Knoppix won't Boot

**cypress** · 03-27-2005, 04:38 AM

I have an old Pentium 2 MMX machine with 512mb ram (only 256mb are seen by the mobo/bios) and I cannot get Knoppix to boot at all. The bios is set to start from CD Rom, and it does, It shows the Knoppix screen, with all of the options (F1, F2, F3, etc). However, after I say start to boot, it just shows a black screen and soon after that, the CD stops spinning. I have tried to boot every thing from 3.3 to 3.8 and nothing would boot. Also, I get this same thing with any other distro that I have tried. The only thing that really works well is Win98. I also put a HD which had an HD install of Knoppix 3.3, and the computer found Lilo, and started booting, but then the same thing happened, black, blank screen.

Is there anyway to get that working? If you need more info, please ask for it, because I am really pissed that it doesn't work, because that PC was meant to be my Linux box.

+Cypress

**marhleet** · 03-27-2005, 06:06 AM

I have a mobo where the hdd's are probed and found, then it tries to find a cd-rom on hds0 for some reason.
had to boot with
knoppix atapicd

**cypress** · 03-27-2005, 07:40 AM

The Knoppix atapicd did not work. I still get the same black screen. I am just wondering, could the monitor be the problem? Although it probably is not, because the cd would at least keep spinning if the monitor is not working. I also tried failsafe but that doesn't work either. The interesting thing is that i have an even older pc, a Pentium 1 @ 166mhz w/64mb ram and it ran knoppix 3.3 and kde 3.4 pretty much with ot a problem.

**marhleet** · 03-27-2005, 09:00 AM

checked the burn of the iso ? (not sure how)
md5 check on the iso download

run memtest from the cd, see if the computer is still working

**cypress** · 03-27-2005, 05:20 PM

The computer is working, because I am running win98 on it. I even got it up to run win 2k but that was a bit too much for it. Anyway, I do not think its the ISO becasue I have tried a bunch of different CDs and they all have worked on my other computers. But thanks anyway.

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-27-2005, 09:45 PM

Originally Posted by cypress

....Anyway, I do not think its the ISO becasue I have tried a bunch of different CDs and they all have worked on my other computers......

I think you are having problems reading those CD's on the drive in this computer. Seems less likely with multiple discs failing the same way, but it makes more sense than other things I can think of. Yes, if the disks boot and work right in other computers than the ISO must have been good and you must be burning "as an image". Are you burning these discs at a slow speed like 4x or as fast as your burner will go? Unfortunately, we have seen this type of problem repeatedly with high speed burns. If the discs were all burned fast then I suggest trying a test burn at 4x or (better yet) making a test burn at 2 or 4x on a 700 meg CDRW. See if that doesn't let this system boot. Or swap out the CD drive or, if the system has more than one, try booting from a different drive. See these threads for a little more discussion of speed burning problems:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17788
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...?p=78925#78925

**marhleet** · 03-27-2005, 10:50 PM

ah yes, the older pre 40x cd-rom drive not being able to read recently burnt cd's.
I've had that.
silly as it seems, you might be able to read the cd, in win98, but it might not auto-boot to it.
carry a spare 40x-48x in your kit ?