How to boot from disk

[gabriele]

My computer seems to have a hardware problem that kills boots from CD. While I take care of this problem, I would like to boot from a floppy disk.

What files do you put on the floppy and where do you find them? I was not able to locate the KNOPPIX/boot.img mentioned on the main page.

Any help will be appreciated.
____________________
Gabriele Giommarini

[Harry Kuhman]

My computer seems to have a hardware problem that kills boots from CD. .....
Bloat has grown the kernel too large to fit on a floppy. Most people who can not set their BIOS to boot from CD are using a program like SBM (http://btmgr.webframe.org/) or XOSL (http://www2.arnes.si/~fkomar/xosl.org/) to boot the CD. What is this hardware problem that you speak of? If we know what the problem is we may be able to tell you how to work around it.

[gabriele]

The problem is that somehow my CD drive messes up disks that are meant to boot the system; it did it with two legal disks burnt with XP Pro and now it did it again with two disks I burnt with Knoppix. I have set the BIOS to boot from CD first.

As the system boots, it reads the CD first, the blank screen shows a hyphen blinking a few times, and then it bypasses it to boot Windows XP. An IT professional had told me he thought it was a hardware problem. In case it was a software problem, I tried uninstalling the driver for the CD drive and then reinstalling it, to no avail.

So as I brainstorm about how to solve this problem (other than having the CD driver replaced), I wanted to boot Knoppix from a floppy disk. I read that there is a file you can put on a floppy that will direct the system to the Knoppix CD. While it may not work, it's worth giving it a shot.

Any ideas and/or suggestions are welcome.

____________________________________
Gabriele Giommarini

[Harry Kuhman]

... In case it was a software problem, I tried uninstalling the driver for the CD drive and then reinstalling it, to no avail..... Can't be a driver problem, the OS (and thus the drivers) are not loaded at that point in the boot process. Only software it could be is the BIOS. Sure sounds like a strange problem. The CD otherwise works fine?


... I read that there is a file you can put on a floppy that will direct the system to the Knoppix CD. While it may not work, it's worth giving it a shot.
That sounds like SBM, I gave you the link above.

[gabriele]

I have not checked either of the two Knoppix CDs I tried to use on a different computer, but I did try to run two Windows XP Pro installation CDs on another computer after two failed attempts at running them on my computer, and they had been turned into coasters. Again, the installation CDs for Windows XP were perfectly legal (the license holder had burned them for me as part of their license agreement).

I'll try the Smart Boot Manager to boot Knoppix. I appreciate your help.

[Harry Kuhman]

I have not checked either of the two Knoppix CDs I tried to use on a different computer, but I did try to run two Windows XP Pro installation CDs on another computer after two failed attempts at running them on my computer, and they had been turned into coasters. Again, the installation CDs for Windows XP were perfectly legal (the license holder had burned them for me as part of their license agreement).

I'll try the Smart Boot Manager to boot Knoppix. I appreciate your help.
I guess that there could be a problem where a CD drive destroys writeable media if it somehow writes when it should read. Never heard of a real case of it though. You seem to have done some of the steps that would prove that something is happening to CD with your above tests, but hardly enough. I would burn CD's on a different system (or get some burnt CDs) and see if I could read them on the "different computer" above, then and only then try them in the suspect computer. Then, if the suspect computer fails, see if they can still be read in the "different computer" or if they are now bad. And if bad a tool like ISOBUSTER might give you some insight on what is now wrong with the CD. Of course, I would look at the CD closely to be sure it wasn't becoming extremely scratched, but I would expect you have already done that.

There is also a chance that you are writing the CD too fast; I always recommend 4x or as slow as the drive will go (a few new drives seem to burn no slower than 8x). Higher burn speeds do cause problems. See http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17788
and
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=78925#78925
for examples, search the forums for the words burn and speed for many more. And, of course, try SBM. You might not even need it once you resolve the other issues, but it will not hurn and will avoid any BIOS CD boot problems.

