laptop won't recognize CD

[rdaneel]

Hi all

I am trying to run Knoppix (3.4 & 3.7) on an old pentium 1 laptop with 40MB RAM. The laptop is sufficiently old that it can only have either the CD drive or the floppy drive in at one time. When I start up the system with the CD in the drive, it just hangs at the point when it should begin to boot Knoppix. My BIOS is set up correctly; I can boot PHLAK without problems and Knoppix STD without too much trouble. Knoppix 3.4 and 3.7, however, won't work at all. What is going on? Any ideas regarding what I should do? Thanks!

R. Daneel Olivaw

[Harry Kuhman]

When I start up the system with the CD in the drive, it just hangs at the point when it should begin to boot Knoppix. ...
First of all, I'm not sure what the point when it should begin to boot Knoppix is . If it's after the Knoppix boot prompt comes up, then I'm guessing that you need to find the right cheat codes. The versions that you mentioned seem to boot very agressively and need cheat codes on many old systems. You might try a copy of 3.1 if you can still find it; it should boot with much less need for cheat codes. To use your current CDs, try combinations of any and all noscsi, acpi=off and nodma, all prefixed with knoppix or knoppix26 (I would start with knoppix rather than knoppix26 for an older system).

[rdaneel]

Sorry, Harry --

The POST screen from the bios just remains in place. No Knoppix anything. At this point, PHLAK or STD took over and presented me with the screen at which I could enter cheatcodes. I did have to use a good deal of cheat codes to get PHLAK to run OK; with STD I couldn't get X to straighten out completely, but with Knoppix I don't even get to a point where I can enter cheat codes.

[Harry Kuhman]

The POST screen from the bios just remains in place. No Knoppix anything. At this point, PHLAK or STD took over and presented me with the screen at which I could enter cheatcodes. I did have to use a good deal of cheat codes to get PHLAK to run OK; with STD I couldn't get X to straighten out completely, but with Knoppix I don't even get to a point where I can enter cheat codes.
Well, cheat codes are not going to help much yet. Are you sure that the burn is a good one? Did you check the MD5 sum? Did you boot the CD on another system? Did you burn it at 4x (sometimes a faster burnt CD will boot OK on one system but not on another)?

Also, some very old systems of this vintage had a lot of problems booting some but not all bootable CD's. You might try Smart Boot Manager to help you force a boot if all of the above are OK. Normally I would suggest starting with it on floppy, but your either/ or on the floppy and CD drive make that a problem. You should be able to install SBM on the MBR and use it that way though (actually much easier to use than fooling with a floppy). If that doesn't work or you just don't like SBM for some reason, you should be able to remove it with a simple FDISK /MBR command from a DOS shell. I rather expect it's the CD though , since I would think PHLAK and STD would boot pretty much the same as Knoppix.

[rdaneel]

Harry -

The checksum is fine. The PHLAK CD was burned at 52 speed, but I tried a knoppix CD burned at 1 speed anyway. It didn't work in the laptop, but it did work fine in a more modern PC. I then proceeded to install SBM in the laptop; that is nice to have but it did not recognize the CD drive when Knoppix was in it. When PHLAK was in it, the CD drive appeared on the list, I selected it, and it began to boot PHLAK. Have you got any other ideas about what might be going on before I just use it as a paperweight?

Thanks

[Harry Kuhman]

Harry -

The checksum is fine. The PHLAK CD was burned at 52 speed, but I tried a knoppix CD burned at 1 speed anyway. It didn't work in the laptop, but it did work fine in a more modern PC. I then proceeded to install SBM in the laptop; that is nice to have but it did not recognize the CD drive when Knoppix was in it. When PHLAK was in it, the CD drive appeared on the list, I selected it, and it began to boot PHLAK. Have you got any other ideas about what might be going on before I just use it as a paperweight?

Thanks

I did not mean to imply that all high speed burns are bad, but many do have problems booting and I find it best to burn at lower speeds, particularly when you are trying to eliminate potential sources of a problem.

Wow, what a strange problem. It is completely different than any of my experience with SBM. Sometimes with SBM I have to force a rescan (CTRL-I, if I remember right, but it's in the built-in help), but I can't imagine why your system with SBM could see the CD drive if it has PHLAK in it and not if the same drive has the Knoppix CD in it. Heck, on my system SBM sees the CD drive not only if Knoppix is in it, but even if it's empty (it gives a red box that says "Disk Error 0xAA" if I try to boot it that way, but it lets me try. Here's a strange experiment I would ask you to do. Not that you would want to do this all of the time, but doing it once might provide some insight that I'm currently lacking: Put the PHLAK CD in, start, confirm that you can see the CD drive in SBM as you indicated that you can. At thst point you shouold be able to open the drive and put in the Knoppix CD, and then tell SBM to boot from CD. Does that work? Keep a close watch for any clues that might show up in the boot process to imply why SMB can't see the drive if Knoppix is there when you start. If this does work, when you are done you might want to try rebooting rather than just shutting down and see if SBM can see the Knoppix CD on the reboot. But none of this makes much sense.

