Getting far into boot...then nothing.

[carouac]

I've been messing around with a LiveCD of Knoppix all day. I burned an ISO file(at slow speed), loaded it into my computer, and it booted correctly...for a while. At some point I got into a Desktop Screen with a Mountainous image on the background and a movable mouse cursor. This seems to be the farthest I've gotten. It just stops here and does nothing. I've let it sit for about 30-40 minutes and still no further progress.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Harry Kuhman]

If you are getting the mountain scene then I assume that you have compatible video and don't need a cheat code for that. It might help to know just what version of Knoppix that you are working with, and a general description of your hardware. I'm glad to hear that you burned the disc at slow speed. Did you use burning software loike Nero that has a verify pass and did it verify correctly? And if you used a mirror rather than the torrent, did you confirm the md5 checksum of the ISo that you downloaded? Have you any other computers that you can try booting your new disc on ? (Not giving up on this system, but it would be interesting if the disc fails on multiple systems.

You might indeed need some other cheat code to get past some other hardware issue than video, but I'm at a loss to think of what, by the time you get to the graphics you pretty much have all of the hardware detection resolved.

Although your graphics seem to indicate that you video is good, i guess there is a small chance that you are getting far enough into the video process to see the desktop but still failing somewhere. So the best that I can offer without more details on your system is, at the boot prompt, type in knoppix xmodule=vesa and see if that helps at all. I don't expect it will, but it will be worth a try.

[carouac]

If you are getting the mountain scene then I assume that you have compatible video and don't need a cheat code for that. It might help to know just what version of Knoppix that you are working with, and a general description of your hardware. I'm glad to hear that you burned the disc at slow speed. Did you use burning software loike Nero that has a verify pass and did it verify correctly? And if you used a mirror rather than the torrent, did you confirm the md5 checksum of the ISo that you downloaded? Have you any other computers that you can try booting your new disc on ? (Not giving up on this system, but it would be interesting if the disc fails on multiple systems.

You might indeed need some other cheat code to get past some other hardware issue than video, but I'm at a loss to think of what, by the time you get to the graphics you pretty much have all of the hardware detection resolved.

Although your graphics seem to indicate that you video is good, i guess there is a small chance that you are getting far enough into the video process to see the desktop but still failing somewhere. So the best that I can offer without more details on your system is, at the boot prompt, type in knoppix xmodule=vesa and see if that helps at all. I don't expect it will, but it will be worth a try.

Thanks Harry...for the detailed response. I'll try to respond blow by blow.

I'm using Knoppix 6.2 -- I believe. At least that's what my file says. I'm pretty sure when it boots it says 6.0. My hardware -- I'm using an old Gateway machine with all updated chips, RAM, and Hard Drive. I have a Pentium 4 chip, 512MB RAM, and a 120GB Hard Drive. My only concern here is that at the time of my crash(the reason I've turned to Knoppix), I only had about 2+GB of free hard drive space. Might this be a problem and how would I go about fixing this?

I did not use Nero...I used something called "InfraRecorder" because while I was downloading Knoppix I was also downloading an Ubuntu LiveCD to cover all of my bases. The InfraRecorder link was on the Ubuntu website. It's a simple cd writing program that has the ability to burn a CD Image and I figured since Ubuntu and Knoppix LiveCDs were sort of the same concepts, that it would be the same for both. However, I don't recall any "verify pass" stuff.

I did get the Knoppix torrent -- would the checksum thing be necessary?

I'll be able to try the disc on another machine later on today. I'll get back to you on that.

NEW DEVELOPMENT -- The past couple times I've tried booting, I have not been able to get to the Mountain Background. The only thing I changed was I tinkered with the resolution at some point last night. I switched it to 800x600 because I read that it might be the issue somewhere. Would you happen to know what the original resolution is so I can revert and see if that brings me back to where I was?

Lastly, I tried your knoppix xmodule=vesa suggestion and it doesn't appear to be doing anything at the moment.

Thank you for your help so far. Hope this information helps.

[Harry Kuhman]

An older system but 512 meg of ram should be fine. Those trying to run with a lot less ram could run into problems that might sound like yours, but a 512 p4 should be OK. Don't know the "native" size of the desktop, but you should be able to boot 1024x768 or 800x600 with the cheat codes and both should work. Overall if you just shut things down and the reboot you should be where you were yesterday, Knoppix will not remember any changes unless you deliberately force it to, and some of us can't ever get that to work well.

