Gateway Solo 5100 won't boot

**amvakar** · 03-31-2007, 05:25 PM

I've been using Knoppix for quite some time now, and when I acquired an older Solo 5100 from a family member, I decided that using a live CD would be the best way to maximize the small hard disk size. However, with nearly every single disk I've tried, the computer hangs after the "Looking for CD in /dev/hdc" message. The disk is fine; it boots on my desktop, and doing "knoppix testcd" confirmed that there is nothing wrong with the disk. "failsafe" boots fine, but I'd like to be able to, at the very least, use PCMCIA for my wireless network and compact flash adapter. Any ideas?

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-31-2007, 07:39 PM

Look through the cheat codes file and try to find cheat codes that will get you past your booting issues. nodma, scsi=off and noapic are good places to start. Or try booting in expert mode and make good notes about all of your answers; when it hangs try again and answer the question where it hung differently.

And I'll take it on faith that the CD is good, but working on a different system means nothing. If it was burnt at high speed you would do yourself a favor by doing another low speed burn just to be safe and rule that out as an issue.

**amvakar** · 03-31-2007, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by Harry Kuhman

Look through the cheat codes file and try to find cheat codes that will get you past your booting issues. nodma, scsi=off and noapic are good places to start. Or try booting in expert mode and make good notes about all of your answers; when it hangs try again and answer the question where it hung differently.

And I'll take it on faith that the CD is good, but working on a different system means nothing. If it was burnt at high speed you would do yourself a favor by doing another low speed burn just to be safe and rule that out as an issue.

Thank. nodma fixed it.