boot knoppix methods

[yohanman]

Hello,

I have the following problem at my school.
We work with windows computers and i can't get knoppix tor run on them because of the following restrictions.

-Bios has 'boot from cdrom' disabled
-bios is password protected
-can't boot with a bootdisk...that has also been disabled
-can't get into dos from windows (loadlin doesn't work in a dosbox)

Now what can i do to get Knoppix running ?

[Henk Poley]

can't get into dos from windows (loadlin doesn't work in a dosbox)
What kind of Windows? Win98 should be "easy" to circumvent.

[Dave_Bechtel]

--If your school is **that** locked down, you will prolly have to ASK for permission to run Knoppix. Talk to the person in charge of computer lab and ask if s/he can enable CD boot.

--If the school administration doesn't want to deal w/ you, you'll prolly be better off finding another computer to run it on.


Hello,

I have the following problem at my school.
We work with windows computers and i can't get knoppix tor run on them because of the following restrictions.

-Bios has 'boot from cdrom' disabled
-bios is password protected
-can't boot with a bootdisk...that has also been disabled
-can't get into dos from windows (loadlin doesn't work in a dosbox)

Now what can i do to get Knoppix running ?

[Henk Poley]

--If your school is **that** locked down, you will prolly have to ASK for permission to run Knoppix. Talk to the person in charge of computer lab and ask if s/he can enable CD boot.
Well these are basic protections against script kiddies. I know/knew quite a few people who think it's funny booting a public machine of an infected bootfloppy.

And AFAIK Loadlin doesn't work in a DOS box by design.

But again, please consider contacting some 'higher' people. IT teachers are more likely to explain how to do it than to directly go to the network manager.

[yohanman]

I already tried contacting the administrators, but there arent any !
The computers have been configured like this and conected trough a network.
Another securitey measure is that after a reboot the computer returns to his original state...all the crap and changes are made undone.
This is really nice...but has also a few disadventages, because after a reboot all the files you were workin at wil be gone !

This is one of the reasons why i would like to run knoppix (usb memmorystick) and also because compatability with my home computer.

I don't want to harm the computer or so, but i want to be able to use the advantages of Linux / knoppix at school.

These computers run indeed under win98.

[Henk Poley]

These computers run indeed under win98.
Have you tried any of these simple ones? Hope the HD is restored at the DOS or GUI stage of the Windows boot sequence.

DON'T try them if you do NOT know what they do! please... 8)

- "boot to DOS" in shutdown menu.
- Pressing F8 (or F4) at boot while "loading Windows 98..."
- MSDOS.SYS:
-> BootKeys=1 -or-
-> BootMulti=1 -or-
-> BootGUI=0
- create an empty WIN.BAT in c:\windows\ (batch files are executed before .com and .exe)

When you are at plain DOS prompt Loadlin should work. Don't ask me how to invoke it...

There are more, as always...

[IoN_PuLse]

Those machines are most likely running DeepFreeze, which is a windows product that "restores" a machine to a certain state on boot, however the only thing you need for Knoppix is to get into the BIOS and set the CDROM as one of the first Boot devices. If you can't get into the BIOS, you're out of luck.

Or you could look up some BIOS password backdoors.

[yohanman]

I did try to skip config.sys autoexec.bat by pressing F8 but this has also been disabled.
Restarting in dos by shutting down windows can't be done, the option doesn't appear in the menu for shutting down.

I could change files like msdos.sys but that would be restored when the computers reboot.

What exactly is and does DeepFreeze ?
Is it vissible in the taskmanager (ctrl-alt-del) ?
How to find out if that is the program that is running ?

[numbski]

In c:\windows, look for a file named "Exit to DOS.pif"

Is it there? If it is, use it. :)

[Henk Poley]

I found a simple solution to your loadlin problem, named UX (http://www.fmf.nl/~ewoud/linux/)

[yohanman]

Thanks !

This looks exactly what i need !
I'll give it a try on monday (schools are closed in the weekend ;) and let you know if it works.

Thanks everybody.

[yohanman]

Bummer....UX doesn't work.

I tried it at home before trying it at school, but it doesn't work here on win98.
Ux is an old program and that's why it won't work i think.

[Cefalu of Italy]

any of you guys know how to get into deepfreezes thawspace from knoppix? It mounts the main hd partition (hda1) but it doesn't mount the thawspace (t:).

[L2Cache]

You could put smart boot manager on a floppy and see if it will boot the cdrom drive:
http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/