Weird boot problem using WinPartition on Sony Picturebook

[grogo]

I was psyched to learn that Knoppix can boot from a windows partition without floppies or CD-ROM, and was eager to try it out on my Sony Picturebook (VAIO C1Vn) with no floppy or CD. It's currently set up with Win2000 and NTFS.

I downloaded Knoppix 3.6 .iso image to my hard drive, and I followed the instructions for the Poor Man's install at
http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/WinPartition
and it worked!!! I had to use the "Old method" of starting GRUB as the page lists for Win2k compatibillity, but GRUB loaded fine, and I could boot knoppix24 without a problem. It started up, loaded X (the screen looked funny though -- vertically compressed because of the C1vn's 1024x480 screen -- but this was relatively minor), and life was good.

The problem happened the SECOND time I tried to boot, and ever since. Now, after selecting the Knoppix entry in the Win2000 boot loader, GRUB never loads, and the machine hangs with a completely black screen, and needs a power-off to restart. I've tried selecting the other options listed on the WinPartition page for starting GRUB to no avail. Win2K still loads fine. What's going on here? I've tried mucking around with the keyboard after being presented with the blank screen, thinking it may just be a display issue, but to no avail. Waiting 10minutes also yielded no results. I did not change any Knoppix configuration options during the first boot, didn't install it on the HD, didn's create a home directory, in other words, I didn't make any changes to the system that I'm aware of! Help!

[zokidoki]

not sure if this helps or if you've solved your problem.... but i've been able to boot knoppix 3.7 (with kernel 2.4) & knoppix 3.8.1 (kernel 2.6) both using grub (version grube posted somewhere in the forum), with the iso files copied to hard disk. it runs on a vaio picturebook pcg-c1mgp running windows xp professional though.

so, here are my suggestions:

- use 3.7 iso file with kernel 2.4 (as kernel 2.6 did not run successfully...) or use 3.8.1 iso
- use latest grub with ntfs fixes from: http://bhavesh.mdns.org/pub/grubforknoppix/grube.zip
- maybe old grub loader for windows 2000 needs updating? but i got same version to work on a dell desktop running windows 2000...