Verify pass is a nice option. On rare occasions I have burnt a disc but Nero detected a problem during the verify. If this didn't get verified then, although unlikely, it could be a media issue. I expect that the boot option to test the disc is still there (I forget if it is testdisc or testcd), it would be worth trying that.

As to the need for the md5 test: it should not be needed if using BitTorrent, as BitTorrent does it's own checking on each block. The only time that I've seen a problem with this was once when someone doing a download stopped the download as soon as the client said 100%, rather than letting it really finish. And in all honesty I downloaded the 6.2 DVD a few days ago by torrent and didn't bother to check the md5 before burning. But since you are having problems, any you already have the md5 file (it came with the torrent download), you might as well run the test against the ISO. It will only take a couple of minutes, will rule out that potential problem, and if you are not used to running md5 tests it is a handy skill to pick up.


Not much more that I can suggest, it will be interesting to hear how testing on another system went.

[carouac]

An older system but 512 meg of ram should be fine. Those trying to run with a lot less ram could run into problems that might sound like yours, but a 512 p4 should be OK. Don't know the "native" size of the desktop, but you should be able to boot 1024x768 or 800x600 with the cheat codes and both should work. Overall if you just shut things down and the reboot you should be where you were yesterday, Knoppix will not remember any changes unless you deliberately force it to, and some of us can't ever get that to work well.

Verify pass is a nice option. On rare occasions I have burnt a disc but Nero detected a problem during the verify. If this didn't get verified then, although unlikely, it could be a media issue. I expect that the boot option to test the disc is still there (I forget if it is testdisc or testcd), it would be worth trying that.

As to the need for the md5 test: it should not be needed if using BitTorrent, as BitTorrent does it's own checking on each block. The only time that I've seen a problem with this was once when someone doing a download stopped the download as soon as the client said 100%, rather than letting it really finish. And in all honesty I downloaded the 6.2 DVD a few days ago by torrent and didn't bother to check the md5 before burning. But since you are having problems, any you already have the md5 file (it came with the torrent download), you might as well run the test against the ISO. It will only take a couple of minutes, will rule out that potential problem, and if you are not used to running md5 tests it is a handy skill to pick up.


Not much more that I can suggest, it will be interesting to hear how testing on another system went.

Okay...so testcd seemed to fail for me...which is odd considering how far along I got in the boot. The CD didn't seem to work in the other machine I tried it on(A fairly new HP laptop...maybe about 2-3 years old).

So I'll be burning another copy sometime this week. Do you recommend I use Nero? I don't currently own it, but I should be able to aquire a short term copy easy enough.

And aside from that...would the Power Save feature be a problem? I noticed on both machines I tried that the Power Save feature would kick in and the monitor would go black until I hit a key. I'm wondering if that has any bearing.

Thank you for your help thus far. I'll try writing a new cd this week.

[Harry Kuhman]

Okay...so testcd seemed to fail for me...which is odd considering how far along I got in the boot. The CD didn't seem to work in the other machine I tried it on(A fairly new HP laptop...maybe about 2-3 years old).

Does sound like the disc is bad. I'm not 100% convinced that a disc is good even if it does pass the test, but if it fails either the disk is bad or you have a hardware problem. You didn't mention if you did the md5 test. Again, should not be needed with a torrent download, but given your current status I would suggest doing it before the next burn.

So I'll be burning another copy sometime this week. Do you recommend I use Nero? I don't currently own it, but I should be able to aquire a short term copy easy enough.

I would not go so far as to say that Nero is needed. It just does have a nice verify feature that is handy, does a read after the burn and that occasionally catches things. Actually I've bookmarked a couple of other free burning programs that I still want to get around trying, but since I have Nero I tend to use it. I don't know what Nero's current policy is, but they used to allow a download of a fully featured 30 day trial. May be worth checking out even if you decide to try other software later. I'm certainly not suggesting that you buy Nero, I think it is overpriced for what it is unless you get it thrown in with a drive, and the company seems to be more interested in adding bloat than in slimming down the product to something useful and making it more affordable.

By the way, if you are burning a CD, you are using 700 meg media and not 650 meg media, right?

And aside from that...would the Power Save feature be a problem? I noticed on both machines I tried that the Power Save feature would kick in and the monitor would go black until I hit a key. I'm wondering if that has any bearing.

I don't see power saving being an issue, you should certainly be completely booted before it even kicks in. If we are talking about a BIOS feature and you have any doubt, can't you disable it?

