initiating startup sequence, over and over and over, never completing the bootup

[kellysgarden]

Just received the Knoppix 6.4.3 in the mail from OSDisc.com. The disc works great on two of my desktop computers, but I need this to work in an old Sager laptop I just bought for $66. It "almost" boots up, but always gets to the point of the penguin appearing on the screen, then the voice says "initiating startup sequence" and then the screen goes black for just a second, then the penguin reappears and the voice starts over again, then the screen goes black again for a second, then the penguin reappears, etc, etc. in a never-ending loop.

I am a newbie, and am not even sure where or when to start typing in cheat codes or how to do it. I have tried a few things, but have had no success. (The Knoppix disc works great on my other two computers, so I'd like to see it work on this old laptop.)

Any clues or ideas?

[Harry Kuhman]

I haven't bothered to download 6.4.3, but the following is true for all versions of Knoppix that I have use. Cheat codes are entered at the boot prompt as soon as Knoppix starts booting, long before you hear the startup message. You have to enter something fast to prevent the time-out and booting to continue, the best thing for me is to tap F2 and/or F3, which will stop the boot from continuing automatically and also give you some help. Also be advised that for most cheat codes you need to type in the name of the kernel first. For example enter knoppix toram rather than just toram. And this is Linux, so case is important.

[Harry Kuhman]

Also, if you continue to have problems with a purchased disc, consider downloading and burning your own copy. Burn at slow speed.

[krishna.murphy]

Try checking the disk for defects as follows:

knoppix testcd|testdvd

If you have a bad disk (very likely), the mfgr. should replace it for free; if it's okay, then check out the other cheatcode possibilities listed in the file knoppix-cheatcodes.txt in the KNOPPIX folder of the disk. LOTS of hardware conflicts can be bypassed by skipping certain parts of the boot process, or specifying some driver instead of using auto-detection.

If you decide to download an ISO and burn it instead, I suggest using BitTorrent rather than traditional downloading, since it's probably faster and has built-in error checking and correction. Verifying after burning (sometimes available as an option in the burning program) would be worth doing, too, and slower burns do (as mentioned previously) tend to be more likely to verify as correct.

Cheers!
Krishna