CD Won't boot: "Disk error 10, AX=4280, drive EF

[Dood]

My first experience with any kind of Linux. Knoppix 4 seems to try and boot, Says "Loading Linux...." but after a while I get: "Isolinux: Disk error 10, AX=4280, drive EF
Boot Failed: Press a key to retry"

I've tried booting with a number of different commands: failsafe, debug, expert, a few others, but always get the same message.
Drives E and F are my CD burner and DVD drives respectively, if that means anything.
Also it took me 3 trys to make the CD, the first two times failed when using CD-R media, the one that worked was using CD-RW media. I don't know if this has anything to do with my problem.

Asus A8V mobo
WD80 gig HD With 2 partitions
1 gig RAM
9600 XT 128 meg graphics card
Athlon 3200
Plextor CD Burner
Compaq DVD ROM

[Harry Kuhman]

Also it took me 3 trys to make the CD, the first two times failed when using CD-R media, the one that worked was using CD-RW media. I don't know if this has anything to do with my problem.

It very likely does, but not because CD-RW is better than CDR, rather because using a CD-RW forced you to burn at a slow speed. If you burned the CDRs at high speed then you went against the advice given in the downloading faq.

[Dood]

Actually no. I read the FAQ and first tried to burn the CD-R at 4x speed, then 8x speed, neither worked. The CD-RW burned at 4x speed.

Now, are you saying that the CD-RW that I burned successfully could be causing my boot problem?

[Harry Kuhman]

Actually no. I read the FAQ and first tried to burn the CD-R at 4x speed, then 8x speed, neither worked. The CD-RW burned at 4x speed.

Now, are you saying that the CD-RW that I burned successfully could be causing my boot problem?

No, I am not. Perhaps you need to define what you mean by "neither worked". I understood your first post

Also it took me 3 trys to make the CD, the first two times failed when using CD-R media, the one that worked was using CD-RW media. I don't know if this has anything to do with my problem.

which said the one with CD-RW media worked to mean that CD-RW media would boot for you. If not then in what way did it "work" that CDR media did not? I'm wondering if you might not have a very broken burner, but would like to see you restate what happened before making a conclusion on that.

[Dood]

OK, guess I wasn't very clear. The 2 CD-R's did not burn properly. Right at the very end of the burn process I got an error message, don't remember what it said, but basically it said the burn failed, and the CD-r's were junk. The CD-RW said successful burn. Before burning I used a checksum program to test the download and it said it was ok. I burned the CD as an ISO image, not a bootable CD, as the FAQ said.
When I set my BIOS to boot from the CD and use the CD-RW, I get the initial screen with the Boot prompt that allows you to enter different "cheats", when I hit "enter" it acts as if it's booting for a while, then I get the aformentioned error message.

[Harry Kuhman]

OK, guess I wasn't very clear. The 2 CD-R's did not burn properly. Right at the very end of the burn process I got an error message, don't remember what it said, but basically it said the burn failed, and the CD-r's were junk. The CD-RW said successful burn. Before burning I used a checksum program to test the download and it said it was ok. I burned the CD as an ISO image, not a bootable CD, as the FAQ said.
When I set my BIOS to boot from the CD and use the CD-RW, I get the initial screen with the Boot prompt that allows you to enter different "cheats", when I hit "enter" it acts as if it's booting for a while, then I get the aformentioned error message.

Well, I'm thinking that you likely have issues with that CD drive. Of course, it could be that your CDR media is questionable (were both CDs burnt to the same batch of media?), but the bad burns and then a disk error on a disk that seemed to burn OK with an ISO that passed the MD5 checksum sure points in this direction. Why do you think that both CDRs gave that error? It's not a Linux issue since you were not even running Linux yet, and any valid iso should burn to CD without error.

If you have another CD reader you might be able to boot the CDRW from that (did your burning software do a verifiation pass on the CDRW after burning and confirm that the burn was OK?)

[Dood]

The 2 CD-R's were each different brands. I don't remember if the CD-RW that worked had a verification pass after the burning or not. I wasn't watching the burn, just came back and it said it was successful. I don't burn that many CDs so I'm not all that familiar with the process. I should probably look into why those 2 CD-R's didn't work, I just got tired of making coasters so thought I'd try the CD-RW. I used Nero 6 to do all the burning, and the burner is a Plexwriter 8/4/32A.
I do have another CD reader, actually a DVD drive, but I don't think it shows up as an option on the boot menu in my BIOS. Maybe because it's a secondary slave or something?
I guess I should try this disk in another computer, it should work in a laptop, correct?

[Harry Kuhman]

The 2 CD-R's were each different brands. I don't remember if the CD-RW that worked had a verification pass after the burning or not. ..... I used Nero 6 to do all the burning, ...

Nero 6 has a verification pass, but you have to check a box to make it happen. I believe that you can check that box when the burn starts, and once it is checked it should stay checked for future burns. I strongly suggest that you check the box and leave it checked, it is well worth the few extra minutes it takes, particularly when it does catch a bad burn.

I do have another CD reader, actually a DVD drive, but I don't think it shows up as an option on the boot menu in my BIOS. Maybe because it's a secondary slave or something?

Some BIOSes can't boot the secondary drive, but you should be able to boot from it if you install SBM or even if you just make a Smart Boot Manager floppy disk and use that to boot.

I guess I should try this disk in another computer, it should work in a laptop, correct?

Of course, if the drive is marginal, as it seems, it might be writing poorly, reading poorly or both. So you could try the CDRW in the laptop, if it works it points to the drive that does not boot, but if it does not boot it really doesn't tell you much. Yes, it should work in most reasonably current laptops. There is a Laptop forum and a thread in it that discusses a lot of laptops known to work. Without knowing the hardware I can't say more than that.

[Dood]

Ok, did some more checking, it must be the CD-RW isn't quite right either. My DVD ROM doesn't even see the disk in windows, and when I tried to run CD Check on it it crashed my computer.
So, I think I'll try and burn the image on the Laptop burner and see if that works.

[OErjan]

also do a testcd in the knoppix bootprompt. that should settle it fairly well if the burn was good or not, atleast if you can get to a bootprompt.