Looking for CDROM in: /dev/hda

**mytruehero** · 08-19-2005, 08:28 AM

Hello. I'm new at using knoppix. I'm trying to fix a friend's computer. When I turn on the computer, it simply says "No operating system detected." I figured I would try booting into knoppix so we could back up his files before I tried anything else, but I can't even seem to boot into knoppix. At the loading screen, it gets stuck on the second line: "Looking for CDROM in: /dev/hda"

Also interesting: at the top of same screen, it says "hda: INVALID GEOMETRY: 0 PHYSICAL HEADS?"

It almost seems as though whatever is up with the hard drive is affecting knoppix somehow? But I thought knoppix ran exclusive of the hard drive entirely?

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

**Kowood** · 08-19-2005, 08:31 PM

turn off hardware detection (look in the cheatcodes section of the docs) and mount the disk manually with mount /dev/hda1 (or whatever partition it is. first disk, first part=/dev/hda1) /mnt/hda1
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 will mount /dev/hda1 on mount point /mnt/hda1

**TommyHill** · 08-19-2005, 11:34 PM

I had similar problem with flash memory card... KNOPPIX could not detect the memory drive. Do you think I can install KNOPPIX on two 800 meg drives ?

800 megs PRIMARY
---------------------------
400 megs LINUX SWAP
400 megs HOME

I will try and mount the drives manually and see if it works...

**UnderScore** · 08-19-2005, 11:36 PM

Originally Posted by TommyHill

I had similar problem with flash memory card... KNOPPIX could not detect the memory drive. Do you think I can install KNOPPIX on two 800 meg drives ?

800 megs PRIMARY
400 megs LINUX SWAP
400 megs HOME

I will try and mount the drives manually and see it it works...

I highly doubt it. The compressed loopback filesystem on the Knoppix CD is approx 695MB and it decompresses to about 1.8GB.

**Harry Kuhman** · 08-19-2005, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by UnderScore

Originally Posted by TommyHill

Do you think I can install KNOPPIX on two 800 meg drives ?s...

I highly doubt it. The compressed loopback filesystem on the Knoppix CD is approx 695MB and it decompresses to about 1.8GB.

On the other hand it would be quite comfortable to install Debian and download plenty of the packages that you wanted in that space. Tommy, have you at least looked at an install of a recent version of Debian? Given that we know there will be problems to resolve with a Knoppix install, is there some problem with a Debian install that you don't think can be resolved, even with the advantage of being able to look at Knoppix and see how it detected things?

**mytruehero** · 08-22-2005, 06:45 AM

I have tried the following boot options, none of which have worked so far:

failsafe
knoppix atapicd
knoppix nohwsetup
knoppix noagp noaudio noapm noapic acpi=off nodma nopcmcia noscsi nousb

Still keeps getting stuck on that same line. Anything else I could try?

**Harry Kuhman** · 08-22-2005, 07:47 AM

Originally Posted by mytruehero

failsafe
knoppix atapicd
knoppix nohwsetup
knoppix noagp noaudio noapm noapic acpi=off nodma nopcmcia noscsi nousb

Still keeps getting stuck on that same line. Anything else I could try?

When I have such problems I try knoppix expert and that way I can see how far I get and what the "wrong" answer to the last question was.

**mytruehero** · 08-22-2005, 08:42 AM

When I type 'expert,' the following happens:

Load SCSI Modules? n
Scanning for USB/Firewire devices... Done.
Do you want to load additional modules from floppy disk? n
Looking for CDROM in: /dev/hda

Whereupon it just hangs. Typing RETURN for autoprobe at the SCSI modules prompt yields the same results.

**jirah** · 08-22-2005, 03:26 PM

From a purely tech/troubleshooting point of view...

Is the BIOS able to see that damaged hard drive..do you get an entry for the drive when the machine boots?
because no matter what operating system; the first sectors on the Primary Master Drive are assumed to be the MBR, and a boot loader will identify as HDA/HD0...if the bios identifies the drive as valid..then you know that knoppix has identified it as HDA and cannot even get enough physical data from the device to know that the knoppix file system is NOT on the device...that situation would reasonably lead me to believe that there is a serious problem with the read head on the device itself..unpluging the device from the powersupply and try booting the knoppix system without it in the device chain

If the BIOS is not identifying the harddrive..then it will seek the next device in the chain ie

rimary slave ;secondary master ;secondary slave...so that knoppix will identify the first device in the chain during its hardware scan as HDA...if that device is your DVD Burner..then you know that there is something wrong with your disc and should try another.

From the sound of the trouble shooting you have already tried...I am guessing that your hard drive is being identified by the BIOS, but has developed a Read issue serious enough, wether due to bad head or bad platters/sectors to be totally unreadable from a general point of view...try to unplug the harddrive power and see if knoppix gets past the hangup..if it does..then your chances of retrieving data from that drive and very slim...if it cannot provide enough information to the boot system to recognize the drive and the data on it..you cannot put it back into the device chain so that you could read the data from it

jirah

**mytruehero** · 08-23-2005, 07:27 AM

Thanks for the long reply, jirah.

I disconnected the hard drive, and that did the trick. I guess we're resigned to the fact that something physically is wrong with the drive.

Thanks a lot for all the input, everyone. Greatly appreciated!