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Topic: Cannot boot from Live CD, syslinux issues

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Moyerman

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: May 2007

Posted: May 20 2007,13:06

Hello. First I would like to thank everyone for this great software. It works great in my machine. My problem is I can't boot the live CD on some old Gateway machines. First I tried booting my DSL-3.3 no joy. Then I switched to DSL-3.3-syslinux. The boot floppy works O.K. splash screen comes up "hit enter to continue" Then I get this error-
Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press reset button to quit.

Additional builtin commands available:
cat mount umount
insmod rmmod lsmod

knoppix#

I searched the Forum and found this answer to my problem under "Topic: trying to boot DSL from a boot floppy
Posted: Feb. 22 2007,12:04"
"In order to use the DSL boot floppy and a DOS formatted drive, you need to have at a minimum the knoppix folder containing the knoppix file on c:\

c:\knoppix\knoppix

You can use many mthods to get this on the C: drive.

If while running dos you can get to the D:\ drive, the cdrom then you could copy over a file."
My CD is a compressed Image file. I could slave the old drive to my machine but wouldn't the diffrence in hardware cause problems with the Gateway machine? Or is it possible to copy Koppix from my machine to the Gateway machine?
How would I do that? I'm a noob as far as Linux commands go.

lucky13

Group: Members
Posts: 1478
Joined: Feb. 2007

Posted: May 20 2007,14:30

That method is for booting from a Windows partition. Before you do that, give more information about the computers you're having problems with -- hardware configuration, etc. I had a similar issue on my old NT workstation box. In my case, it was just the way Dell had (or more likely didn't) set jumpers on my Zip drive when they assembled the box -- Windows, in my experience, is a little more forgiving of improper hardware settings like that. I don't know how old your Gateways are, but you should be able to boot the floppy and then the CD from it as long as Gateway properly assembled those computers and as long as you don't have devices which syslinux is trying to find the image before or instead of the cdrom. That was my case with the way it was looking for Knoppix on the Zip drive -- the Zip drive lit up, which was the clue that something was wrong, and the cdrom never even spun until I disconnected the Zip drive and then later set the jumpers properly.

--------------
"It felt kind of like having a pitbull terrier on my rear end."
-- meo (copyright(c)2008, all rights reserved)

^thehatsrule^ Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 3275
Joined: July 2006

Posted: May 20 2007,18:00

might be easier to try booting off floppy with the DSL cd also inserted... (depending on how your cdrom is connected though)

Moyerman

Group: Members
Posts: 5
Joined: May 2007

Posted: May 21 2007,00:21

It was quite a battle but we won! I think lucky13 got this one. The harddrive was not jumpered. No master, no slave, no cable select. When I jumpered it to master it wouldn't boot the Win95 that was installed on it. Weird. It was a networked workstation. My guess is some scripts were running at startup. After formating the harddrive the boot disk worked and it could see the CD with Koppix. It is installed on the harddrive now. I did make one very large mistake. I installed GRUB before I got the live CD booted. I was using two diffrent boot floppies and one has GRUB. I didn't notice the countdown until it installed . Sometimes it won't boot. It asks "insert bootable media and hit any key" I guess I'll repair the MBR and reinstall. I'm setting these machines up for a small school. They don't have modems so does anyone have a idea how I might add any Debian type apps? My machine works so I could download with it but how would I transfer via CDs? Would serial transfer work better?

lucky13

Group: Members
Posts: 1478
Joined: Feb. 2007

Posted: May 21 2007,12:40

Quote

The harddrive was not jumpered. No master, no slave, no cable select. When I jumpered it to master it wouldn't boot the Win95 that was installed on it. Weird.

Weird and also very stupid. Lots of older systems by the "big" vendors were put together like that with lots of corner-cutting. I hope Dell and Gateway and HP (edit: and Compaq!) are happy with the fractions of cents per unit they saved by hording jumpers, CD audio cables, etc.

Quote

I guess I'll repair the MBR and reinstall.

You can probably get by with just wiping the MBR. The installation(s) should be fine.

Quote

They don't have modems so does anyone have a idea how I might add any Debian type apps? My machine works so I could download with it but how would I transfer via CDs? Would serial transfer work better?

It really depends what you want to add. I would start with MyDSL and see what you want from it. Then I would look at enabling dpkg and using Debian binaries. You can install by CD or over network. Do these computers have NICs? That would be easiest and fastest.

--------------
"It felt kind of like having a pitbull terrier on my rear end."
-- meo (copyright(c)2008, all rights reserved)

7 replies since May 20 2007,13:06

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