Dell XPS 8400 won't boot Knoppix 3.8. Any cheats for this?

[Yamamoto]

I help a friend out with selling his stuff on EBAY. He just dropped a load of $ on a Dell XPS 8400(or something like that) and it's got dual 250 mb drives in a RAID array. It's got XP home on it and it's just godawful, After about 20 minutes I want to beat it with a stick. My 3 yr old computer boots faster in Win2k. So I figure, I'll run Knoppix on it. I DL'd 3.8; but the thing locks right up after saying it's going to boot. And I mean it REALLY locks up. You have to unplug the box, cos the power switch won't even work. Reminds me of older crapples when you got "The Bomb". Now if you want this machine to boot from CD, you have to go into the BIOS and specify it; it defaults to the HD even if a bootable CD is in the drive if you don't. Also I noticed you get two Tuxes on the boot screen. Should I use one of my older versions?

[poppe]

Just for your info, I am a PC Technician at one of the local colleges where I live. First off, I don't know how anyone got Windows XP onto that machine. XP minimum requirements are a 350 MHz Pentium class or equivalent processor, 128MB of RAM (although I've seen it run on 64MB), and 650MB of hard drive space (according to Microsoft, however, a typical XP install uses 1.5GB). Now, a RAID array is intended to create redundant storage in a computer. The redundancy is there to keep your box going even if one of the drives fails. I think that whoever had that box before you and your friend, was attempting to make an old machine look up to date. Sorry to say this, but I think your friend got ripped off. Anyway with that said I'll move on to your boot problem with Knoppix. It sounds to me like you have a BIOS problem. However, I can't be sure as I don't know what kind of processor(CPU) you have, and I don't know how much RAM you have. Anyway, Knoppix will run on most processors; I've ran it on a Pentium MMX 166MHz CPU, and now I run it on an AMD Athlon 950MHz CPU. As far as RAM(memory) goes, Knoppix typically needs 128MB of RAM to run, however it will create a swap file on your hard drive. Now, why it stops could be due to a few reasons.

(1): Knoppix may be trying to create a swap file, and there's not enough free sapce on the hard drives. This would be most likely as you stated that there are two 250MB hard drives. Additionally if those hard drives are formatted with an NTFS file system, which Windows XP recommends on install. Knoppix cannot write to an NTFS partition by default, so it wouldn't be able to create the swap file it needs to run. A quick solution for low RAM and no hard drive space, get hold of a DOS boot disk, set the BIOS to boot from your floppy drive (A), and boot the box with DOS. Then type fdisk to activate fdisk.exe. Fdisk is a disk partition manager, and should be used with caution. If you don't want to erase your hard drives don't do this! Anyway, in the event you are going to attempt this you'll want to delete any partitions on the drives. Next you'll need to create at least one partition AND set that partition as active. A primary DOS partition is what you need. Then exit fdisk, and reboot your machine with the DOS disk again. Once at the command, type 'format c: /u /s' this will begin to format your hard drive. Select yes when it asks you if you're sure, then go for a soda. Once the format is complete, reboot, enter BIOS, and set your machine to boot from CD. Then try to boot with Knoppix, if you don't have enough memory Knoppix should at this point be able to create the swap it needs... Be advised that you will not get the KDE desktop that you've seen on screenshots. KDE needs at least 128MB to run. Don't be too put off though, Knoppix does have other window managers that will work on a machine with insufficient RAM... Now, the longer (and better) solution for insufficient RAM would be to buy more RAM for that machine. Then you can either install it yourself, or have a local technician do it for you. You will see a great deal of performance imrovement with more memory.

(2): You had also stated that you have to go into BIOS every time to specify to boot from CD. Now, if your system's date and time keep resetting to a long past date and time. Then that means your battery that powers your CMOS chip is dead. The CMOS stores the settings you declare when you go into the BIOS.. Also, be sure that you save your changes when you exit BIOS. I'm not sure how you save on that particular Dell, but on newer Dells you usually hit Esc to save to CMOS. Other BIOS like an Award BIOS, you typically hit F10 to save to the CMOS... The reason why I am mentioning this is if you don't save you changes in the BIOS, then it will default back to the previous settings, and boot from the hard drive.

(3): In the event that you can save to the CMOS, have at least 128MB of RAM, and can save changes to your CMOS. Then chances are your CD drive could be bad, or too slow. Now, I'm not sure what the minimum CD read speed needs to be for Knoppix, but if it stops and switches to booting from the hard drive. Then I suspect that the CD drive may be on it's last leg. In this event I recommend replacing the CD-ROM drive. CD-ROM's are fairly cheap, and if you or someone you know could install it, you'll save even more money. Small tip - it should only take a technician no more than 15-20 minutes to remove and install a new drive. The tech may offer to install the correct device driver for it, but if all you're going to do is use Knoppix from the CD, then you don't need it. Anyway, Windows XP most likely has the correct driver already and will install it upon booting up.