[gabriele]

Thanks for the pointers. This information may help me solve this problem.

Although I have not done some of the test myself, an IT person did some for me. The college where I teach is licensed to issue Windows XP Pro CDs to its faculty members. That's how I upgraded my Windows XP Home to Pro (at that point, my computer read boot CDs). But when SP2 messed up my ports, I decided to reinstall Windows XP Pro+SP2 (new disk) from scratch. It was at that point that the boot problem started.

I took my laptop to my office and an IT technician tested the CDs ruined by my computer on my office computer (to which I do not have administrative access). The disks were in fact coasters. He then burned a third XP Pro CD and tested it in one of his computers, which proved the CD worked. I have not iserted that CD in my computer just in case, and I am not sure at what speed he burns CDs.

Now, he claims the third XP Pro CD he burned worked fine, and I took his claims in good faith (but with a pinch of skepticism, I must admit).
So in a way the boot CDs that don't run in my computer run well on a different computer, but I don't have first-hand experience of that.

I do not understand what the CD drive does to a CD that has been written on and closed. In theory, a closed CD is no longer R but only ROM. If I can't solve this problem, I'll have to take my computer to a service center, but that'll be the last resort.

As it is, I'm looking forward to running Linux, and the chance to run it from a CD sounds fantastic. I'm going to try the boot floppy-to-CD route first. Since I still have the Knoppix files I downloaded, I can burn as many CDs as I need till I get this to run.

Thanks for your help.

[Simpkin]

I have recently purchased a new computer & have a copy of Freeduc 1.5 burn't to a re-writeable disc, It seems to boot fine on my other computers but when I select to boot from my disc drive the screen goes blank & about a minute later it proceeds to load Windows XP. my disc drives are ASUS DVD-E616P3H & a LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1633S are these drive known for problems when booting Freeduc?

Can anyone help me?

[rwcitek]

I have recently purchased a new computer & have a copy of Freeduc 1.5 burn't to a re-writeable disc, It seems to boot fine on my other computers but when I select to boot from my disc drive the screen goes blank & about a minute later it proceeds to load Windows XP. my disc drives are ASUS DVD-E616P3H & a LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1633S are these drive known for problems when booting Freeduc?
So you never see the Knoppix boot splash screen, correct? If that's the case, I'd suspect that the CD-ROM can't read the CD properly. Try burning a new copy at a slower speed.

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org/

[cluedout]

I am having a similar problem hopefully my information can help lead to a conclusion
I also realize this is an older post but I could not find any other post with a solution or similar problem
I have tried multiple computers and burning at an extremely slow speed. I have also done the knoppix testcd and everything is ok on that. When I tried useing smb I got the message smbk bad! I get the same blinking Hyphen or Underscore and it then skips to boot up windows xp. Some other background if it helps is that I CAN boot the install/recovery console for Windows XP but I never see the Boot screen for knoppix on this one computer. Just before I had a registry/SP2 problem I installed Quake III on the Windows HD disk with no problems.
Thanks in advance

I'm as Clueless as a baby in a topless bar!

[Harry Kuhman]

...I have also done the knoppix testcd and everything is ok on that. When I tried useing smb I got the message smbk bad!.... but I never see the Boot screen for knoppix on this one computer. ....
It's not real clear what your actual problem is. Since you ran knoppix testcd we know that the CD is good, and we apparently know that at least one of your computers can boot the CD. Did you try to get Knoppix running on that system? What was the result? Which is the computer that you tried SBM (much better than smb) on? Likely not the one that you ran the testcd on, since it didn't need it.

If you are trying to figure out why you can't run SBM on another system, I think we need a bot more information. Including are you trying to run it from floppy or hard disk MBR? At just what point do you see the error? Was there any error in installing SBM? If you are trying to run it from a floppy, try the floppy in a different computer, even one that doesn't need it (it should still run fine even if not needed to boot a CD). Does it run any better there, or can you confirm that there is something wrong with the floppy? Did you try to make another floppy?

