Live CD in CD-ROM Drive not recognised when trying to boot.

[TrevorM]

Hello - I'm brand new to Knoppix, so please bear with me!

I have Knoppix 3.7.1 on Live CD. Just running the CD in the CR-ROM drive brings up the html welcome page, and all the links work fine.

However, when I try to boot from the Live CD, the CD simply isn't being recognised by the CD-ROM drive. The full hierarchy seems to be on the CD - the Boot folder contains an Isolinux folder which in turn contains 3.97Mb. The KNOPPIX folder is 694Mb and contains and Images folder and several other files, of which KNOPPIX is the main one.

I have set up my bios to show the CD-ROM drive as the 1st bootable device. The computer does spend several seconds looking for a bootable record on the CD-ROM before passing on and booting up in Windows 2000 Professional as usual.

I'm using an ATAPI 24x CD-ROM drive.

Any help or guidance appreciated.

Many thanks.

[fingers99]

At first glance, this looks like you didn't burn the .iso as an image, but rather burnt a data CD with the iso on it. Any error messages? Can you try with the other boot devides disabled in the bios?

[TrevorM]

Thanks for coming back.

I didn't actual burn th CD myself - I bought it ready-cooked!

There are no error messages - the CD is simply ignored.

I have tried with the HD as the 3rd bootable source (behind Floppy/CD & CD/Floppy), but was a little nervous of attempting to boot with no source designated other than the CD-ROM. What would be the consequence of booting with no source selected if the CD refused to respond?

Cheers.

[UnderScore]

There are some PCs with CDROMs & BIOSs that will not boot a Knoppix greater than version 3.3 beacause the CDROM boot initialization code was changed. Please let us know your PCs specs to the best of your ability. If it turns out that your PC is one of those non-working PCs, then http://btmgr.webframe.org/ Smart Boot Manager can help. It is a boot floppy that allows you to choose boot non-conforming CDROMs.
I hope this helps.
James

[Harry Kuhman]

At first glance, this looks like you didn't burn the .iso as an image, but rather burnt a data CD with the iso on it. ....
No, the fact that it causes the autorun file to be evoked when inserted into Windows shows that it was burnt properly. I would suspect the BIOS or a need to use SBM.

[TrevorM]

Thanks, James/Harry –

Hopefully this info will give you some idea of my system.

Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4 (build 2195)
267 MHz Intel Pentium II
ATAPI CD-ROM DRIVE-24X
3.5" Floppy drive
384 Mb RAM

I’ve had a look at Smart Boot Manager – I’m sure it’s excellent and easy to work with, but at the moment it all looks double-dutch to me. Maybe I’m a bit thick, but even the Simple User Guide seemed anything but “simple”!

If it comes to it, do I download a binary file with addons or a “main package” and addons? Can you tell from my system info which way I should go?

I’m gathering from what I’ve seen on the SBM site that I would load the SBM floppy AND my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD-ROM into their respective drives, then use the floppy to fire up the CD. Is that a reasonable overview of the procedure?

Any thoughts very welcome – sorry to be so vague about all this…

[Harry Kuhman]

I’m gathering from what I’ve seen on the SBM site that I would load the SBM floppy AND my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD-ROM into their respective drives, then use the floppy to fire up the CD. Is that a reasonable overview of the procedure?…
Basically with SBM you have to options:
1) The safest is to make a SBM floppy. You download the installed, RUN it from a "DOS" command shell (under Windows is fine) and pass it a few switches to write a floppy (run it without any switches for a list of switch options). Then you can boot that floppy and use it to boot any bootable CD, Knoppix or anything else.

2) The easiest way is to just install SBM to your hard drive's MBR. Done exactly as above, just change one of the switches used. After that when you boot the hard drive you get a SMB menu and can pick to boot a hard drive partition or a CD drive (or even a floppy).
The SBM menu is a little knunky and ugly, but it works. Some thing a lot nicer looking and with a lot more features is XOSL. I like to install XOSL to it's own small partition (the author's recommendation to install it to the Windows partition can be safely ignored). Either XOSL or SBM should do what you need.

[TrevorM]

I'm sorry - I know it must be me - but I really don't understand any of the above.

What does "You download the installed, RUN it from a "DOS" command shell (under Windows is fine) and pass it a few switches..." mean?

Essentially, I guess I want to know which of the SBM files I download to floppy? Then, having done that, do I just use the floppy to boot the KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD? I'd like to think it was that simple.

Thanks in anticipation - remember, you're really dealing with Dumbo at this end!

[Harry Kuhman]

Essentially, I guess I want to know which of the SBM files I download to floppy?
You do not download it to a floppy. What you download is an installer that makes a bootable floppy for you. To make the floppy you need to pass the program a few switches (aka command line options), so you don't just click on it in Windows (if you do you'll just see a quick flash and nothing will seem to happen). You need to bring up a command prompt, DOS shell, or whatever it's called in 2000 (I don't use 2000 and MS calls it different things in different versions of Windows)

[TrevorM]

Thanks ever so much for all the help, guys.

I think I'm going to have to leave it awhile until I'm a little more experienced!

[Harry Kuhman]

Thanks ever so much for all the help, guys.