(4): If it's not the RAM, H-drive space, CMOS battery, or CD-ROM drive. I'm sorry to say this, but your BIOS is bad. BIOS can sometimes be saved by flashing your BIOS to input a new BIOS. However, this is VERY, VERY TOUCHY; and can permanently damage your BIOS beyond repair. Believe me, it doesn't take much to mess the BIOS up when you try to flash it. Now on the simpler side, try entering your BIOS setup and loading the default configuration, the default might help. If that doesn't work then try loading the optimized configuration, it may be that there is a setting that is just off enough to be giving you hassles. Unfortunately though if your BIOS is going bad, then I highly recommend you and your friend buying another computer. The cost of replacing the motherboard (which holds the BIOS) and the CPU(which is motherboard specific), and whatever else would need to be replaced (case, power supply, etc) just isn't worth it. Especially if you go to Google, type in 'cheap computers' you will get a huge list of sites that sell used/refurbished computers.... I even found one the other day for $59.00 that was just the main computer unit (no keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, etc). However, this box had a Pentium II 350MHz CPU, 128MB RAM, 6.5GB hard drive, built in ethernet card. This box would run Windows XP, or any Live CD Linux out there.

I'm sorry to hear about your situation, and I sincerely hope that the above helps. Lastly, you can even try playing around with other Live CDs on that machine, however I think that you might end up wasting a lot of time doing so. Good Luck to you.

[mr_ed]

Hi guys!

Just a sanity check. (I've lost mine and am looking to borrow some! )

Are those drive sizes really in MegaBytes rather than GigaBytes?

How much is a load of money, and does your friend have another? I have some old, dead computer parts lying around that I could assemble and sell as a system for a reasonably-sized load of money.

-- Ed

[Yamamoto]

250 GBX2 Raid 0 and whatever the rest of the latest XPS 8400 specs out to. Also a GB of memory. My friend ripped himself off, cos that's a LOT more than he'll need, but that's beside the point.

[mr_ed]

Check this thread for thoughts on RAID under Linux: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18260

-- Ed

[poppe]

First off, that thread is correct about NTFS partitions. NTFS partitions were designed to be more secure than the older FAT file systems. As such, it can be difficult to write data to an NTFS partition. Now that you mentioned that your box has two 250GB h-drives in a RAID 0 configuration that changes things somewhat. Since you made no mention of RAM I'll assume you have enough. The reason why Win XP could be taking forever to boot could be that either the Master Boot Record is damaged. For that if you have a DOS boot disk, boot your machine with it and the fix command for the MBR is 'fdisk /mbr' this command can often repair a damaged boot sector... XP could also be 'getting old', being that every Windows OS does this, but over time Windows starts wearing out, and all sorts of junk starts happening, including slow booting. Slow booting can also be from hard drive fragmentation. For that, run disk defragmentor in Windows. Most likely though Windows could be wearing out, even if your machine isn't that old... Case in point, at the college where I work a group of students installed Windows XP on a bunch of boxes exactly 17 days ago. Two days ago I was using one of those boxes to test out some video cards for functionability... While testing those cards, that XP installation had it's first 'fatal error'.... Windows wears out quickly, and can become useless almost immediately. If you want to use Windows, then you'll probably have to reistall it fresh. Personally though, I would suggest to you to use a Linux OS. Which brings me to one of your topics in your original post.
The fact that you get two Tuxes on the boot screen just means that Knoppix isn't autodetecting your video card correctly. There are many cheats in Knoppix to get around this, boot prompt switches like Knoppix xmodule=nvidia, or knoppix xvrefresh=60. You probably know about these considering that you ahve older CDs. What I do when booting a Knoppix version on a box that I am unfamiliar with are...

(1) Try booting without using any cheatcodes, many times when booting this way you can read the text on the hardware detection and learn what modules don't work.

(2) Next use the 'failsafe' cheatcode, again you can read the text and learn what works and what don't work... When using failsafe though, Knoppix won't scan for network devices or connections. So you'll need to take note of what the text says.

(3) Lastly (and sometimes the longest) start playing around with the cheatcodes until you get a satisfactory bootup. This can be tedious, but necessary.

Other things of interest, if you let me know if you're okay with going inside of a computer. I can tell you how to locate and change out the battery that powers the CMOS chip. Simply because it sounds like it's shot, and CMOS batteries are cheap (around $5.00), and a technician will charge you for that full hour even though it'll take him about 15 minutes to change it. Also, considering that your friend has a machine with a good sized RAID array, and he likes to sell on Ebay. You might want to suggest turning that box into a Web Server and charge for Web hosting. A good Linux distro for setting up a Web server is LAMPPIX. It is Knoppix based, but is specifically designed to act as a Web server with support applications like Apache server, Samba, My SQL, PHP, Perl script, mail server, and more. Just thought I would leave that suggestion out for you. Oh, by the way I liked the highway pics you've got on your website.

[LabGeek]

I realize this is an old post, but I just wanted to let you you know I have a new Dell 8400 that boots Knoppix.

You must use the acpi=off and noacip (I think these are correct, press F2 at the boot to check) cheats to make it work, but after that it boots fine. I do have two serial drives in a Raid 0 Array that I can't read, but that's the only thing out of the usual.

Hope this helps!