Giving us more details on the failed XP system and what types of booting problems you are seeing with Knoppix may help. Generally speaking, SBM is usually only needed on older systems where the BIOS either didn't support booting from CD or the first wave of BIOS that claimed to be able to boot a CD but didn't always quite get it right. Should not be needed on a system that is up to running XP (but that's only a general statement).

[rwcitek]

I have tried multiple computers and burning at an extremely slow speed. I have also done the knoppix testcd and everything is ok on that.
So the knoppix testcd works, which means that you can boot Knoppix at least into text mode. Is that correct?

When I tried useing smb I got the message smbk bad!
Do you really mean SMB (aka Samba) or do you mean SBM (Smart Boot Manager)?

I get the same blinking Hyphen or Underscore and it then skips to boot up windows xp. Some other background if it helps is that I CAN boot the install/recovery console for Windows XP but I never see the Boot screen for knoppix on this one computer.
If you can't see the boot screen, how are you able to run 'testcd'?

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org/

[cluedout]

sorry it was smart boot manager not smb
I have run knoppix succesfully on 4 computers now. I have 2 cds one burnt fast and one burnt slow both boot on all computers except this dell laptop. the knoppix testcd DID run and check all of the md5sums to be good and booted up. It is about 1:20 AM right now so I will run the sbm on another system to see if it runs fine, but I did remake the sbm disk and it booted up on my malfunctioning laptop. However when I tell it to boot(from the bad laptop)from either cd I now get an error 0xAA. All systems I tested on and am trying to run on are windows xp 2 home edition and 2 pro edition. I have successfully run knoppix on one dell laptop but cannot do it on the other. 2 systems I ran it on were AMD others are Intel including the laptop.

Without SBM I check the memory on the laptop (POST) and the Harddrive and CD drive are detected. and shortly after I tell it to boot from CD (It gives me a choice) I choose boot from cd and after about 10 mins Win xp boots up. So I took the HD disk out of the laptop and now it tells me to insert system disk and restart after the 10 min wait.

My next idea is updating the bios which I have tried once but I had almost no screen except 5 or 6 square inches (got crushed) and my display card is malfunctioning(but as soon as I can get knoppix running to get some stuff off of the harddrive I will replace the screen and display card.

This laptop cd drive should not be the problem as I can boot windows xp cd fine and have used it for install of Quake III just hours before the Winxp system would not fully boot.

Sorry if I repeated myself or my spelling left something to be desired I just got off work and began working on this with no success again. (If that works as an excuse)

Thanks so much for your ideas thus far.


I'm as Clueless as a baby in a topless bar!

[cluedout]

I guess I didn't fully answer everything in the last post. I was running sbm from floppy. And I get the 0xAA error after pressing enter on the the cd in the drivelist that it brings up. I updated the BIOS and it did nothing for better or worse. I am a complete newb at linux I have made several attempts through the years but Compiling code sure seams easier in visual studio ;) I was hoping to transfer the files from the harddrive of a laptop to another computer without buying an adapter. .

Any suggestions are welcomed

(Again I just got off work and it is 45 past midnight that is my excuse ;) )

*Update I have tried Kanotix (sp?) and Auditor from exploit all of which give me the 0xAA error in SBM

I'm as Clueless as a baby in a topless bar!

[rwcitek]

I have tried Kanotix (sp?) and Auditor from exploit all of which give me the 0xAA error in SBM


Seems to be an issue with either SBM or your CD-ROM drive, and not necessarily with Knoppix or any other CD.

Is there a reason you are using SBM? For example, are you not able to boot directly from the CD? What happens if you try to boot from the CD and enter boot: failsafe debug 1?

Regards,
- Robert

[cluedout]

I CAN boot windows setup off of the cd and I Have setup games just recently while in windows xp I couldn't imagine there would be anything wrong with the drive

I would try failsafe cheatcode if I could see the boot screen but I cannot see the boot screen on that computer. If I don't use SBM I either boot to winxp(when I have the harddrive in the computer) or I get a message "Please Enter System disk and press enter to restart" When I have run knoppix testcd It was on other computers that were able to boot it up.

