Error: Cannot Unite Read-Only Media and Initial Ramdisk!

[jackstl]

I am trying to boot knoppix 3.9. After boot begins. the message "error: cannot unite read-only media and initial ramdisk!" appears.

[jackstl]

I think that I have a bad burn of knoppix 3.9. There are a bunch of "cloop" errors preceding the actual error that I mentioned in my initial post. Also, when I run "knoppixtestcd" it says that it can't find kernal. Thanks anyway. If anyone has a differing opinion, please let me know. As I'm sure you figured out, I'm new to this, so any information would be welcomed.

[rwcitek]

I think that I have a bad burn of knoppix 3.9.
I think you are right on the money. The symptoms you describe sound like a classic case of bad burn. Just be sure to check the md5sum of the downloaded ISO and to burn slowly, <8x.

Let us know how things go with the new burn.

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

[jackstl]

Thanks for responding. I burned the disk at 8X. I'm going to try to burn slower at see if that works. If not, I'm going to buy a "pre-burned" cd. By the way, and off subject, I also live in the St Louis area too, and hope to attend the next LUG meeting on the 24th. Thanks again, I'll let you know if it worked.

[rwcitek]

Thanks for responding. I burned the disk at 8X. I'm going to try to burn slower at see if that works. If not, I'm going to buy a "pre-burned" cd. By the way, and off subject, I also live in the St Louis area too, and hope to attend the next LUG meeting on the 24th. Thanks again, I'll let you know if it worked.
Excellent! If you want a CD sooner, we could meet up at a Bread Co and I can give you a CD. Just drop me a private message or e-mail me (e-mail's on the website).

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

[jackstl]

Well, I burned a new copy of Knoppix 3.9 at a slower speed (4X) with no luck. I tried to check the md5 sum by typing: md5sum -c filename.md5, but it came up as "kernel not found". So, I believe that my download must have been corrupt. Does this sound correct? Was my method of checking the md5sum correct? Thanks for all of your help.

[Harry Kuhman]

Well, I burned a new copy of Knoppix 3.9 at a slower speed (4X) with no luck. I tried to check the md5 sum by typing: md5sum -c filename.md5, but it came up as "kernel not found". So, I believe that my download must have been corrupt. Does this sound correct? Was my method of checking the md5sum correct? Thanks for all of your help.
No, it sounds like you don't understand how to check the md5 sum, you don't type in anything at the boot prompt, you use a md5 check program in Windows (or in Knoppix if you have a different version of Knoppix running) to check the ISO before burning it. See the Downloading FAQ for details.

Your Kernel not found mesage means that the bootstrap program thought you were trying to find a Linux kernel on your CD named md5sum, and it couldn't find one. Being that there is no Linux kernel named md5sum, this was all it could do.

[jackstl]

You are correct, I didn't know how to find the md5sum. Thanks for your help

[Harry Kuhman]

I've updated the Downloading FAQ to try to make this more clear. Hopefully others will not make the same error.

What was the result of the md5 test? Good ISO or bad? If good then I'm hard pressed to guess what else might be the issue with a 4x burn.

[jackstl]

The md5sum checked out as incomplete (1 file missing or damaged). Thanks for all of your help.

[Harry Kuhman]

The md5sum checked out as incomplete (1 file missing or damaged). Thanks for all of your help.

I'm not clear on what md5 program you used or what you really checled. Look insode the md5 file with a text editor, it will be normal ascii and there should be only one file that a checksum is calculated for, the ISO itself. So it's pretty much an all or nothing thing, the ISO is right or it isn't, rather than being incomplete.

There is also an md5 file burried within the ISO. It does have multiple checksums for multiple files. That is used for the testcd feature at the knoppix boot prompt, it's not what we are talking about here (but doing the testcd would be a good idea too).

Did you download by BitTorrent or from a mirror? My BitTorrent downloads have always been good, but before Knoppix became available by BitTorrent and I used the mirrors I had about 50% bad downloads of Knoppix ISOs (even though I'm hard pressed to identify any other FTP or HTTP file download that has ever been bad for me). What is the exact size in bytes of the ISO? I found that when I had corrupt downloads the files were larger than they should have been.

[jackstl]

I checked the md5sum (this time hopefully the correct way) using Graphical MD5Sum program listed in the Downloading FAQ. The md5sum of my download did not match the md5sum listed on the mirror site that I originally downloaded from. Also, the byte size is higher on disk than on file (729,010,176-on disk vs. 729,008,864-on file)

[Harry Kuhman]

Yup, you're seeing the same ISO corruption that I saw often before I started using BitTorrent. At least we understand the nature of your error messages now.

[jackstl]

Thanks for all of your help with this issue. I'm going to download from a BitTorrent site and keep my fingers crossed. At least I know what to look for now. Thanks for all of your patience. I'll keep you informed.

[jackstl]

It worked! I burned a copy using BitTorrent and I am typing this post using Knoppix 3.9. My advice to anyone else who had the same problem: is to read the Downloading FAQ closely, and to download using BitTorrent and burn at 4X if possible. Thanks to everyone who helped!