My computer is screwed up my dad thinks knoppix is to blame

Well I downloaded the .iso knoppix file. And then I burned it to a cd using nero. nero asks you to put in a floppy disc to burn a bootable cd ( or is it a bootable floppy?) changed bios to boot at cd but it said my knoppix cd was invalid and it would not work. So I changed bios back to normal and it said starting windows but then it said there was a boot error. And my dad thinks it was the knoppix .iso file on my hardrive which was stopping windows boot up. but surley this is wrong as it was a .iso file cd image anyways I need someone really good at linux or computers or I may never get to use knoppix again.

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my dad thinks it was the knoppix .iso file on my hardrive which was stopping windows boot up. but surley this is wrong

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Yes, surely this is wrong indeed. :) Amazing what people think. Make sure your computer is set to boot from the hard drive (in the BIOS), not the CD or the floppy, and assure your father that having an ISO file stored on your computer's hard drive has absolutely nothing to do with how it boots!

also another roblem would be you seems to burn the iso file as a bootable data file instead as an image. that WILL cause knoppix not to boot becuase your suppose to burn the iso file as an image.

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Originally Posted by bur372

Well I downloaded the .iso knoppix file. And then I burned it to a cd using nero. nero asks you to put in a floppy disc to burn a bootable cd ( or is it a bootable floppy?)

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Really? It asked you to put in a floppy? I think perhaps you are misusing the software. You should simply have to Select File>Burn image, browse to your .iso and burn.
http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/FaqDownloading

To burn knoppix as a image, in Nero, Would I burn it as a normal data disc? Or is there a special setting?

click file/ burn image.

just burn the image.
No data disc stuff, nothing.
Close any open dialogues,
select File,
then BUrn Image
then point to Knoppix.

it's the same issue as a diskette image: that also does not fit on a diskette, and will also not make a diskette bootable by just copying it to a diskette.

DON't compile a new cd, just burn the downloaded imagefile.
that's all.
(and don't even think about formatting cd-rw's)

no not cdrw's but i have DVD+RW's "formated" as ext2 :-)

make sure the floppy is not in the drive when you boot... try turning the system off completely (i.e. remove all power) before your next attempt.

Like the other have already said, just downloading and burning a knoppix iso cannot do any harm; I too use nero to burn knoppix nad have never had a problem...

good luck

I "REALLY" can't imagine that burning a CD would cause a computer to crash :!:

It doesn't matter "what" you burned to a CD, that would cause a system to not boot, it wouldn't matter if you changed the BIOS to boot from another device other than the hard drive to cause your system not to boot, it doesn't matter if you ran Nero to burn any CD, for that matter, that would cause your system not to boot...

The BIOS setting, at least in my system, only "points" to a place to boot, it doesn't "trash" a hard drive when you do that, never did on my system...

If the system is still refusing to boot from the hard drive, and you are "sure" the BIOS is "trying" to boot the hard drive, only thing I can think of is: maybe it was just time for the hard drive to crash? It happens. I have had a hard drive crash while in Windows, while booting Windows, while shutting down Windows, while even sitting idle. It just happens.

If your drive DID crash, it would have crashed if it was in Windows as well, it doesn't matter where, or what, the system is "running", drives just crash, when it is "there" time, period.

If your dad wants to blame it on Knoppix, thats fine, but the truth is, it would have crashed as well if your dad was booted into Windows too, and then he could have blamed Microsoft for that then. Heck, I'd have a long list of "companies" to blame if I went around with that attituide. Sheesh, Microsoft is one, Symantec is another, McAfee is yet another, IBM for its OS/2, DeskViewX, Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and why stop there? I can blame thousands of things on all those idiots that install "plugins" into my Internet Explorer - search bars, icons, search engines, screensavers, you name it. Any of those "nasty" cookies that "infest" my IE folder, sheesh, the list is endless.

Hmmmmmmm, come to think of it... I'm going to sue all the above companies and software distributers for making my system unstable, or for making it crash, just cause I was running them when my hard drive decided it was time to go "to the big bit-bucket in the sky".

