CD Boot looking for a boot partition on hd, why on earth?

**Zzap** · 03-05-2005, 12:05 PM

Hi!

I just downloaded the Knoppix CD, since I heard it could reszie NTFS disks during install.

Now, ehen I boot it looks like some LiveCD, and not an intsall CD. OK, might fulfill my needs anyway...

So, I hit return and it boots a 2.4 kernel and starts to probe my hardware.

Then it stops and says it can find a linux system to boot from!

Wasn't the point of all this that I should be able to boot from just the CD?

The disk image I boot is: KNOPPIX_V3.7-2004-12-08-EN.iso
from: /pub/Linux/distributions/knoppix
at ftp.sunet.se

**UnderScore** · 03-05-2005, 04:47 PM

>I just downloaded the Knoppix CD, since I heard it could reszie NTFS disks during install.
yes it can resize NTFS via the qtparted program

>Now, ehen I boot it looks like some LiveCD, and not an intsall CD. OK, might fulfill my needs anyway...
From the Documentation link at the top of this page, from the General FAQ

Q: What exactly is Knoppix?

A: Knoppix is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. Knoppix can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything.

There is also a help document titled "HD Install HowTo". Please read this and other documentation before asking questions since most of the easy questions have already been answered.

>Then it stops and says it can find a linux system to boot from!
This is a FAQ in the forums. Knoppix does the very best it can to automatically figure out what hardware you have. It does this without human intervention. You will need to tell knoppix to boot with certain settings called Cheat Codes http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes. On systems that give me the exact same error you received, I boot knoppix with the following cheat codes, either:
knoppix nodma
knoppix nodma noapic

Please try this and please read the documentation.
I hope this helps.
James

**Zzap** · 03-05-2005, 05:59 PM

Belive me, I did read quite a few FAQ's. Not knowing if it is just a live CD or an installer CD, something not easy understood from the documentation, it's not easy to know where to start reading.

But, if this odd problem is because I have to enter some "cheat codes" or other agruments for Knoppix to boot on my system, then I have wasted my time!

I have booted many other operating systems without problems on this hardware, it's not in any way odd or unusual. You knoppixians have a lot of work ahead of you to get an usuable live CD if my system gives the installer hickups!

But, thanks for the pointers to the documentation, hopefully it will help someone else now when the solution to that problem is searchable here in the forums.

Bye, bye Knoppix.

**UnderScore** · 03-05-2005, 07:19 PM

>But, if this odd problem is because I have to enter some "cheat codes" or other agruments for Knoppix to boot on my system, then I have wasted my time!
> You knoppixians have a lot of work ahead of you to get an usuable live CD if my system gives the installer hickups!
In about 90% of the cases where the boot fails to find the CDROM: It is not Knoppix, it is your hardware. Knoppix by default tried to enable DMA so that you can have a faster system. If the CDROM drive does not support DMA then it fails to load the CD, then typing knoppix nodma at the boot screen should get around this. Knoppix does need more work so that it can be the very best Linux LiveCD and it is almost there. Don't complain if it didn't work if you didn't want to take the time to try it. Realize that I am trying to meet you halfway and from my view, you don't seem to want help.

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-05-2005, 08:08 PM

Originally Posted by Zzap

...But, if this odd problem is because I have to enter some "cheat codes" or other agruments for Knoppix to boot on my system, then I have wasted my time!.....

If you can't be bothered to type in a simple 13 character string at boot time even after James has taken the trouble to explain things to you and given you the likely code that you will need, then you are wasting our time as well.