More help with booting...

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: More help with booting...
started by: IcarusExtant

Posted by IcarusExtant on Oct. 02 2004,12:32

Ok, I used rawrite to burn the boot image to a floppy disk. That worked fine. I then extracted the .iso files and burned them to a CD using Nero 5.0...

I put the CD in, put the floppy it, it booted off of floppy. I got to the "boot:" screen, I pressed ENTER and it loaded up the kernal... and then the screen went black and stayed that way for 10 minutes until I restarted the computer.

Any help?

Posted by Rapidweather on Oct. 02 2004,14:17

On my Dell LCD screen, I have to use the boot option "vga=normal", or I get a black, blank screen.
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Can you get to the F2 screen? That has more options to try. The trick is not to let the machine get past the boot: prompt without using one of the options such as "vga=normal" or something, otherwise you have passed the point of no return. DSL should boot right away, no long waits without something interesting going on and showing on the screen.
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Now for the bad part. I have DSL 0.8.2, and it won't fully boot on three of my four machines, but I do not get the totally blank screen like you have, so I am thinking that you can get further along with "vga=normal".
Earlier versions of DSL, such as 0.6.2 had no problems booting, but I always had to "vga=normal" on the Dell UltraSharp LCD monitor.
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hope this helps...
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Posted by IcarusExtant on Oct. 02 2004,20:38

Quote (Rapidweather @ Oct. 02 2004,10:17)

Well, I got something different this time... the screen didn't turn black.

It went through and and loaded linux24, minirt24.gz, said it was Ready... Said "Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel."

And thats where it stayed.

Yours, Icarus Extant

Posted by ke4nt1 on Oct. 02 2004,21:26

[QUOTE}Ok, I used rawrite to burn the boot image to a floppy disk. That worked fine. I then extracted the .iso files and burned them to a CD using Nero 5.0...[/QUOTE]

You shouldn't have to "extract" the files from the .iso, simply burn the image..

See this thread from henk1955 ..
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....hl=nero >

73
ke4nt

Posted by IcarusExtant on Oct. 02 2004,23:08

Quote (ke4nt1 @ Oct. 02 2004,17:26)

The first time I tried that, just double clicking on the iso to bring up Nero, Nero said that it wasn't a valid image. I assumed that my version of nero is old enough that it might not recognize some new change to the .iso format or what not. I don't know - it was just a guess. That was why I extracted, then burned the first time.

I just burned another CD, doing what you said... I opened Nero, hit File, and selected the "Burn Image..." link. None of the file formats that Nero had listed were .iso however. So, I changed file type to "All Files", selected the .iso and hit burn.

I still have the same problem. It'll freeze up after it says "Booting the kernel. Ok" Doesn't go anywhere, doesn't respond to me typing anything.

Yours, Icarus Extant

Posted by Rapidweather on Oct. 03 2004,03:13

That is exactly the error that I got on my Dell Demension 4600:
"uncompressing linux... OK, booting the kernel."
Then it stopped. Had to unplug the machine.
Download and try Damn Small Linux 6.2 from one of the mirrors, and
try that. It works perfectly on my Dell.
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:;):

Posted by IcarusExtant on Oct. 03 2004,05:19

Quote (Rapidweather @ Oct. 02 2004,23:13)

Ok, I'll have to do that when I finish downloading EverQuest 2 Beta (56k x 3.5g = 272h 52m of patching UGH!!!)

Thanks for the advice. =)

Yours, Icarus Extant

Posted by roberts on Oct. 03 2004,20:40

Seems that those who have a Dell and are experiencing booting problems may wish to visit the Dell forums. There is a discussion about Knoppix booting problems there.
< http://forums.us.dell.com/support....x#M5355 >