One extra thought: I don't know why your system would have even looked at the CD's by the time SBM boots. If you have a BIOS setting and it is set to boot from CD before hard drive, change that and make the hard drive the very first thing that you boot from. You should never have to change it after that, since SBM can pick the boot device for you. Maybe looking at the CD first is somehow affecting you if the KNoppix CD can't boot under that BIOS.

[rdaneel]

OK, here's what's up:

Tried control-I. That worked just fine. Then I tried to boot: I got the Disk Error 0xAA. I re-burned the CD: no good. I tried it also with Morphix: Disk Error 0xAA. I changed the boot order to boot first from the hard drive -- but then even PHLAK did not work from SBM. Now it gets messy: the first time I tried to boot from the CD-ROM selection on the SBM menu, it displayed a box that said, "Save changes? (y/n)" I said, "y" and it presented me with the disk error. Now, PHLAK boots differently: I cannot boot it from SBM at all, no matter what boot order I have! Instead, if I set the BIOS to boot from the CD drive first, PHLAK takes off without even going to SBM, and if I set the BIOS to boot from the hard disk first, I cannot boot anything from SBM. What have I done?

[rdaneel]

Also, I tried letting the SBM recognize PHLAK and then switching disks; I was greeted by Disk Error 0xAA. Add to the list of live-CD distros that will not boot: Damn Small 0.9.1, Feather 0.7.1 and Morphix Light-GUI.

Maybe it's hopeless. :)

[Harry Kuhman]

..... and if I set the BIOS to boot from the hard disk first, I cannot boot anything from SBM. What have I done?
I'm not sure. I expect that Phlak boots OK when the CD is first in the boot order because you have a BIOS that is able to boot some but not all bootable CD's. I certainly have a BIOS like this, it's in an older system (was old enough that it couldn't boot CD's at all, but when I got a BIOS update for it for Y2K it gained the ability to boot CDs, but isn't quite smart enough to boot all of the ones it should be able to without the help of SBM or XOSL). As to what the SBM problem is I do not know. You might try another Ctrl-I. You might try booting SBM from a floppy and seeing if it behaves any differently there. You say "I cannot boot anything from SBM", but I'm not sure that means the same to you that it would mean to me. Are you saying that you can't boot anything on the hard disk (or even a floppy) when you boot into SMB either, or do you just mean that you can't boot a CD?

This sounds like the kind of thing that is best fixed by getting a nice warm cup of coffee or tea, sitting down and thinking things out. I've run SBM on many systems (and XOS on many others) without seeing any problems like this.

[rdaneel]

Sorry -- "anything" = any live CD, whether it boots normally or not. There isn't anything currently on the hard drive (which is why I am doing all this garbage in the first place :P ), but the floppy disk seems to run OK with a DOS bootdisk.

This may not be the forum to pursue this problem in -- it could be just a crappy CD drive or BIOS and not a true Linux issue. Since I am a relative Linux n00b, however, I have to ask: what, if anything, is different between how PHLAK and Knoppix-STD begin the boot process and how Knoppix 3.x does so? You said,


I expect that Phlak boots OK when the CD is first in the boot order because you have a BIOS that is able to boot some but not all bootable CD's. I certainly have a BIOS like this . . . it isn't quite smart enough to boot all of the ones it should be able to without the help of SBM or XOSL.

What is the determining factor in whether it boots from the CD or not on yours? Is there any fundamental difference in the way the OS starts to "unpack" itself, so to speak?

R. Daneel

[Harry Kuhman]

....What is the determining factor in whether it boots from the CD or not on yours? Is there any fundamental difference in the way the OS starts to "unpack" itself, so to speak?
I'm not certain. I don't think it has anything to do with unpacking anything or even with how the programs are structured, it seems to be failing on a more fundamental level than this, before any of it ever happens. I can tell you that my system that needs XOSL (or SBM) to boot all CD's had a real poor track record before I started using it, and would fail on more than just Knoppix. Even some DOS and related disks would not boot. It might end up being something as simple as ISO9660 vs Joliet or some other file system issue. Maybe if you build up two stacks of CD's, one that will boot and one that doesn't, you can figure it out (and, of course, maybe not). My solution was XOSL and I started working on other problems when I found that.

[Delian]

HI,
I have an old Dell Inspiron 3800.
I was having an issue where it would detect my hard drive and cdrom and then hang while trying to boot the cdrom. I used the cheat code mentioned in a previous post - knoppix nodma, and it boots fine.

Just an FYI for others.

Thanks.


Delian

[rdaneel]

Based on the two stacks method, I'm thinking maybe syslinux (PHLAK & others) vs. isolinux (Knoppix & others)? I was, however, able to find an old docking station for the laptop, and I can now use more than one drive, so I ended up installing Slackware instead. Thanks for all your help, though, Harry.

R. Daneel Olivaw