Problem in booting from CD

[balakrishnan]

I have Knoppix 3.7 in my Hard Disk.

My computer allows me to boot from CD, before booting from HDD.

I am able to boot Live CDs like Mepis, Dyne:Bolic, Knoppix 3.6, etc. without any problem.

However, it is not allowing booting from CD when I try to boot a Linux distribution (www.vigyaancd.org) based on Knoppix 3.7. It simply ignores and boots only from HDD. My Hard Disk also has Knoppix 3.7

My question is : if Live CD and HDD both have the same "base", will it not boot from Live CD ? How can I overcome this ?

[Harry Kuhman]

I have Knoppix 3.7 in my Hard Disk.

My computer allows me to boot from CD, before booting from HDD.

I am able to boot Live CDs like Mepis, Dyne:Bolic, Knoppix 3.6, etc. without any problem.

However, it is not allowing booting from CD when I try to boot a Linux distribution (www.vigyaancd.org) based on Knoppix 3.7. It simply ignores and boots only from HDD. My Hard Disk also has Knoppix 3.7

My question is : if Live CD and HDD both have the same "base", will it not boot from Live CD ? How can I overcome this ?

I think you're understanding of the problem is flawed, that what you think is the problem is not the problem at all. Booting a bootable CD will not be dependemt on what is on your hard disk at all, or even if you have a hard disk. I think it is likely that there is some reason that the CD you are failing to boot will not boot on that system, and that you are jumping to conclusions that it is because of something on the hard disk.

What do you see when you try to boot the CD that you want to boot but can't? Does it get to the first boot prompt? If it gets further than that we need to know what error you get and at what point it gives up the CD boot and jumps to the hard disk.

My best guess, and it's only a guess at this time, is that there is something wrong about the way that you burnt that CD, and I rather suspect that it was burnt at too high of a speed. But give us more details of what you see when you try to boot it (or if I'm right go back and make one at a slow burn speed) and we'll work you through it.

[Harry Kuhman]

P.S. There is a reported bug (http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Bugs/3.9-2005-05-27) of Knoppix hanging in some cases when it see the NTFS partition but not when the hard drive is removed. But this is very different from what you are reportung and I do not believe it is related.

[balakrishnan]

I think you're understanding of the problem is flawed, that what you think is the problem is not the problem at all. Booting a bootable CD will not be dependemt on what is on your hard disk at all, or even if you have a hard disk. I think it is likely that there is some reason that the CD you are failing to boot will not boot on that system, and that you are jumping to conclusions that it is because of something on the hard disk.

What do you see when you try to boot the CD that you want to boot but can't? Does it get to the first boot prompt? If it gets further than that we need to know what error you get and at what point it gives up the CD boot and jumps to the hard disk.

My best guess, and it's only a guess at this time, is that there is something wrong about the way that you burnt that CD, and I rather suspect that it was burnt at too high of a speed. But give us more details of what you see when you try to boot it (or if I'm right go back and make one at a slow burn speed) and we'll work you through it.


Reply :

1. Since the same CD is able to boot from other PCs, there is no problem about the CD. Further, I have been using the same speed (4x) to burn ISOs. I never had any problem.

2. As I mentioned, I am able to boot other Live CDs - including Knoppix 3.6 in this PC having Knoppix 3.7 in Hard Disk.

3. However, wihtout giving any warning, it simply ignores the CD when I boot "vigyaancd", a distribution based on Knoppix 3.7.

4. Since I don't get any error, I can only say that it accepts the CD for booting - but simply ignores and goes to HDD for booting.

[Harry Kuhman]

1. Since the same CD is able to boot from other PCs, there is no problem about the CD. Further, I have been using the same speed (4x) to burn ISOs. I never had any problem.
Actualy, we've seen many problems where a cd will boot fine on one CD and not on another and it's still a problem with the CD (too fast of a burn, some drives deal with high speed burns better than other I guess). But if you burnt the ISO at 4x then I don't expect that is your problem. I don't know what it is though if it's not media related. Have you tried booting with Smart Boot Manager???