What boggles my mind is I can boot off of ANY boot cd other than a debian based livecd. I have succesfully booted off of my mandrake linux cd and the windows cd.

Are there any other livecd's not based on debian?

[Harry Kuhman]

Are there any other livecd's not based on debian?
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15175

[cluedout]

Well For anyone who has the problem of the 0xAA or 0x0C message from smart boot manager there is likely a problem with the BRAND of disk you are using. The memorex cd-r's had lots of issues booting. I have some other cd-r's that I have no clue what brand they are (Completely blank on both sides) that worked to boot knoppix up. 16x was the slowest my burner would burn too so I hope this helps others. I realized what it was after i noticed I had used an older cd-r to burn the xp professional (w/ sp2) and it worked but the newer one didn't. I only had this problem on the Smartstep 250 laptop from dell.

Thank you all so much for your efforts in resolving this issue!

[jjmac]

Dell .....

Don't they use a hidden partition, that involves it self in the boot process some how. Iv'e noticed a lot of posts on various site that relate to "strange" problems ... and they always seem to involve Dell ?



jm

[Simpkin]

Thanks for the advice although I tried burning at 4 x speed on 2 different burners using a variety of disks. Still nothing is happening just although this time round a bios screen is displaying "inbootable device" thanks anyway I will download a full version of linux and install it on the hdd.

[rwcitek]

Thanks for the advice although I tried burning at 4 x speed on 2 different burners using a variety of disks. Still nothing is happening just although this time round a bios screen is displaying "inbootable device" thanks anyway I will download a full version of linux and install it on the hdd.
At work we are having similar issues but more extreme with a Dell Latitude L400 and an external CD-ROM drive. Knoppix won't boot, nor will some Windows CDs. However, if we go into the BIOS, select "restore factory defaults", make the CD-ROM the first boot device, and then reboot, everything works ... for a little while, sometimes. Our suspicions are that this is a hardware problem: the BIOS version, the CMOS battery, the mobo, the CD-ROM, the CD-ROM cable, or something we haven't thought of.

In short, your problem sounds similar to ours, which means that I suspect faulty hardware.

BTW, you did burn the ISO as an image and not as a file, correct? See: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Downloading_FAQ#Q:_I_have_downloaded_the_ISO_file. _How_do_I_burn_the_ISO.3F_How_is_the_ISO_supposed_ to_be_burned.3F

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org/

[pestie]

I'll just point out here that every single time I've run into a system that won't boot from a CD-ROM drive, it's because the CD-ROM has to be a master on one of the IDE channels. It can be a master on the secondary channel, that's fine, but with many systems, running a CD-ROM drive as a slave is the kiss of death for CD booting.

As for booting from a floppy, one approach I've used in the past is to boot a (MS|Free)DOS disk with CD-ROM drivers on it and use a copy of loadlin (http://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/~lermen/) to boot Knoppix. The only catch is that you have to type all the boot parameters and cheat codes by hand, including the ones you don't usually see (they're in /KNOPPIX/boot/isolinux.cfg on the CD), and sometimes that exceeds the DOS command-line length limitation. But it'll do in a pinch, like when I need to boot Knoppix on my old P166 laptop that's incapable of booting from CD.

[rwcitek]

As for booting from a floppy, one approach I've used in the past is to boot a (MS|Free)DOS disk with CD-ROM drivers on it and use a copy of loadlin (http://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/~lermen/) to boot Knoppix.
That sounds cool. Care to write this up as a HOW-TO and post it?

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org/

[pestie]

I guess I should, huh? This is at least the second time I've answered this question here, and I hardly ever come to this forum. Maybe sometime soon I'll throw together specific instructions in the form of a HOWTO.

[rwcitek]

Maybe sometime soon I'll throw together specific instructions in the form of a HOWTO.
It doesn't even need to be polished. Just a quick-and-dirty list of things would be great to start with. Details can be filled in later.

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org/