Cannot boot Knoppix on Sony VAIO PCG-Z505JS

[mikebo]

Hello -
I have an old Sony VAIO PCG-Z505JS laptop with 128MB RAM. I'm trying to load KNOPPIX 5.0.1 CD EN and I've tried booting it plain and also with several command line switches, but it consistently bombs out.

I've used the options listed below which gets me further than a boot with no options:
knoppix ide2=0x180,0x386 nopcmcia
Also tried various combinations of: atapicd nodma acpi=off noapm
etc, etc

Knoppix consistently hangs at "Starting udev hot-plug detection..." for about 2 minutes, then says "Failed" and begins scrolling hundreds of lines of IO errors so fast I cannot read them...

cloop: Read error at pos XXXXXXXXX in file /cdrom/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX, 29516 bytes lost.
cloop: zlib decompression error -3 uncompressing block XXXX XXXXX/X/XXXXX/X XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX
end_request: I/O error, dev hde, sector XXXXXX
...

then after a minute I get:
Error: No suitable X-Server found for your card.
and the system hangs hard and must be powered off.

I have verified my md5 checksum of my ISO image is: 653acc801d4059598bd388de8171a20d
I suppose the DVD reader could be bad, but it's always worked before and boots Windows media just fine.
The CD is definately good as I can boot from several other machines with it...

I know this Sony VAIO is some weird hardware, so any help would be most appreciated.
Regards,
mikebo

[Bob Perron]

I've got the same problem. I am currently posting on an identical Vaio. . .using Knoppix 4.02 EN. It seems we are being left behind. . . .It appears you are already familiar with the cheatcodes needed to boot 4.02.

[Bob Perron]

On a happier note, I have successfully booted Knoppix 5.01 on my IBM Transnote, which if possible has even wierder hardware. However, to be fair, Knoppix does not operate the writing recognition tablet which is part of the Transnote package.