Hello,

I've poked around with Linux before but I am no expert and i am a bit rusty at the boot line and command line; it's been awhile since I worked on a Linux system so I wonder if someone could help. I'm running Knoppix 5.2 Live CD on my laptop. It will not play sounds out of my sound card and won't work with my PCMCIA wireless G card. I can't get it to recognize either device. The boot menu says it finds the sound card and reports the correct model in the bootup messages,though: VIA VT8223/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller. It finds the PCMCIA drivers OK and finds and works with all other devices OK: DVD ROM/CD R/RW drive; USB; wireless mouse, and all my USB drives. Looks like I have to go and grab the drivers for the wireless G card and soundcard, but where do I go to get these? Dynex, maker of the wireless card, doesn't have Linux drivers for its device, and Averatec doesn't have Linux drivers for the built in sound card either.

Also, how would I go about trying to restore the master boot block (MBR) on my hard drive, which is basically trashed and keeps rebooting over and over. Knoppix is able to mount this disk and access all the data on it, so looks like the problem has gotta be the MBR. In Windows it boots as far as the initial splash screen, the Windows logo on black background, then flashes a blue screen really fast, then reboots. (Windows XP service pack 2). I have tried using Windows;s F8 boot options and can't restore it that way. Knoppix is supposed to have the tools to be able to fix this type of problem when you can't in Windows. So I downloaded testdisk, and all I get are the following files:

TestDisk - CGSecurity.htm testdisk-6.10.linux24.tar.bz2 testdisk-doc-6.10.zip
testdisk-6.10-1.i386.rpm testdisk-6.10.linux26.tar.bz2
testdisk-6.10.linux24 testdisk-doc-6.10.tar.bz2

I untarred testdisk-6.10.linux24.tar.bz2 and got:

knoppix@Knoppix:/media/sda1/document...disk-6.10.linux24/t
estdisk-6.10$ ls
ChangeLog copying ico linux readme
authors documentation.html info news thanks

knoppix@Knoppix:/media/sda1/document...disk-6.10.linux24/t
estdisk-6.10$ cd linux
knoppix@Knoppix:/media/sda1/document...disk-6.10.linux24/t
estdisk-6.10/linux$ ls
l photorec.1 photorec_static readme.txt testdisk.1 testdisk_static

Finally, what is the default root password and screensaver password? I've tried "root", "knoppix", "knopper" all in lower, upper, and lower-with-upper-first-letter.

I am running:
Averatec 3150 Laptop
Sound device:
Wireless G card: Dynex DX-WGNBC

knoppix@Knoppix:~$ sudo lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P/KN266 Host Bridge
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. Unknown device 0000
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 8
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8633 [Apollo Pro266 AGP] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
Memory behind bridge: dfd00000-dfefffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: cfc00000-dfbfffff
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device c602
Flags: bus master, stepping, slow devsel, latency 168, IRQ 10
Memory at 14000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=05, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: 10000000-11fff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: 12000000-13fff000
I/O window 0: 00001000-000010ff
I/O window 1: 00001400-000014ff
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001

00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device c905
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
I/O ports at e400 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device c905
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
I/O ports at e800 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device c905
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
I/O ports at ec00 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device c905
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5
Memory at dfffff00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. Unknown device 0000
Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device 1205
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 255
I/O ports at fc00 [size=16]
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device 0408
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
I/O ports at dc00 [size=256]
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.6 Communication controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 80)
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device 1005
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2

00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device 0207
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
Memory at dffffe00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: TWINHEAD INTERNATIONAL Corp Unknown device 030d
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
Memory at dfe80000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Expansion ROM at dfe70000 [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [80] AGP version 2.0



Thx
CSO