Live CD in CD-ROM Drive not recognised when trying to boot.

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-15-2005, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by TrevorM

Thanks ever so much for all the help, guys.

I think I'm going to have to leave it awhile until I'm a little more experienced!

It's not really that hard, and you get experience by doing. If you think you are too green then I would suggest that you could stay away from he MBR install as well as XOLS (although I have talked friends through an XOSL install over the phone, even when they didn't follow the instructions and got "creative"). But there is no risk with a floppy install. If you ask I'll be glad to try to answer your questions, I just don't know what more to tell you.

**TrevorM** · 03-17-2005, 04:20 PM

OK guys, so here’s where I’m at.

I downloaded sbootmgr.dsk (it’s SBM 3.7.1 – coincidence!) from http://linux.simple.be/tools/sbm , and saved it to floppy as an image using a little utility called Diskwriter, which I found at http://www.daansystems.com/freestuff/

The result was great, so far as Smart Boot Manager was concerned. When I booted up with the floppy in place, SBM kicked in and I could get all the screens shown on SBM’s own “Screen Shots” page. So, I knew I was on the right track.

The problem was – it didn’t work! When trying to boot my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD, SBM came up with the red message “Disk error! 0x01”.

I’m getting a little worried about two aspects of my CD.

First, is it actually an image? When I explore it, the root directory is as follows:

boot
KNOPPIX
autorun.bat
autorun.inf
autorun.pif
cdrom.ico
index.html

The boot folder contains the isolinux folder with the following contents & file sizes:

boot.cat 2,048
boot.msg 139
boot-en.msg 139
f2 1,532
f2-en 1,532
f3 1,675
f3-en 1,675
german.kbd 256
isolinux.bin 9,404
isolinux.cfg 2,569
linux24 1,018,412
linux26 1,458,313
logo.16 10,048
memtest 86,980
minirt24.gz 803,216
minirt26.gz 769,909

The KNOPPIX folder itself contains an image folder -

knoppix-header.gif 11,143
knoppix-logo.gif 15,227
rule.gif 317
sidefill.gif 898
topleft.gif 8,369
topright.gif 4,615

and these files:

background.png 912,227
index.html 8,869
index_dk.html 10,811
index_en.html 8,404
index_es.html 12,068
index_fr.html 9,852
index_it.html 10,625
index_jp.html 10,815
index_nl.html 10,672
index_ru.html 13,368
KNOPPIX 727,172,362
knoppix-cheatcodes.txt 9,946
KNOPPIX-FAQ.txt 10,354
KNOPPIX-FAQ-EN.txt 9,339
KNOPPIX-FAQ-ES.txt 9,741
KNOPPIX-FAQ-FR.txt 11,000
KNOPPIX-FAQ-IT.txt 10,751
KNOPPIX-FAQ-NL.txt 9,735
knoppix-version 15
LICENSE.txt 18,487
md5sums 2,666
README_Security.txt 2,207

Are these files showing up as they should on a disk image? Or is this actually just a data CD?

The second thing is, I’m a little bit worried about the integrity of my CD.

I thought I might use Nero to try a re-burn as a disk image. However, I found that I couldn’t burn direct from my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD; it hung on the main KNOPPIX file with about 10 per cent still to go, flagging up “invalid MS-DOS function”.

I’ve even tried using XCOPY to copy the contents of the KNOPPIX CD onto my Hard Drive – I thought maybe I could burn from there - but even XCOPY couldn’t complete the transfer of the big KNOPPIX file.

So, do I have a faulty CD?

I guess that has to be my last question for the moment. Sorry to have gone on at such length, and thanks again for your time.

**pureone** · 03-17-2005, 04:38 PM

no by the looks of it your cd is correct. if you was to burn it incorrectly (data disk) then the cd would just have the iso file on it.

burning it as a image uncompresses the iso and creates them files. i have never used smb so i can not help you with that sadly. but im sure harry or another member of the forum will beable to help you.

**OErjan** · 03-17-2005, 06:30 PM

have you checked the md5sum?
if not do so.

**TrevorM** · 03-17-2005, 06:32 PM

Sorry, what's the md5sum?

**OErjan** · 03-17-2005, 06:50 PM

here you find a good description of md5sum ad how to use it.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Download...O_CD_images.3F
hope it clears things up. if something is wrong with the iso it is likely to show up.
disks can be md5summed aswell (not all it depends some HOW they where burned), it is worth a shot.

**TrevorM** · 03-17-2005, 07:03 PM

Thanks OErian, I'll give it a try.

**TrevorM** · 03-18-2005, 04:08 PM

OK, I've downloaded md5sum, and run it on my KNOPPIX 3.7.1 CD. The results are interesting, though I'm not sure how to interpret them.

Asking the program to generate on all files (including KNOPPIX/md5sums) gives me the green light, with one exception; KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX itself.

It isn't that I get a red error icon; the program stops generating on KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX at 95% and never comes off orange (processing). From there, all I can do is Ctl/Alt/Del to redress the situation, because the prog's "Cancel" button doesn't work.

Where does this leave me? Does it indicate that I have a corrupt CD?

Oh Boy....