help needed re knoppix 5.1.1 cd

[darcykahle]

I have a laptop (HP Pavilion) running XP Home. I recently installed SP2 and all the rest of the patches, and I am now unable to either view the contents of any knoppix cds in windows, or boot from them. I downloaded and burned the latest CD image (5.1.1), and it also is failing to be recognized on this laptop. Under windows, either an error message "not available: incorrect function" is given, or the CPU useage skyrockets to the point where nothing responds, and I have to force a power-off. Booting from any of the knoppix cds that I have fail with the cd not being recognized as bootable. Before I installed the SP2 and patches, I was able to boot into the knoppix 5.0.1 cd that I have, as well as the ealier versions.

I realize that SP2 should not have any effect on whether the BIOS recognizes the cd as bootable, but since that is the only thing that changed, I am at a loss. Any one have any ideas?

Edit - It should also be noted, that I can mount the cds under a linux box that I have, so there is nothing wrong with the burn.

[Harry Kuhman]

People are likely to post and tell you that the OS on your system should have no effect whatever on Knoppix booting. While there is some truth to that, let me share my experience, the one that got me involved with this forum in the first place:

I too have an HP Pavilion. I got it around the time I started using Knoppix, and for a long while I didn't accept any Microsoft XP updates for it when the warnings came up. (This was back in SP1 days, and in fact it's still running SP1). My Knoppix CDs booted just fine on the machine. For the long story see this post and this post, but the short story is that one day I finally accepted the "security updates". Windows was fine. Knoppix would no longer connect to the Internet! I confirmed the CDs were fine, ran testcd, and made more good CDs from the original ISO file, which was confirmed to be unchanged by the md5 checksum. But I could not get on the Internet.

I'm convinced that Microsoft, in their hatred of Linux, did somethng to the EEPROM on the ethernet NIC that holds configuration information to muck with Linux. Windows was fine, and seems to know to ignore the bad configuration information in the NIC. I finally figured out ways around the problem by resetting the NIC manually after each boot. Later version of Linux seemed to learn to bypass the bad configuration information now in the NIC, so I guess the developer community got wise to this attack and strengthened Linux against it.

I do not accept any updates any longer for Microsoft software. I trust my ability to defend my system against hackers by my firewalls and good operating procedures far more than I trust "security updates" from Microsoft. In fact, this damage to my hardware is the only real harm I'm ever suffered from any malware to any of my computers.

So while it seems unlikely that an update is keeping your system from booting, and indeed there may be some other unrelated cause as simple as a screatch to the CD or dust on the CD drive lense, don't rule out an attack from Microsoft until you know the real cause.

[darcykahle]

I too have an HP Pavilion. I got it around the time I started using Knoppix, and for a long while I didn't accept any Microsoft XP updates for it when the warnings came up. (This was back in SP1 days, and in fact it's still running SP1).

Same here. I only installed SP2 so that I could get the update for the timechange (you know, the earlier daylight savings thing). That only installs if you have SP2. If the timechange hadn't changed, I would still blissfully be operating under SP1.

So while it seems unlikely that an update is keeping your system from booting, and indeed there may be some other unrelated cause as simple as a screatch to the CD or dust on the CD drive lense, don't rule out an attack from Microsoft until you know the real cause.

I agree. It may only be coincidence that it no longer boots with SP2 installed, or there may be SOMETHING going on because of Microsoft's fear of anything that is not theirs. Who knows; the culprit may actually be one of the security patches instead of SP2. It is nice to hear that someone else has encountered a similar issue, though I am sorry that anyone has to experience it at all.

I saw in the FAQ a tip regarding this not recogizing the cd as bootable, which suggests using a floppy based boot manager to overcome this (it suggests that the issue is with the bios). I will try that out sometime, but I am certain that the cd should be viewable from within windows. It has an autorun file, after all.

[Harry Kuhman]

... Who knows; the culprit may actually be one of the security patches instead of SP2. It is nice to hear that someone else has encountered a similar issue, though I am sorry that anyone has to experience it at all.

I saw in the FAQ a tip regarding this not recogizing the cd as bootable, which suggests using a floppy based boot manager to overcome this (it suggests that the issue is with the bios). I will try that out sometime, but I am certain that the cd should be viewable from within windows. It has an autorun file, after all.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Is the CD no longer viewable under Windows? I didn't catch that from the first post, even after rereading it. Yea, the CD should be viewable under Windows, I don't know how they could make any change that would prevent that without making the change too obvious, or come up with any good reason why they would want to. It sure doesn't seem likely thay any update would keep the CD from booting, but then again it didn't seem likely that an update would stop a NIC from working that previously worked, even after the PC is completely powered down and then cold booted into Knoppix without running any windows code. If Microsoft malware can chane the NIC EEPROM to screw with Linux, then it's not out of the question that they would change the computer's BIOS to stop it from booting Linux. I'm not ready yet to say that is what happened, but I don't trust Microsoft enough to rule it out.

Are you sure the CD drive is still functional?

Do let us know if Smart Boot Manager helps, if it does it really puts suspicion on the BIOS being changed, although I don't really expect that.

[darcykahle]

... Who knows; the culprit may actually be one of the security patches instead of SP2. It is nice to hear that someone else has encountered a similar issue, though I am sorry that anyone has to experience it at all.

