boot from .msi image ??????

[porkrind]

Greeting's ! i am from another planet.
i do not have a CD writer.
i do have Alcohol.
i could download the ISO, and create an alcohol image .msi file, and after booting WinXP(nfts), i could mount the .msi in Daemon virtual drive.

will this Work ?

i would really like to get to know something in linux.

[porkrind]

thank you for your support .

[Harry Kuhman]

thank you for your support .

I was going to make sarcastic statements about the foolishness of expecting another OS to boot and run from an Alcohol "virtual drive". After all, the drive only exists under a Windows application, and when you boot Knoppix you are not running Windows. I decided that you didn't need my sarcasm and restrained myself.

Now you're being sarcastic that I didn't make the sarcastic comment?

[porkrind]

Harry Kuhman : thank you !
i am glad you didnt make the sarcastic remark.
i was reaching for an idea, hopeful, and wanting some info to understand more clearly.

you have answered my question. i am now downloading knoppix on my g/f's machine ( 56k !) only another day or two. but she has a burner , and i dont.

i am on a learn as i go system, and the learning curve has been rising at a quantum(squared) rate beyond my capabilities since i began.

i am hopeful that knoppix could be the red shoes that get me into linuxia.

[Harry Kuhman]

.... i am now downloading knoppix on my g/f's machine ( 56k !) only another day or two. but she has a burner , and i dont....

I sure hope that you're using Bittorrent for that download, the mirrors have problems and about half my downloads from mirrors have been corrupt. Would be real bad news at 56k if that happened. Bittorrent is far more reliable, has it's own built-in checking. Allows for recovery and continued downlload after a disconnect too. If using a mirror do check that md5 sum. And burn the iso at a slow speed. And be sure you know how to burn an iso as an image with whatever burning software she has. Good luck.

[porkrind]

thanks, yes i used Bittorrent. then burned disc with alcohol. it wont boot.
oh well.
tried on two machines.
i probably need to wait for a blue moon on friday the thirteenth with choobaka in retrograde.
yes, linux bitter. it never works. whats up with that ?

[Harry Kuhman]

...i probably need to wait for a blue moon on friday the thirteenth with choobaka in retrograde.
yes, linux bitter. it never works. whats up with that ?

Blue moons come at the end of the month, never on Friday the 13th.

Your lack of detail in exactly what steps you took to "burn the iso" as well as your "linux ..... it never works" indicates a unshakeable belief that you did nothing wrong and that the fault must be with Linux, not in the making of the CD or the booting of it. While perhaps you expect us to plead our case by typing twenty times as much as you did to convince you to keep trying, I'm not going to.

[porkrind]

Dear Harry, i did say i'm bitter, didnt i ?

it could well be that i did not burn it correctly, however, when i accessed the file through the CD player, it open a Knoppix page, on the machine i burned it on.

i actually am still trying, pardon my indulgence, i do appreciate your help and attention.

on one machine, running winME in defective mode, the CD runs for several minutes, then Win loads. in that case the CD drive cannot be seen for several more minutes, then appears and claims to have no media content.
i am considering how i might format the HDD, and then try the Knoppix disc ?

in the other machine, the CD player also fires up for about 2 minutes, then winXP home boots,
(for reference sake, both machines usually lit the CD for about 12 seconds, before boot)
in this machine, i have a winXP fast boot tweak that causes winXP to be found on the drive within 30 seconds and boot. so that tweak might be the problem, although i havent rediscovered it, or found a way to undo it yet.

and i currently working on machine 1

i burned the image as raw/dao in alcohol at 4/s

thank you , if or even if not, you have any more patience for me .

[Harry Kuhman]

it could well be that i did not burn it correctly, however, when i accessed the file through the CD player, it open a Knoppix page, on the machine i burned it on.

Hey! Some actual information we can respond to!

I don't use Alcohol so don't know the exact right way to burn an iso in it, but if you burnt the ISO and the disk behaves as stated above when inserted in a running windows machine then it seems right, from the few details this presents. The Knoppix page that opens should be a result of autorun.ini opening a local html file in your browser. You should also be able to see an entire file structure on the disc, including subdirectories (folders in xp jargon).

You say this happens on the machine i burned it on. It should happen on any running windows system unless CD auto-run has been disabled. Does it happen on the machine where the CD fails to boot? Can that system read the CD? If not then you certainly have a smoking gun and someting to resolve.

on one machine, running winME in defective mode, the CD runs for several minutes, then Win loads. in that case the CD drive cannot be seen for several more minutes, then appears and claims to have no media content.
i am considering how i might format the HDD, and then try the Knoppix disc ?

Do you ever get to the point where you have a boot prompt, or does the several minutes of spinning happen without ever getting that far? Anything at all typed on the screen in the process?

In my experience I see no reason at all why you should be doing anything to the hard disk. On some memory starved systems you might need a swap file or a swap partition, but certainly not if you're not even gettin to the boot prompt. You're focusing on the wrong thing here.

in the other machine, the CD player also fires up for about 2 minutes, then winXP home boots,
(for reference sake, both machines usually lit the CD for about 12 seconds, before boot)
in this machine, i have a winXP fast boot tweak that causes winXP to be found on the drive within 30 seconds and boot. so that tweak might be the problem, although i havent rediscovered it, or found a way to undo it yet.

No tweek that you have in Windows for faster booting is going to be an issue. Knoppix loads clean, Windows is never involved. So if Knoppix is booted from CD the Windows code should never be seen or run, so it's not a cause for a Knoppix boot to fail.

Quite simply, Knoppix doesn't care if you have Win95, Win98se, Win2k, XP, DOS 3, OS2 or anything else on the hard disk (or if you even have a hard disk), the CD boot should not be affected. The only exceptiion to this is it will use a swap partition if it finds one, or if it's really staved for memory and there is no swap partition it may ask if it can ceate a swap file (but will never make one if it doesn't ask of if there is not a partition available that it can write to safely. If you are not getting to the boot prompt then none of this is an issue. If you are then it would have been nice to mention that, as there are several things that can be typed at that point that might help you boot, will check your CD and the ability to read it, and even run an extensive memory test.

[porkrind]

Harry ,
i formated the defective winME machine and installed winXPhome it has 64M RAM, AMD K2 500, Compaq
it still will not boot Knoppix, it does not get to a command prompt during boot w/ the Knoppix CD in the drive.
machine 1 boots to COMPAQ display, the little prompt ? (-)(when you can hit the F8 key to enter safe mode) appears top left, then a larger (-) appears top right then boots to winXP boot sreen
machine 2 has winXPhome w/ 526M RAM, Intel Cel 700, it also will not boot Knoppix , it does not get to a command prompt for Knoppix either.

once these machines have booted to winXP, the CD Drive (D, claims to have no CD in them ( please insert CD in drive)

could it be that these CD Drives cant read CD-R ? ( i have run CD-R in them both before, but only after windows boots to desktop.
or do i not understand the "set to boot from CD" or what you mean by CD autorun ?
i have both machines set in BIOS to : CD first, floppy second, HDD third
is this where i am missing something ?

thank you.