[carouac]

Okay...so testcd seemed to fail for me...which is odd considering how far along I got in the boot. The CD didn't seem to work in the other machine I tried it on(A fairly new HP laptop...maybe about 2-3 years old).

Does sound like the disc is bad. I'm not 100% convinced that a disc is good even if it does pass the test, but if it fails either the disk is bad or you have a hardware problem. You didn't mention if you did the md5 test. Again, should not be needed with a torrent download, but given your current status I would suggest doing it before the next burn.

So I'll be burning another copy sometime this week. Do you recommend I use Nero? I don't currently own it, but I should be able to aquire a short term copy easy enough.

I would not go so far as to say that Nero is needed. It just does have a nice verify feature that is handy, does a read after the burn and that occasionally catches things. Actually I've bookmarked a couple of other free burning programs that I still want to get around trying, but since I have Nero I tend to use it. I don't know what Nero's current policy is, but they used to allow a download of a fully featured 30 day trial. May be worth checking out even if you decide to try other software later. I'm certainly not suggesting that you buy Nero, I think it is overpriced for what it is unless you get it thrown in with a drive, and the company seems to be more interested in adding bloat than in slimming down the product to something useful and making it more affordable.

By the way, if you are burning a CD, you are using 700 meg media and not 650 meg media, right?

And aside from that...would the Power Save feature be a problem? I noticed on both machines I tried that the Power Save feature would kick in and the monitor would go black until I hit a key. I'm wondering if that has any bearing.

I don't see power saving being an issue, you should certainly be completely booted before it even kicks in. If we are talking about a BIOS feature and you have any doubt, can't you disable it?

I haven't done the md5 test yet. How would I go about that? Like I said, I'll try burning a new disc. If it's hardware, my only ideas are a loose RAM chip or something. Everything in there is around a year old, or less.

I am indeed using 700MB discs. And I'm pretty sure I can disable powersave. I'm almost positive even Knoppix has a cheat code for it. But like you, I doubt that's the problem.

[Harry Kuhman]

I haven't done the md5 test yet. How would I go about that? Like I said, I'll try burning a new disc. If it's hardware, my only ideas are a loose RAM chip or something. Everything in there is around a year old, or less.

There are plenty of programs that will do the md5 test. Follow the documentation link near the top of this page to get to our wiki, then read the downloading FAQ for details. I like md5summer. It has an awkward and non-typical interface, but it does show progress during the check of a large file like a Knoppix ISO file, some md5 programs don't show progress and just look locked up while they compute the md5 test, although they work fine if you are patient. Google will find you many md5 programs. Even recent copies of the popular Par2 program can compute an md5, if you happen to have that.

Hardware could well include a CD drive going bad or marginal. If you suspect memory might be an issue, there is a copy of memtest86 right on your Knoppix disc. Just boot it and at the prompt type memtest (not knoppix memtest) and it should run memtest for you.

[carouac]

So some good news...I finally got the user interface to work. I didn't run the md5 or even use Nero. I simply tried writing the CD first with another program that was already on the computer I happened to be using(Roxio) and that has seemed to work. It's a huge relief. Now I just need to either clear space on my external or buy a new one to begin salvaging my old data.

My only issue now is that it does seem a little unstable. I've been browsing files to see what I can delete and what I want to stay and it seems certain video files cause the display to become extremely distorted and fragmented, usually causing me to force a restart.

But it is usable and I'm sure with some patience I can get my recovery issues sorted out.

If you have anything to recommend regarding the instability/display distortion, I'm all ears...but I really appreciate your help through all of this. Thanks a ton.

-Erik

[Harry Kuhman]

Sounds like you just had a bad burn, and that when you burned it again you got a working disc.

I'm amazed that you didn't do the md5 test though. It is so simple and so definitive. After having a problem with a burn I would never try another piece of media before I did the test. It is so darn easy to do and so helpful, I'm just amazed that so many people seem to think that they have never done one before so they should keep skipping over it. Believe me, it is well worth taking less than five minutes to learn to do this right, it can be used for many things.

I strongly urge that you don't delete anything from Knoppix, at least if the partition is formatted with NTFS. If you do so you might (eventually will) corrupt the disc further and may not be able to retrieve the rest of your files.

If you are having problems viewing video with Knoppix that is forcing resets, I suggest not viewing the files with Knoppix. Transfer them to another system. Focus on recovery now with Knoppix and watch your videos later.