Can't boot without "failsafe"

I borrowed a Knoppix 5.1.1 DVD from a friend and tried to boot with it. I have failed repeatedly. This is what happens.

I get the screen which says "Please hit ENTER to start Linux from DVD". Upon hitting ENTER, I get the screen with the penguin at the top-left corner and the following text:

Welcome to the KNOPPIX live GNU/Linux on DVD!
Running Linux kernel 2.6.19.
Total memory available: 514168kB, Memory free: 505364kB.
Scanning for USB/Firewire devices... Done.
Enabling DMA acceleration for: hda [Maxtor 6Y080L0]
Enabling DMA acceleration for: hdc [Samsung CDRW/DVD SM-352B]
Looking for DVD in: /dev/hdc

...nothing happens after that. The LED on my CDRW/DVD combo drive blinks twice and then stays off. The HDD led on my CPU stays on forever. The cursor blinks for quite some time (it accepts keyboard input) and then even that freezes.

Details of my system:
Intel Pentium 4 2.26 GHz
512 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
ASUS P4B533-X Motherboard

I read some of the other posts in the forum about problems with NVIDIA graphics cards. I tried "knoppix xmodule=vesa" but even that did not work.

Here is a complete list of all the commands I tried at the boot prompt (none of which, of course, worked)

knoppix xmodule=vesa
knoppix xserver=XFree86
knoppix xserver=XF86_SVGA
knoppix xmodule=nv
knoppix screen=1024x768
knoppix fb1024x768
fb1024x768
knoppix desktop=gnome
knoppix xvrefresh=60
knoppix xmodule=svga
knoppix 2
knoppix home=scan
knoppix noapic noagp noapm noaudio noddc nodhcp nofstab nofirewire nopcmcia noscsi noswap noudev nousb nousb2 noideraid pnpbios=off acpi=off
knoppix vga=normal
knoppix toram
knoppix testcd
knoppix mem=512M
knoppix mem=128M
knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1
(after copying the KNOPPIX directory from the DVD to hard drive. Freezes after showing "Starting udev hot-plug hardware detection".)
knoppix ide2=0x180 nopcmcia

All that was an immense test of patience (waiting till the system hangs completely everytime), but still I got no result. The only thing that worked was "failsafe". It started Knoppix but did not detect my PS/2 mouse so I couldn't do anything.


What am I doing wrong? Is there any way out for me? I'll gladly provide any other necessary information.

Imtiaz Ahsan
Dhaka, Bangladesh

__________________________________________________ _________
Welcome to the KNOPPIX live GNU/Linux on DVD!
Running Linux kernel 2.6.19.
Total memory available: 514168kB, Memory free: 505364kB.
Scanning for USB/Firewire devices... Done.
Enabling DMA acceleration for: hda [Maxtor 6Y080L0]
Enabling DMA acceleration for: hdc [Samsung CDRW/DVD SM-352B]
Looking for DVD in: /dev/hdc
__________________________________________________ ___________

this happened to my computer also, i had a usb disk drive in my computer and it stalled scanning that drive. i rebooted with the usb drive unplugged and all worked fine. when kde booted up, i was able to plug my usb drive back in and knoppix reconized it fine.
hope this helps

Had the same problem. Booted with "knoppix nodma" and it worked

Thanks guys.

USB device is not the problem in my case. I removed all USB devices and it still doesn't boot.

I'll try "nodma" today.

WOW!!! "knoppix nodma" works! Thanks a lot.

But what is this DMA thing anyway? And why was it causing problems? Are there any performance issues I might have to face?

I am already facing a problem, don't know why. My USB drive does not work under Knoppix. When I plug it in, I can see its icon on the desktop, but clicking on it gives me the message "Could not mount device. The reported error was: mount: I could not determine the filesystem type, and none was specified." Can somebody help?

Hello
I was trying to use Knoppix 5.1 but I get black screen after:

Enabling DMA acceleration for: hda [ NAME ]
looking for KNOPPIX CD at /dev/hda...

and nothing happens after that. I thought that it may be some problem with CD-ROM but when i
changed it for two different models the same thing happend.
I was trying to boot it on laptop satellite a200-1gs (dual core) but it doesn't work in normal mode only in
failsafe. Touchepad, mouse(on bluetooth), wi-fi and probably something else is not working
then. In normal mode everything is fine until X loads, then screen goes black

Any ideas what problem may be with my pc or laptop?

I was trying to start it with

nodma , noscsi acpi=off, xmodule=vesa,fb1024x768

I've just started laptop with:
knoppix noapic noagp noapm noaudio noddc nodhcp nofstab nofirewire nopcmcia noscsi noswap noudev nousb nousb2 noideraid pnpbios=off acpi=off
and it's working but its not comfortable way to start it, is it?:) Maybe I can start it with less arguments.