CD-ROM Drive Not Recognized.

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: CD-ROM Drive Not Recognized.
started by: kewldude606

Posted by kewldude606 on May 17 2006,21:11

I have a very old computer: 32MB RAM, 2 1.05GB SCSI hard drives (1 is bad), and a Plextor SCSI CD-ROM Drive (cartridge loading). I finally found the cartridges for the CDROM drive so I made a boot floppy and a DSL CD. (Yes, I didn't just copy the iso onto the CD and same for the bootfloppy.)

So now I put both in my old computer and start it up. I get to the place where you have to press enter or enter in cheat codes but i just press enter. After a while, it says KNOPPIX filesystem not found (or something to that extent) and then it says "Dropping to a (very) limited command shell".

How can I get this computer up and running using the CDROM drive? Are there some drivers I can compile in or something?

Posted by piccolo on May 18 2006,11:03

I should try if another computer can boot from that DSL LiveCD

Posted by cbagger01 on May 18 2006,16:23

Maybe your CDROM drive is not being recognized by the DSL boot floppy.

If you already have another OS like DOS / Win95 on the computer, then do the following:

Copy the contents of the CD over to your C:\ drive, but make sure to use UPPERCASE letters for the directory name and file names, ie:

C:\KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX

Then try again with the boot floppy.

If this does not work, it is likely that your SCSI disk controller is not supported by DSL (unlikely) or the driver module is not being loaded at bootup.

In this situation, you can boot DSL on another PC and manually copy the appropriate SCSI driver file over to a second (blank) floppy disk.

Then boot DSL with the "expert" boot option and load the SCSI driver when prompted and insert the driver floppy disk.

Good Luck.

Posted by kewldude606 on May 18 2006,19:23

Quote (piccolo @ May 18 2006,07:03)

I should try if another computer can boot from that DSL LiveCD

I put the CD in my computer and it didn't boot up, it had these two penguins on the screen for about 3 minutes before I shut it off and tried again with the same results. Then I checked the md5sums and they matched. Plus I downloaded via torrent which should make sure, right? I also turned on disc verification when I burned the disc with Nero 7.

I will try the bootdisks now. I'm actually not sure what OS is on there ;-).

Update:
I just created an MS-DOS bootdisk and put it in to the old computer. I'm not sure if DOS was the OS installed on that computer or if the bootdisk contains the entire DOS OS. Anyway, the computer detected the CDROM drive in the BIOS but I couldn't get to it from DOS. CD C: worked and brought me my (ancient) files and CD A: brought me the floppy drive files but CD C: got an invalid drive letter error and I tried up to drive N but kept getting the same error.

Can I put the CD in my normal computer and copy one file onto the floppy, copy it over, and do that again? What if files are too big to fit on the floppy?

Thanks again guys.

Posted by piccolo on May 19 2006,10:07

Quote

Information from Wiki:

Quote

SOME COMPUTERS HAVE DIFFICULTY BOOTING FROM A CD-RW DISK
If you have problems, it is suggested that you burn DSL to a CD-R disk instead of a CD-RW disk.

Quote

Can I put the CD in my normal computer and copy one file onto the floppy, copy it over, and do that again? What if files are too big to fit on the floppy?

Read the Wiki Documentation to know about other install methods:< Documentation >. Following Articles:
-Floppy Only Install (No Netcard, Linux Only)
-Floppy Only Install (No Netcard, Windows Required)
-Floppy Only Install with Netcard (Poormans Install)

However I believe this method may be better for you:
Extract the hard disk from old computer, to insert it onto another computer so using the method explained by cbagger01 you can copy the KNOPPIX folder.
Then you connect the hard disk on old computer again. Insert the boot floppy and boot the computer.
That launch DSL using the file onto hard disk as well as DSL boot from CDROM. Therefore, DSL was not installed to hard disk but will run "live mode" from RAM memory.

Posted by kewldude606 on May 19 2006,18:45

I did burn to a CDR.

Sadly, I don't have any other SCSI compatible computers

. I will do the 1st link you mentioned.

Update:
I read thru the tutorial, seems simple but time consuming...Is that TomsRootBoot the only Linux I need? The requirements say you need Knoppix or a full blown install but you never seem to boot into them. The boot floppy mentioned has all the programs used in the tutorial (I think...)

Posted by kewldude606 on May 22 2006,22:51

bump

anyone?

Posted by roberts on May 23 2006,00:26

Might want to try Smart Boot Manager.
Place it on a floppy and see if it finds your cdrom drive.

Posted by skaos on May 23 2006,14:52

I would guess that the SCSI controller isn't supported by DSL. Can you boot tomsrtbt and run the lspci command (not sure if this comes with tomsrtbt though) to find out which card you have. And if that doesn't work, could you open the box and take a look at the card?

You could also take a look at Slackware which I think comes with some scsi boot disks.

Posted by roberts on May 23 2006,15:36

I use an ncr853cx scsi daily. Many other SCSI controllers are supported at boot time.
What is the SCSI controller in question and what version of DSL is being used?