Complete noob trying to boot

[Iane]

ok i downloaded knoppix 3.9 or whatever is the newest version. i burned to to a disk using nero and a boot floppy for windows. now i stick it in my comp an dturn it on it acts like its for Windows Millenium edition and gives the copright info. then it just says a:\> and i cant think of anythign to put in there to make it run. some help woudl be very appreciated.

[Harry Kuhman]

i burned to to a disk using nero and a boot floppy for windows.
Where did you find anything that instructed you to use any boot floppy when burning, let alone a boot floppy for Windows? What you have now is a CD of your windows boot floppy, with the rest of the space taken up by a large and useless ISO file.

You need to burn the ISO as an image. If you had mentioned which version of Nero you were using I could give you better instructions, but start by following the documentation link at the top this page and reading the downloading faq.

And sice you didn't know how to burn the disk and made some pretty strange assumptions about using a Windows boot disk, it's likely that you made a few other errors too. If you downloaded from a mirror rather than BitTorrent, don't even waste more blank discs until you check the md5 sum. And when you burn, burn as slow as Nero will let you. It does matter.

[Iane]

ok well im kinda working with teh software nero demanded that i give it a boot disk in floppy form. was the only one i could find.

but hey! at least i di one thing right! i burned it at 4x (slowest it would go)!

[Harry Kuhman]

You used a "make bootable" option in Nero, which is not the right things to do. You still didn't post the nero version, so I'll leave you to what you can find in the Downloading faq and go to bed.

You apparently skipped the md5 step. It is important, do not skip it. If you're thinking "well, I really don't know how to do that so I'll just ignore it", then you're not ready for Linux, go back to whatever Bill Gates tells you to run.

[tdjokic]

Maybe this will help you http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Downloading_FAQ

[Iane]

ok redownloaded it from bittorrent, went through teh checksums adn they all match perfectly. im using nero 5 so that bug they mentioned shouldnt affect it. i also foun the iso image burning option, but there isnt an option to make it bootable, at least not one i found. ill keep playing with it, but im out to do it right so any help and not posts calling me a retard woudl be more appreciated than flames. this is a help forum not a make fun of noobs forum.

[UnderScore]

ok redownloaded it from bittorrent, went through teh checksums adn they all match perfectly. im using nero 5 so that bug they mentioned shouldnt affect it. i also foun the iso image burning option, but there isnt an option to make it bootable, at least not one i found. ill keep playing with it, but im out to do it right so any help and not posts calling me a retard woudl be more appreciated than flames. this is a help forum not a make fun of noobs forum. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE IT BOOTABLE!
You should OPEN the ISO in Nero. Check the file menu (File -> Open) & see if there is a option for open image or Burn as image. Ifyou do not burn it as a image it will not work period. Nero will automamtically take care of the bootable stuf if by burning it as a image.

[Iane]

ok i see what u are saying. glad it didnt give me teh option. im out of disks to burn em on so ill try later. i just need to burn teh .iso file right? not eh .md5 or any of that?

and burning it as an image makes it bootable? fun stuff. thought that woulda had to been an option somewhere.

[Harry Kuhman]

and burning it as an image makes it bootable? fun stuff. thought that woulda had to been an option somewhere.
Think of it this way: If you have two drives and you copy a disk, you get an exact copy of the first disk. If the first disk was not bootable, then the copy will not be. If the first disk was bootable, then a properly made copy will be. If you only have one drive, you can still make a copy, you just write the original to a temporary fle and then stick in a blank disc and write to it. You still make botable discs this way, and you sure don't need a windows boot floppy to do it (in fact, using one somehow is going to insure failure). The ISO file is just a very standard form of that temporary file that you make when you copy a CD. Any burning software that understands an ISO format can make a good copy of the original disk if you use the proper options in your burning software. Of course, if you just drag and drop the ISO into the file area you'll likely just put a copy of the ISO file onto the CD as one big file. That's not the burning software's fault, maybe you wanted to make a backup copy of the ISO, but it's different than making a bootable copy of the ISO by burning it as an image. No bootable options are involved in making a bootable copy from an ISO, no extra boot disks are needed or wanted.