Unsuccessful Boot; Only a Black Screen w/Blinking Cursor.

**Raz** · 02-25-2003, 05:49 PM

Hello, there! As my post count implies, I am a n00b to these forums. I have checked the Knoppix burning and usage FAQs before posting, but was unable to find an answer to my problem. Thus, here I come.

At first, I downloaded the Knoppix CD-ROM from an “official” download site – not a non-endorsed third party. I proceeded to burn the ISO to a 700MB CD-R, and then tried to boot with it. Unfortunately – and this was my mistake – I did not ensure that the CD-R was burned as bootable, and so it wasn’t. At that point, I burned a new, bootable Knoppix CD in nero burning ROM. The size of my bootable Knoppix CD-ROM’s data is approximately 696MB, specifically 729,833,472 bytes.

Just to experiment, I set my BIOS to boot from the floppy and then the CD-ROM, and tried it with the first, non-bootable CD. (I was not sure whether it was bootable at the time.) Of course, that didn’t work, so I downloaded and installed Smart Boot Manager on a floppy to see if I could get it to boot with that. I received a “Failed Disk” error.

Next, I popped in the certainly bootable CD, and restarted the computer. This time, the computer attempted to boot from the CD... and led me to a black screen, with a blinking cursor. I left the computer unattended for a good ten minutes, but when I returned, nothing had happened. I attempted rebooting several times, and it was no different. Then, I attempted booting from the Smart floppy and the CD-ROM in turn; this yielded the same result.

To make sure it wasn’t an isolated incident, I tried both CDs by the same means on three different machines. The first one ordinarily runs WinME/WinXP in a dual-boot configuration, and it is a 1GHz with 512MB of RAM. The other two are identical to one another; they normally boot into Win2000 Server, and are 700MHz rigs with 128MB of RAM each.

Am I inexplicably sh*t outta luck

, or did I have two bad Knoppix burns? Or is it something else I am not even thinking about?

**David Douthitt** · 02-25-2003, 06:07 PM

Make sure:

1. When you download, make sure that it didn't do any sort of conversion on your data. A good way to make sure is to use the "Download Link Target" selection from a context menu over the link. This is typically a problem with Netscape, seems to me.

2. Make sure you are burning an "image" and not copying a file over. In Nero, there is a main menu option to burn a disk image; use that.

Those should help you out.

**Raz** · 02-25-2003, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by David Douthitt

Make sure:

1. When you download, make sure that it didn't do any sort of conversion on your data. A good way to make sure is to use the "Download Link Target" selection from a context menu over the link. This is typically a problem with Netscape, seems to me.

2. Make sure you are burning an "image" and not copying a file over. In Nero, there is a main menu option to burn a disk image; use that.

Those should help you out.

Thank you kindly, but I have already done both. (I downloaded the ISO through MSIE, using the typical "Save Target As" option.)

**cascadefx** · 02-25-2003, 07:10 PM

Try burning the image at a much slower speed. I have to burn Knoppix at 8x speed as opposed to the 40x speed that the CD-RW drive is capable of.

This has helped a lot of my problems.

**r3dn3ck** · 02-25-2003, 11:08 PM

I, too, am a Linux n00b, and I encountered a similar experience using Knoppix on my parent's Compaq Presario (forgotten which model) as a recovery disk. Knoppix locked up on the machine (only 128MB), so I had to pull the power plug & reboot. Upon reboot, received black screen with blinking black cursor. I opened the case & pulled the lithium battery to reset CMOS, & reseated the RAM just in case. The machine then booted up fine.

You might want to try this. I've read of a similar problem with Knoppix on some Dells, with the CMOS reset fixing the prob.

**Raz** · 02-26-2003, 05:43 PM

Originally Posted by r3dn3ck

I, too, am a Linux n00b, and I encountered a similar experience using Knoppix on my parent's Compaq Presario (forgotten which model) as a recovery disk. Knoppix locked up on the machine (only 128MB), so I had to pull the power plug & reboot. Upon reboot, received black screen with blinking black cursor. I opened the case & pulled the lithium battery to reset CMOS, & reseated the RAM just in case. The machine then booted up fine.

Hmm. I think I'll try that at home... but then, considering that this happened to me on three different machines, do you think it could be something else?

I have re-downloaded the ISO, just to make sure. I checked the CRC, and it was fine. Per casca's recommendation, I burned one disc at a slower speed -- but I've received the same result, every time.

Just to mention my specific burning process, I'm using nero. I ditch the wizard, select "ISO (BOOT)", choose the ISO, and burn. I finalize the disc, too. I've burned it in two variants (aside from those mentioned above, as I've still been trying to get it to work): One with the advanced options on the "Boot" nero menu disabled, and one with them enabled.

Just to make sure, the CD should also be burned as the RAW format, right? What about Joilet and stuff like that? Does anyone know the specific nero settings required? I have looked up a few guides, but they're in German, and while I have a rough understanding of the language, they don't say anything about settings. Simply how to burn a bootable image, and I already know how to do that... but, does anyone know what the specifics are?

**robelanator** · 02-26-2003, 06:50 PM

I never liked NERO... it seems to make everything 10x harder than it should be.

I would recommend downloading Fireburner instead: http://www.fireburner.com/downloads.shtml

It's 15 day trialware but that should give you more than enough time to burn a few Knoppix CD's

**aay** · 02-26-2003, 08:10 PM

Originally Posted by robelanator

It's 15 day trialware but that should give you more than enough time to burn a few Knoppix CD's

Once you have one good copy of Knoppix, you can use it to burn others so you won't need Fireburner after that.

**stonent** · 02-27-2003, 09:10 AM

Make sure you download as binary and not ascii

after you log in to the ftp site, type bin

**RockMumbles** · 02-27-2003, 08:21 PM

Sounds like possibly a video problem?

Have you tried any of the knoppix boot options (cheat codes, press <F2> at the startup screen to see some of them)

knoppix vga=normal
---for a standard vga mode instead of the 130x50 text mode...

knoppix 2 vga=normal
---for text-only console mode

knoppix expert
--- for no auto config

etc., just a thought, at least then you would have an idea if your cd is OK.

I have run into one machine that I can't get knoppix to run on from CD, it's a gateway, it'll run fine with a pre-installed linux hard drive but won't boot from the knoppix cd or into the cd from a floppy. I've also read of some newer athlon (I think) mobos that won't run knoppix.

HTH

rock