Problems on boot

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Problems on boot
started by: Ramiro85

Posted by Ramiro85 on July 28 2005,03:13

Hello, im new to dsl however i had run serveral linux (Fedora, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc) and windows (95,98,2000AS,XP,2003SE etc) instalations without a problem, ok windows gave me a lot of trouble but i guess its normal :-).The problem is that when i try to boot up from the cd on the Acermate 1200 (and old pc that was turning into a pile of dust on my room, see spec down) i can't couse there is no option in the bios to do so i decide to create a boot up disk. I download the img file, filename: bootfloppy.img and i used rawrite2 (wich i coppyed from the penguin sleuth kit cd) to create a boot up disk. the program wich i run from pure dos said the boot disk was created fine.
I put the boot up floppy disk on the unit and i get a Boot failed error.
So i decide to try the CD on another pc and it boot well so the cd is burned and everything is good. i belive the problem is in the floppy so i try creating another boot up disk and i got the same error.
So i move the HD to another pc and boot from the cd install to the hd (standar instalation) and the dsl os boot fine, i took the HD and put it back in the acer mate and i got an error during boot up (but the os was installed on the hd), the error is Kernel Panic: VFS untable to mount root fs on 16:01 (i guess its beacause of the mother and micro diferences) but i did that to check the hd was working.
The bios setting are fine, A then C.
I also try to create a fat 32 primary partition on the HD and copy the content of the booting DSL CD to it and then boot with the Floppy but i got the same Boot failed error.
Then i decide maybe the bootfloppy.img file was bad so i download it again but i still have the same problem.
The pc hard spec are:
AMD K5 100Mhz Micro
Seagate 2.0HD
16MB RAM
Magica ESS sound card isa
CD/DVD ROM pioneer
unknown mother with ALI M1451 Chipset
3 1/2 Floppy
No modem no ethernet
integrated video on the mother
I have already try to boot up on that pc with a win 98 se boot up disk and it booted up good so the floppy drive is working fine. The CD room also couse when i boot with the win 98 floppy I could acces the dSL CD...
I have also removed the ess sound card just in case but it doesn't want to work
Am I doing something wrong? or is there another possibility i haven't seen? Any ideas on how to install dsl on that pc will be very apreciated
Sorry about the spelling mistakes.
Ramiro

Posted by cbagger01 on July 28 2005,12:04

I think that your problem is due to the version of "SYSLINUX" that is used for the boot floppy.

Try downloading a newer (or even older) version of Syslinux from the author's website.

It can be run from a mswindows machine or from a linux machine.

Use this program to update the bootloader on your boot floppy disk.

Posted by Ramiro85 on July 28 2005,13:36

ive download the img file from < http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....ppy.img > and the new rawrite file from
< http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwritewin-0.7.zip >
so i don't think thats the problem anyway i have just downloaded both again and i still can't boot, neither from the cd nor from the HD
but thanks for the try

Posted by cbagger01 on July 28 2005,14:23

Let me explain again:

The bootfloppy is stored in an image file.

Rawrite is the program that is used to create the boot floppy.

AFTER the boot floppy is created, you get a floppy disk that contains the DSL kernel, initial RAMDISK and the SYSLINUX version x.xx bootloader (I don't remember the exact version number).

This version seems to be incompatible with your PC, so you can try and OVERWRITE the bootloader on your ALREADY CREATED floppy disk.

You can do this by downloading the latest syslinux program from the syslinux web site.

Either download the syslinux for linux or download the syslinux for Windows

Then follow the instructions to use the syslinux command to update the version that is stored on the floppy disk.

It is something like this:

syslinux /dev/fd0

or

syslinux A:

Read the syslinux docs for more details.

I can't explain it any better than this.

Posted by Ramiro85 on July 28 2005,21:24

sorry i didn't explained myself well I did what you were telling me but i wasn't able to boot so I download the img file again and it didn't worked.
But.. these afternoon i did a MD5 Checksum and it looked like the 3 img files i downloaded had errors (rare isn't it) so i went to a cyber and download the img file again download rawrite again and i run with the floppy to my house and it did Boot UP!!!
It seems strange that the img files were wrong specialy when the current.iso was well downloaded...
So Im relly sorry for the time i made you waste you can close these thread now.
Anyway Thanks for the help