Need help

**andrewg678** · 02-19-2005, 05:06 AM

The Lilo way seems simple enough to me. I may do that or possibly attempt to use my floppy disk. It has been long out of use so I must check to see if it is still working. I assume that I just have to install Lilo onto the floppy? and boot from the floppy?

**mr_ed** · 02-19-2005, 07:57 AM

Yes, a very simple and effective solution. Sorry I didnt think of it sooner! I haven't made a boot floppy in quite a while.

Let's see, I think you'll still be required to install LILO to hard drive, but instead of putting it into the MBR, you can put it into the Knoppix partition. That will be, I believe, /hdb1. Then if you're not offered the option of making a boot floppy during installation, you can still do it later.

-- Ed

**andrewg678** · 02-19-2005, 04:08 PM

ok thank you. I have already made the partitions. I have 3.7gb for knoppix then around 300 mb for swap. unintentionally I ended up with 2gb left exactly and made this fat32. The only thing that was unexpected with windows was the slower operation, becasue I did not realize I had 786mb of virtual memory on that drive. What would I do if I installed lilo to linux drive but for some reason could not make the floppy. I have read about people saying it is hard to get back on in the forums. I found one command knoppix=root /dev/hdb1 noinitrd ro where hdb1 is the linux drive. If this is a possibility i would certainly use that. It requires the use of a cd to access and a special command.

**andrewg678** · 02-19-2005, 07:59 PM

ive run into some trouble. I installed the beginner installation and booted with the floppy. All went well until after the user name screen. I got tons of errrors , could not read knoppix config, could not find network connection list please run dcopserver, will not save config. Im goign to reformat the drive in windows then load up the knoppix cd, reformat the drive, and reinstall, possibly witht the debian mode. The cd method of booting from the hard drive works, yet I got the same error with both methods. I even tried all 3 versions of linux that appeared on the flopply, one plain linux, linux kernal 2.4 and linux kernal 2.6 with no good results

**andrewg678** · 02-19-2005, 08:04 PM

ahh I dont have enough time right now to reinstall. Ill wait for your reply before trying again. Is there anything I could have done to cause these errors to happen in the previous install? I was messing around with wine for a short time. And which install would you say is better, the debian like, or the beginner knoppix one?

**mr_ed** · 02-20-2005, 05:09 AM

Hi again!

I was messing around with wine....

Had a bit too much, did we?

That CD tray isn't a glass-holder! :P

If you haven't had problems with the HD or RAM before now, and you just introduced the floppy drive into the equation, my first guess would be an aging floppy drive or - more likely - bad floppy disks.

Another potential problem would be a disagreement (one more serious than usual, that is) between Windows and Linux about the hard drive's geometry. Suspect this if you had problems with the drive during the time you ran Knoppix from CD only. I don't think it's likely, but it's possible.

Another possibility, on about the same level of probability or maybe a tad higher, would be a hose-up by the software that the hard-drive manufacturer installed before they shipped it to the store. A 6-GB drive is large enough to run afoul of computer BIOSes, so the secret hard-drive program is there to, basically, lie to the BIOS.

I was already composing a follow-up post about floppies before I read of your latest problems. Floppies are the least reliable storage medium now available due to vulnerability to physical damage, exposure to strong-ish magnetic fields (such as your monitor), and time-related deterioration of the stored data.

Okay, audio and video casettes are worse because the tape is even more fragile and yet exposed to the outside, but there aren't many computers using casette recorders for mass storage these days.

There are two or three ways to use a live CD such as Knoppix to bring up and fix an otherwise unbootable computer, including one where floppy-boot used to work but no longer does.

So if you like the floppy solution and find that the problem doesn't lie there, you can still recover if you have floppy problems down the road. But I think I'd discourage floppy booting until you were sure.

As for what to do first, now, check RAM for errors. Knoppix has memtest, which may or may not be better than whatever's available in Windows (if anything - I forget). I doubt memtest does a really thorough check - this requires using different patterns of write and read, and lots of time. But a simple check is better than none and may turn up damage caused by, say, an electrical discharge near the chips.

Then run a program to check the HD for errors, and pay special attention to bad sectors. The MBR may be mush, the partition table potted, the FATs gone flabby - those will go away with reformatting.

Actually, bad sectors are no big deal (unless there are a ton of them). Drive platters don't have to be perfect to be put into a unit for sale - the bad sectors just have to be flagged so they're invisible to software. But they do need to be found and flagged.

You don't need to reformat the drive in Windows. It won't hurt, it's just redundant if you do it again from Knoppix (which sounds like a good idea, to make sure Linux likes your drive).

As for choosing between Beginner, Debian, and Knoppix installation scripts: Beginner. In his excellent and very recent book Knoppix Hacks, Kyle Rankin says:

This is the preferred method for installing Knoppix to a hard drive. With this option, Knoppix sets up a multiuser Debian system, but also leaves all of the Knoppix hardware-detection scripts behind.

The Debian install is multiuser but omits the scripts (while still letting you pass kernel parameters at boot time). The Knoppix install keeps the scripts but makes a single-user system with no password, like the CD.

The three types of Knoppix available at boot time are really only two, one for a 2.4 kernel and one for 2.6. The options that just says Knoppix actually boots one or the other, which of course you can change in the bootloader configuration.

That's all for now, mate, but I'll be back.

-- Ed

**andrewg678** · 02-20-2005, 05:23 AM

I think there may be something fishy with the partitions. I deleted the knoppix but i could not delete the swap. I dont think it is mounted because 0 mb are used and it detects ram disk when it usally woudl detect the swap. The message says I cannot delete because the swap is mounted. I went to the knoppix swap manager and it said no dos partitions are available and exited. When I tried to install knoppix again before I had deleted the knoppix partition it said the drive did not meet the requirements of at least a 128 mb swap and 2 gb linux partition. I did meet these and the linux partition was active, so i assumed the problem was with the swap. I dont no how to go about deleting this and then partitioning it again. I guess if I had to I could reformat the entire drive 2, but i dont no how to go about doing this.

**mr_ed** · 02-20-2005, 07:53 AM

I've seen other people in the forum get that "does not meet requirements" message, and theirs were fine too. That one I have no clue about.

But really, starting knoppix-installer from scratch should give you the ability to make the disk right.

To see what the partition table says, do this:

$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hdb

The -l option just reads the table out to you; no danger of changing anything accidentally.

-- Ed