Pardon me folks, I need to get a lawyer, next time I see you, I'm gonna be a rich woman...
Cuddles
[giggle]

My computer works now, my dad just said he booted it up and it just worked :? I can not think of any reason why this would happen execpt apparantly he used lots of bootable floppy's ( Please someone here tell him that a 5 year old bootable anti virus software is about as useful as a snooze button on a smoke alarm). Well I finally got knoppix burned onto a cd which works took me about 5 attemps and a new version of nero but at least it works. I have just got to say that knoppix is at least 10 times better than windows It looks nicer, You can change anything you do not like and it comes with loads of really good programs :shock: , The Gimp is a rival to photoshop and K-star is quite nice as well. Only problem is that I cannot seem to connect to the internet I have tiscali 512 kbps broadband I think that knoppix has not been designed to work with tiscali any ideas?

AFAIK there's nothing special about Tisicali (but I have dialup, so no practical experience). You might see if Tisicali have a Linux forum (Blueyonder, for example, certainly do). Any Linux solution should work for Knoppix.

Maybe you should -- after you've resolved that one -- get your Dad to buy you your own computer and an old Pentium 133 to serve as a firewall/router for the whole network (running Smoothwall, for example). :wink:

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Originally Posted by bur372

Only problem is that I cannot seem to connect to the internet I have tiscali 512 kbps broadband I think that knoppix has not been designed to work with tiscali any ideas?

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Glad the PC is working again, for whatever reason :)

How are you connecting to broadband? Do you have a modem attached to your computer? If so is the modem USB or ethernet? Are you using PPPoE, if so do you have your login and password?

Or do you have a router that takes care of connecting to the internet?

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Originally Posted by bur372

My computer works now, my dad just said he booted it up and it just worked :? I can not think of any reason why this would happen execpt apparantly he used lots of bootable floppy's ( Please someone here tell him that a 5 year old bootable anti virus software is about as useful as a snooze button on a smoke alarm).

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That's strange but glad it's working. I'll have to get myself a 5 year old bootable antivirus floppy for just such an occasion. ;)

fingers99 has a good point. Used computers are pretty cheap. A lot of used computers have "missing" software licenses, including Windows (especially people who build their own tend to "keep" the certificate, so that they don't have to buy a new license for their new machine). Find one for sale, then talk the seller down in price, complaining that the computer really isn't worth much if you have to go out and pay $199 for a full license of Windows and other licenses (you don't have to tell the seller that you really don't GAF whether Windows and the apps are on there or not). Talk about how afraid you are that MS will start acting like the RIAA and wipe out your college fund if you can't prove ownership of a license. :D

Your post spoke volumes to me. About a month after I started experimenting with Linux and dual booting, my computer went stupid on me, and wouldn't recognize my hard drives. It was in warranty, and HP replaced the mobo for free. My wife, a very practical person who saw no need in my "playing" with Linux when Windows was working fine, blamed me and Linux for messing up the machine ("it was working just fine until you started messing with it"). All of our data was inaccessible, yet I had to return the entire computer to HP, knowing that they would completely wipe and reimage the HD. Thanks to Knoppix (and a lot of help from the folks on this forum) I was able to copy to another HD and save our data. So, I ultimately had the last laugh - Linux not only didn't wreck the computer, but actually saved our data when Windows couldn't. If I hadn't "played" with Linux, we would have been up a creek.

Nevertheless, get a cheap computer if you can at a flea market or garage sale. Use your Knoppix disk to test it before you buy. If you can't do that, and you have to use your Dad's computer, for goodness sake, PLEASE do yourself (and your Dad) a favor and back everything up FIRST. You may never be allowed to touch a computer again if you don't.

As for the antivirus, tell your Dad about AVG. It's free and runs on Windows. Personally, I use Norton AV, but I've heard that AVG is very good. Find it at www.grisoft.com