I saw in the FAQ a tip regarding this not recogizing the cd as bootable, which suggests using a floppy based boot manager to overcome this (it suggests that the issue is with the bios). I will try that out sometime, but I am certain that the cd should be viewable from within windows. It has an autorun file, after all.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Is the CD no longer viewable under Windows? I didn't catch that from the first post, even after rereading it. Yea, the CD should be viewable under Windows, I don't know how they could make any change that would prevent that without making the change too obvious, or come up with any good reason why they would want to. It sure doesn't seem likely thay any update would keep the CD from booting, but then again it didn't seem likely that an update would stop a NIC from working that previously worked, even after the PC is completely powered down and then cold booted into Knoppix without running any windows code. If Microsoft malware can chane the NIC EEPROM to screw with Linux, then it's not out of the question that they would change the computer's BIOS to stop it from booting Linux. I'm not ready yet to say that is what happened, but I don't trust Microsoft enough to rule it out.

Are you sure the CD drive is still functional?

Do let us know if Smart Boot Manager helps, if it does it really puts suspicion on the BIOS being changed, although I don't really expect that.

I put any of the burned knoppix cds (present and past versions) into the laptop, and either the system becomes so busy processing the cd that the desktop becomes unresponsive (applications that are already running still work, but the desktop is not refreshed, and is too busy to even respond to mouse clicks), or comes back with an error message, which I identified in the first post. Other cds work fine, even burned cds in this laptop. I am certain that the cd drive is working. It might be that there is a "security concern" that the service patch introduced.

[Harry Kuhman]

I put any of the burned knoppix cds (present and past versions) into the laptop, and either the system becomes so busy processing the cd that the desktop becomes unresponsive (applications that are already running still work, but the desktop is not refreshed, and is too busy to even respond to mouse clicks), or comes back with an error message, which I identified in the first post. Other cds work fine, even burned cds in this laptop. I am certain that the cd drive is working. It might be that there is a "security concern" that the service patch introduced.

Yea, a security concern like you might be considering switching to Linux.

Very strange that this would happen and at the same time Knoppix becomes unbootable, but at least that confirms the CD drive is working. I'm thinking that the system getting very busy may be due to the autorun/autoplay "feature" of Windows, it's tendency to do whatever the autorun.inf file tells it to do when a disc is inserted. In this case the Knoppix CD tries to start the default browser to view the html file. The other CDs you have inserted likely don't do that, thus the difference between CDs. Why starting the browser and viewing the html doc would be an issue I can't explain, but you could try either disabling autorun or holding whatever key it is that temporarly disables it when you insert a CD (ok, I forget which it is, it's either shift, control or alt, I'll leave it to you to determine which). If you servive inserting the CD that way, choose explore (not open) and see if you can examine the contents that way to confirm that this is the issue. Doesn't help one bit getting the CD to boot though.

[darcykahle]

Very strange that this would happen and at the same time Knoppix becomes unbootable, but at least that confirms the CD drive is working. I'm thinking that the system getting very busy may be due to the autorun/autoplay "feature" of Windows, it's tendency to do whatever the autorun.inf file tells it to do when a disc is inserted. In this case the Knoppix CD tries to start the default browser to view the html file. The other CDs you have inserted likely don't do that, thus the difference between CDs. Why starting the browser and viewing the html doc would be an issue I can't explain, but you could try either disabling autorun or holding whatever key it is that temporarly disables it when you insert a CD (ok, I forget which it is, it's either shift, control or alt, I'll leave it to you to determine which). If you servive inserting the CD that way, choose explore (not open) and see if you can examine the contents that way to confirm that this is the issue. Doesn't help one bit getting the CD to boot though.

Ok, I used TweakUI to disable the autoplay feature for the cd drive. Tested with other cds to verify that the autoplay does not run. I then loaded a knoppix 3.4 cd (earliest version that I have), and I got the error "d: drive is unaccessible: invalid function". I loaded the knoppix 5.0.1 cd (recent cd that was known to be working on this cd) and received the same error. I then loaded the new knoppix 5.1.1 cd, and the laptop's cpu maxed out when I simply right-clicked the drive icon to get the context menu. I am certain that the autoplay feature was not the cause for the viewing under windows aspect of the problem. I will test the boot loader thing next, and will let you know if it succeeds or fails.

[Harry Kuhman]

Wow, what amazing results. I'm sure glad that I never accept the "security updates" any longer. I'm really interested in hearing what happens when you use SBM.

[darcykahle]

Wow, what amazing results. I'm sure glad that I never accept the "security updates" any longer. I'm really interested in hearing what happens when you use SBM.

I installed SBM (sbminst.exe -d 0 -t us) to a floppy, and rebooted. It failed to see the cd as bootable (expected), then started booting from the floppy. It displayed the line "booting from removable media" and that was it. no activity on the floppy, the cd, or the hd, and the cursor on the screen remained at the blinking underline. Ctrl-alt-del did not work, and no key showed any response. I am wondering if some patch (or the SP2) "fixed" things to allow only booting from the HD.

needless to say, this is getting frustrating.

[Harry Kuhman]

... I am wondering if some patch (or the SP2) "fixed" things to allow only booting from the HD.
needless to say, this is getting frustrating.

I can't imagine how it could do that. I could believe that malware (microsoft, or even some nasty rootkit that didn't want you to be able to find and remove it) could change the BIOS to prevent you from booting anything else. But it would be pretty hard to come up with anything that anticipated the SBM boot code and defeated it too, as well as blocking booting and even looking at the Linux CD, but still let you access other CDs on the drive.

Please keep us posted about what you learn.