usb boot problem "cannot find knoppix file system"

[samboon]

Hi there

I have a particular cd knoppix-distro ported to usb using the steps outlined in pendrivelinux.com

the steps summary
run syslinux -ma g: (whatever your USB: drive letter)
copy \isolinux contents to USB:\root directory
ie the vmlinuz, isolinux.cfg , initrd.gz files..etc..etc.. to root
rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg
copy knoppix.img on cd to USB:\knoppix\knoppix.img

on booting up with USB
got past the F1 boot: screen
syslinux.cfg passes on to vmlinuz fine
until ...
looking for cdrom in...\dev\hda...\dev\hdc...
cannot find knoppix filesystem
drooping out to a very limited shell

there it stops...

on searching many sites i found many people with a similar problem.
i am glad its a linux related problem coz you cant find much support for
vista on the net these days
not for free anyway...
find just the quick suggestion "take it into the shops for a fix"
damm crooks, albeit its microsoft turning these sites off for a profit
anyway back to my pain...

i tried including "nodma" into my isolinux.cfg as some sites suggested
that dint work ...on booting
boot shows it is turning off dma for .../dev/hda .../dev/sda
...which is my hard disk and cdrom
there it went into searching for the compressed image in the cdrom again
i tried copying the image to root USB:\ knoppix.img

find it but fails

my guess is there are no parameters for syslinux.cfg and kernel to look
for compressed image in G:\ (usb)

Once the kernel has loaded the initial ramdisk initrd.gz into memory
mounts it as the root filesystem
the script ./linuxrc runs searching for the compressed knoppix image on the cdrom
OK
i will have to get into the ./linuxrc script to make it search for the cdrom

DOES anybody know how to do that?

OK i will just boot off the cdrom and access the ./linuxrc script
HANG ON ...
but i cant get to ./linuxrc script on the usb
it is compressed as part of the kernel (correct me if i am wrong)
the only files i get to play with on the usb - syslinux.cfg (formely isolinux.cfg)

how do i modify ./linuxrc and put that back into the usb
Do you get what i mean
if anyone is reading out there dont bother reply coz if i cant fix it
i ditch it .. USB=> knoppix

[Harry Kuhman]

We've seen a lot of problems with USB booting on some systems; even though the BIOS seems to claim it is capable of booting from USB, it may not be. You didn't mention your particular hardware, and I likely wold not know if it had a USB booting problem or not, but it's always better to post too much information than too little.

In my case I was trying to get a flash drive with DSL installed by their automatic script to boot on an HPze4210 notebook. The BIOS was set to boot from USB, but it never would. The same flash drive also failed to boot on an IBM thinkbook notebook that claimed to be able to boot from USB. I later got a new notebook, an HP DV6000, and the very same flash drive booted just fine on that.

My first suggestion would be to try both DSL and Puppy Linux, both of which have very nice tools to make a bootable USB drive and some nice features for additional package support that Knoppix lacks (and at least Puppy has much better wifi drivers than Knoppix). If you can't get a Puppy Linux or DSL flash drive to boot on your system, it is a pretty strong indication that you are going to have problems with Knoppix also. If they do boot then it's time to work on Knoppix (if you want it rather than the system that works).

The other thing to mention is that there has been some discussion that the reason for booting problems may be that some older BIOSes were made to boot some IOMEGA and other external USB hard drives, but were not designed to boot flash drives. It is said that you might be able to get such a system to boot a flash drive if you change the defined geometry of the flash drive (I think you'll find the discussion of this in the wiki). I have never done this myself, so I can't say that it works, but I thought you might want me to pass it along.

Good luck.

[kaspare]

Hi there

I have a particular cd knoppix-distro ported to usb using the steps outlined in pendrivelinux.com

the steps summary
run syslinux -ma g: (whatever your USB: drive letter)
copy \isolinux contents to USB:\root directory
ie the vmlinuz, isolinux.cfg , initrd.gz files..etc..etc.. to root
rename isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg
copy knoppix.img on cd to USB:\knoppix\knoppix.img

on booting up with USB
got past the F1 boot: screen
syslinux.cfg passes on to vmlinuz fine
until ...
looking for cdrom in...\dev\hda...\dev\hdc...
cannot find knoppix filesystem
drooping out to a very limited shell

there it stops...

on searching many sites i found many people with a similar problem.
i am glad its a linux related problem coz you cant find much support for
vista on the net these days
not for free anyway...
find just the quick suggestion "take it into the shops for a fix"
damm crooks, albeit its microsoft turning these sites off for a profit
anyway back to my pain...

i tried including "nodma" into my isolinux.cfg as some sites suggested
that dint work ...on booting
boot shows it is turning off dma for .../dev/hda .../dev/sda
...which is my hard disk and cdrom
there it went into searching for the compressed image in the cdrom again
i tried copying the image to root USB:\ knoppix.img

find it but fails

my guess is there are no parameters for syslinux.cfg and kernel to look
for compressed image in G:\ (usb)

Once the kernel has loaded the initial ramdisk initrd.gz into memory
mounts it as the root filesystem
the script ./linuxrc runs searching for the compressed knoppix image on the cdrom
OK
i will have to get into the ./linuxrc script to make it search for the cdrom

DOES anybody know how to do that?

OK i will just boot off the cdrom and access the ./linuxrc script
HANG ON ...
but i cant get to ./linuxrc script on the usb
it is compressed as part of the kernel (correct me if i am wrong)
the only files i get to play with on the usb - syslinux.cfg (formely isolinux.cfg)

how do i modify ./linuxrc and put that back into the usb
Do you get what i mean
if anyone is reading out there dont bother reply coz if i cant fix it
i ditch it .. USB=> knoppix

If the fs of your usb flash is fat16 KNOPPIX is knoppix!!! So your linuxrc script must be adapted.
Linuxrc is in minirt.gz (gunzip minirt.gz; mount minirt /media_somewere; vim /media_somewhere/linuxrc;sync:umount /media_somewhere; gzip -9 minirt;cp minirt.gz in your thumbdrive.

Cheers

Max

[cbagger01]

I helped develop the USB HDD script for DSL and Harry is correct.

If you cannot boot DSL from a USB drive after first trying the USB HDD script and second trying the USB ZIP script (this script sets a geometry that is compatible with an IOMEGA USB ZIP drive) and they both fail, chances are that any USB KNOPPIX will also fail.

Now for KNOPPIX 5.3.1 you have an additional problem:

Most bootable USB thumbdrive scripts and HOW-TO docs tell you to create a data partition with the FAT16 filesystem because older versions of the SYSLINUX program do not support FAT32.

Either way, you have a problem for KNOPPIX DVD edition because FAT16 has a 2.1GB partition size limit and even FAT32 has a 4.0GB file size limit.

So if you want to use KNOPPIX 5.3.x for USB booting, you either need to wait until the CD version is released (699MB size for the files), or use an alternative boot method such as EXTLINUX (and an EXT2 file system) or a hybrid approach where you make partition #1 a small FAT16 partition and then create a big EXT2 partition for the KNOPPIX file at partition #2.

But the quick and easy way for now is to give DSL or Puppy a try.

Both are fairly small downloads (compared to Knoppix)

Good Luck