I think I'm going to have to leave it awhile until I'm a little more experienced!
It's not really that hard, and you get experience by doing. If you think you are too green then I would suggest that you could stay away from he MBR install as well as XOLS (although I have talked friends through an XOSL install over the phone, even when they didn't follow the instructions and got "creative"). But there is no risk with a floppy install. If you ask I'll be glad to try to answer your questions, I just don't know what more to tell you.

[TrevorM]

OK guys, so here’s where I’m at.

I downloaded sbootmgr.dsk (it’s SBM 3.7.1 – coincidence!) from http://linux.simple.be/tools/sbm , and saved it to floppy as an image using a little utility called Diskwriter, which I found at http://www.daansystems.com/freestuff/

The result was great, so far as Smart Boot Manager was concerned. When I booted up with the floppy in place, SBM kicked in and I could get all the screens shown on SBM’s own “Screen Shots” page. So, I knew I was on the right track.

The problem was – it didn’t work! When trying to boot my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD, SBM came up with the red message “Disk error! 0x01”.

I’m getting a little worried about two aspects of my CD.

First, is it actually an image? When I explore it, the root directory is as follows:

boot
KNOPPIX
autorun.bat
autorun.inf
autorun.pif
cdrom.ico
index.html

The boot folder contains the isolinux folder with the following contents & file sizes:

boot.cat 2,048
boot.msg 139
boot-en.msg 139
f2 1,532
f2-en 1,532
f3 1,675
f3-en 1,675
german.kbd 256
isolinux.bin 9,404
isolinux.cfg 2,569
linux24 1,018,412
linux26 1,458,313
logo.16 10,048
memtest 86,980
minirt24.gz 803,216
minirt26.gz 769,909

The KNOPPIX folder itself contains an image folder -

knoppix-header.gif 11,143
knoppix-logo.gif 15,227
rule.gif 317
sidefill.gif 898
topleft.gif 8,369
topright.gif 4,615

and these files:

background.png 912,227
index.html 8,869
index_dk.html 10,811
index_en.html 8,404
index_es.html 12,068
index_fr.html 9,852
index_it.html 10,625
index_jp.html 10,815
index_nl.html 10,672
index_ru.html 13,368
KNOPPIX 727,172,362
knoppix-cheatcodes.txt 9,946
KNOPPIX-FAQ.txt 10,354
KNOPPIX-FAQ-EN.txt 9,339
KNOPPIX-FAQ-ES.txt 9,741
KNOPPIX-FAQ-FR.txt 11,000
KNOPPIX-FAQ-IT.txt 10,751
KNOPPIX-FAQ-NL.txt 9,735
knoppix-version 15
LICENSE.txt 18,487
md5sums 2,666
README_Security.txt 2,207

Are these files showing up as they should on a disk image? Or is this actually just a data CD?

The second thing is, I’m a little bit worried about the integrity of my CD.

I thought I might use Nero to try a re-burn as a disk image. However, I found that I couldn’t burn direct from my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD; it hung on the main KNOPPIX file with about 10 per cent still to go, flagging up “invalid MS-DOS function”.

I’ve even tried using XCOPY to copy the contents of the KNOPPIX CD onto my Hard Drive – I thought maybe I could burn from there - but even XCOPY couldn’t complete the transfer of the big KNOPPIX file.

So, do I have a faulty CD?

I guess that has to be my last question for the moment. Sorry to have gone on at such length, and thanks again for your time.

[pureone]

no by the looks of it your cd is correct. if you was to burn it incorrectly (data disk) then the cd would just have the iso file on it.

burning it as a image uncompresses the iso and creates them files. i have never used smb so i can not help you with that sadly. but im sure harry or another member of the forum will beable to help you.

[OErjan]

have you checked the md5sum?
if not do so.

[TrevorM]

Sorry, what's the md5sum?

[OErjan]

here you find a good description of md5sum ad how to use it.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Downloading_FAQ#Q:_What_are_these_strange_MD5_file s_that_accompany_the_ISO_CD_images.3F
hope it clears things up. if something is wrong with the iso it is likely to show up.
disks can be md5summed aswell (not all it depends some HOW they where burned), it is worth a shot.

[TrevorM]

Thanks OErian, I'll give it a try.

[TrevorM]

OK, I've downloaded md5sum, and run it on my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD. The results are interesting, though I'm not sure how to interpret them.

Asking the program to generate on all files (including KNOPPIX/md5sums) gives me the green light, with one exception; KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX itself.

It isn't that I get a red error icon; the program stops generating on KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX at 95% and never comes off orange (processing). From there, all I can do is Ctl/Alt/Del to redress the situation, because the prog's "Cancel" button doesn't work.

Where does this leave me? Does it indicate that I have a corrupt CD?

Oh Boy....

[pureone]

no you check the md5sum of the iso not the burned cd.

[TrevorM]

Sorry, pureone - where's the iso?

[Harry Kuhman]

Sorry, pureone - where's the iso?
It is the file who's name ends in ISO that you burned to make the CD.

[TrevorM]

Greatly embarrasing, guys!

Turns out that my CD-ROM drive was faulty. I've replaced it today, and the KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD runs and boots fine.

Really sorry for all the questions, and thanks again for being so patient.

Now to have a good look at KNOPPIX...