Problem reading cylinder 0, expected 18532?, read -1 after format floppy disk

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[Benny]

I'm working with an HP nx9010 laptop without a hdd, booting from an old MuVo MP3 Player (64MB). The desktop right corner shows that I'm running linux 2.4.31 on i686. A few weeks ago I d/l & burnt a cd-rw with the 4.10 version but, at this laptop, it didn't boot up. I burnt it at a VAIO laptop because I didn't understand the cdw api that comes with DSL &, also, because at this laptop I didn't have the necessary RAM for the job.

I was trying to make a boot floppy to check if it could be modified easyly to boot the new cd at this machine & then replace my current version. Is there something better to try & then substitute my current version?

Thanks for any help on this issue!!

[CNK]

The desktop right corner shows that I'm running linux 2.4.31 on i686.

Ah, you do know that 2.4.31 is the version of your Linux kernel, not of DSL? That kernel version is the same one that comes with the latest DSL. To find your DSL version, go to the DSL menu, then "System>System Stats". The DSL version should be printed in the top line of the CPU tab that opens with the stats window.

As for the boot floppy, looks like you'd better try another floppy disk, or failing that, another drive. Though having just looked up the specs on your model, it should be able to boot to a CD anyway. Check your BIOS boot settings and make sure it is trying to boot to the CD drive.

By the way, 256MB RAM should be fine for CD burning, though I admit that the cdw program is quite tricky. I found a webpage that explained the process, but I don't know which computer I bookmarked it on.

[Benny]

Thanks for replying CNK! I'm sorry to have taken so long to follow up, but I'm back...

I checked the stats you mentioned & found out that it says DSL 4.4, but I kept looking around &, above the "dmesg" tab it says: <4> Linux versiion 2.4.31 (root@box) (gcc version 2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease) #6 SMP Fri Oct 21 15:15:54 EDT 2005 as the first entry there.

I think that I recall this linux version that I'm using is a rather old one because I made this pendrive for serving this purpose on an extinct vaio laptop running, with difficulty, win xp ~2005 and AFAIR never updated this software because didn't know how (from within DSL itself, that is).

The only way it can be updated is if I do it myself, am I right? I've tried something with 'apt-get' but never noticed anything different than a NON-WORKING situation...

As a clue, my Bon Echo version is 2.0 &, at the end of the About page under the Help tab is this:
--->Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061102 BonEcho/2.0.<---

Thanks in advance for any tip/info/help on this!

PS. Browsing around with emelfm I stumbled upon the menu.lst at the boot folder &, considering that this's what I'm actually using to boot my current version, it might also work for booting up the cd with minor changes in there. So, I'm going to have at least a couple of days toying with this idea to see if I'm right or not (hope I won't brake anything important while at it). In any case, I'll post the outcome of this experiment.

[CNK]

DSL hasn't had a major release since around 2008, so even after a few years, your version is probably pretty close to the current one. Your version of Bon Echo is the same as mine which came with DSL 4.4.10.

Apt-get is for updating individual programs, not the whole operating system. Even for updating individual software it has limited use because the Debian Woody package archive it would download software from hasn't been updated for years. You should be able to update the version of DSL on the memory stick by simply copying files to it with another machine (perhaps making a backup of its contents before hand). Have a look in the DSL Wiki for more info on updating.

I don't think GRUB can read from a CD without additional software. If you want to give it a try anyway, make sure to make a copy of your menu.lst file and place it out of the way so that you can restore it if things get messed up. Did you try looking at the machine's BIOS settings to see if you can enable CD booting?