the topic of USB boot drives.

-Jon

[ruymbeke]

Hi, my tablet will not boot Knoppix from a USB cdrom, and I need some help getting the correct commands set in my grub.conf file to boot from my hard drive. I am dual booting my tablet with grub in the MBR. Here is a listing of my partitions:
hd0,0 : ntfs - c: (WinXP)
hd0,1 : ext2fs - / CentOS (Linux) - /dev/hda3
hd0,2 : ext2fs - /boot CentOS (Linux) - /dev/hda2
hd0,4 : linux swap
hd0,5 : fat - d: (WinXP) & /opt (Linux) - /dev/hda6
Where would be the best place to put the Knoppix iso file, or do I need it if I put the loopback file on the fat partition? My grub.conf looks like this:
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +!
title CentOS (Linux)
root (hdo,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-11.EL ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-11.EL.img
title Knoppix (Linux)
kernel ?????
initrd ?????
If I don't need the .iso, then where do the othe boot files reside and how do I point to them? Sorry if this is off the topic of USB boot drives.
-Jon
Hello,
You can put the iso, kernel and initrd_NTFS files where ever you like, ntfs, ext2/3 or fat. You just need to update the menu.lst of grub, cf examples of menu.lst within my zip files. If you boot from ntfs you need my compilation of grub which includes the ntfs patch. But in all cases you need to use the initrd_NTFS to boot from the iso file even though you are not booting from a ntfs partition. This initrd_NTFS ramdisk has been modified to boot from the iso file. If you don't need to boot from the iso, you can still boot from the loopback KNOPPIX file, cf knoppix cheatcodes and doc.
Hope this helps,
Gilles

[hp_tc1100]

Thank you.

Using your initrd_NTFS file I was able to point my bootloader to the .iso, and it is good to go.

The three lines for me, practically identical to the menu.lst found in your grube.zip files, were:

kernel (hd0,5)/knoppix/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda6/knoppix/knoppix.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768 noprompt
initrd (hd0,5)/knoppix/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot

...after I had decided where to keep my knoppix files.

Bye!

[Keilaron]

Since I'm running a server, I want to make sure I get everything right before I attempt this, so I hope you don't mind that I ask some specific questions :)

This is my current set-up:

#mount
[...]
/dev/hda5 on /cdrom type ext2 (ro)
/UNIONFS/dev/hda6 on /ramdisk/home type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,usrquota)
/UNIONFS/dev/hda1 on /mnt/hda1 type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/UNIONFS/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sda1 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,umask=000,uid=1000,gid=1000)
Right now, I'm running Knoppix 3.9 - the computer booted off the CD, then read the loopback file off /dev/hda5.
I want to switch to Knoppix 4.0 if possible; the problem is, I'm a little short on partitions (or space on the partitions, depending which way you look at it). Thus the first question:
- If one loopback file (as the 4.0 DVD has two) is on /dev/hda1, will Knoppix find the second on /dev/sda1?
I currently have the first (DVD) loopback file in /mnt/hda1/KNOPPIX.
- What do I want my grub kernel line to be? Something like this?

kernel (hd0,0)/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us vga=normal [more cheatcodes]
- Using this grub set-up will make the harddrive bootable, right? (I've only used LILO, automatically set up for me, before. Sorry for the stupid questions. :oops: )

Thanks for your time!

[ruymbeke]

Since I'm running a server, I want to make sure I get everything right before I attempt this, so I hope you don't mind that I ask some specific questions :)
This is my current set-up:

#mount
[...]
/dev/hda5 on /cdrom type ext2 (ro)
/UNIONFS/dev/hda6 on /ramdisk/home type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,usrquota)
/UNIONFS/dev/hda1 on /mnt/hda1 type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/UNIONFS/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sda1 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,umask=000,uid=1000,gid=1000)
Right now, I'm running Knoppix 3.9 - the computer booted off the CD, then read the loopback file off /dev/hda5.
I want to switch to Knoppix 4.0 if possible; the problem is, I'm a little short on partitions (or space on the partitions, depending which way you look at it). Thus the first question:
- If one loopback file (as the 4.0 DVD has two) is on /dev/hda1, will Knoppix find the second on /dev/sda1?
I currently have the first (DVD) loopback file in /mnt/hda1/KNOPPIX.
- What do I want my grub kernel line to be? Something like this?

kernel (hd0,0)/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us vga=normal [more cheatcodes]
- Using this grub set-up will make the harddrive bootable, right? (I've only used LILO, automatically set up for me, before. Sorry for the stupid questions. :oops: )
Thanks for your time!
Well, First I don't remember if the linuxrc script (inside the initrd ramdisk) can handle different locations (disks) for the two KNOPPIX and KNOPPIX2 loopback files. This script is quite complex and looks like a patch work, so some times it is easier to just try than to reverse engineer what has been done. In any case you don't need the KNOPPIX2 loopback file to boot, it is only required at run time to have access to the extra applications which couldn't fit in the 2GB of the first KNOPPIX loop back file. Or in other words, use the first KNOPPIX loop back file to boot, and then you can mount (manually or using the knoppix.sh shell script) the second KNOPPIX2 loopback file using UNIONFS. My understanding is that if there is no need to have it mounted at boot time from the linuxrc script, just mount it later...
Now about your grub menu.lst config file, you still need to provide the kernel name as the first argument after the kernel keyword, and the Knoppix 4.0 kernel name is linux. So your menu.lst should include something like this: kernel (hd0,0)/linux fromhd=/dev/hda1 knoppix_dir=KNOPPIX knoppix_name=KNOPPIX ramdisk_size=100000 ...
Hope this will help. My guess is that it will require more than a single reboot, so please be carefull with you server. And remember that grub have an interactive mode where you can edit (e key) temporarely the config file or just run commands (c key) from the grub prompt. This is very handy to correct a typo when experimenting and still have a bootable system...
Best Regards, Gilles

[Keilaron]

Thanks, Gilles!

Actually, it worked without any problems whatsoever! Once I found out about grub-install, the whole thing was a breeze.
Installed grub, rebooted the server, and everything came back up without a hitch. =D

(EDIT: Well, actually, KNOPPIX2 wasn't auto-mounted, but I'm not sure I'm even going to be using it anyway.)