booting from ISO on hard drive

**rwcitek** · 07-23-2005, 08:50 PM

Originally Posted by gonzofonts

I tried:
knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hda1/knx.iso debug
Does not work. I get an error that says it cannot find the file. I'm thinking that it cannot find the image because the image is on a NTFS partition.

Knoppix can mount and read an NTFS partition just fine. The above bootfrom= should have worked; I do it on my WinXP machines all the time. I can only think of three possible reasons why it would not work:

1) /dev/hda1 is not the C:\ drive (that would be odd)
2) the image is not in the root directory on C:\
3) the image is not named knx.iso

If you want to explore this further, boot up Knoppix from the CD and then type the following:

Code:

cat /proc/partitions
fdisk -l /dev/hda

and post the results.

Originally Posted by gonzofonts

I also tried:
bootfrom=/dev/hda5/knoppix/knx.iso (note, I left out the debug option)
The good new is that this worked. The bad news is that I can't write to this partition when I boot from it.

That's great news. You should be able to read and write to the FAT32 partition. There is a trick to doing that when you have your image on the same partition. I don't recall off the top of my head. But I'll post later when I am at a Windows machine. In short, it can be done and you don't have to repartition the FAT32 partition.

Originally Posted by gonzofonts

Also, I don't see how the above (i.e. "bootfrom=/dev/hda5/knoppix/knx.iso") is any different than what I initially tried (i.e. "knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hda5/knoppix/*.iso")

You specified the full filename and not a pattern. For some reason patterns are not working. If you wish to delve into the code and debug why this is, have a look at the script /etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig

BTW, I reread your original post and realized you are using Knoppix 3.9. I had some issues with 3.9, especially when using unionfs and apt-get. So, I moved back to 3.8.2. Just a heads up.

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

**quit5** · 07-24-2005, 12:35 AM

Hi, guys, I moved a little forward. I have met the error of "file not found", that is because my c:\ is not hda1 but hda2, I do not know what is wrong. My new probelm is after running the kernel and initrd command in menu.lst successfully, some message appears as:
INIT: version 2.78-knoppix booting
Running Linux knernel 2.6.11
processor 0 is ......
ACPI BIOS found, activating modules: ac battery button container fan processor

Then everything stopped, even the cursor don't flash. All I can do is to press the power button to swith off the computer. Anybody know what should be the reason? This issue really bothered me for a long time. Thanks in advance.

**rwcitek** · 07-24-2005, 01:02 AM

Originally Posted by quit5

Anybody know what should be the reason? This issue really bothered me for a long time. Thanks in advance.

How are you booting? What cheatcodes are you using?

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

**quit5** · 07-24-2005, 03:29 PM

kernel (hd0,1)/KNOPPIX/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/dev/hda2/KNOPPIX/K*.iso config=scan home=scan ramdisk=131072 noprompt
pause step4
initrd (hd0,1)/KNOPPIX/minirt_ntfs.gz

thanks, robert.

**quit5** · 07-24-2005, 05:31 PM

Hi, guys, I finally made it through. Boot from one NTFS partition. The problems I met are:
1. C:\ is not hda1 but hda2
2. there is bug in the linux kernel I used. When I use the kernel included in the KNOPPIX image file, everything is fine.

Thank you all for helps.