Disk Boot Failure

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Disk Boot Failure
started by: raysr

Posted by raysr on April 12 2004,03:14

I ordered DSL a week ago and still haven't gotten it. So I got impatient and downloaded "damnsmall-0.6.2.iso" and burnt it to cd. But, "disk boot failure" is what I get when I try to run it. How come? Thanks in advance. "Disk Boot Failure, Insert system disk and press enter". Boots off other discs.

Posted by cbagger01 on April 12 2004,03:50

When you stick your CD into a Microsoft Windows ™ based computer, do you get a web page that automatically appears on your screen? If you open the CD drive letter in Windows Explorer, do you see some autorun and \KNOPPIX files and folders?

Or do you just see "damnsmall-0.6.2.iso" in your Windows explorer screen?

If so, you need to burn the CD-R AS AN IMAGE. For example, I believe that Nero has a choice on the menu called "Burn an Image". Use this choice instead of the normal burning process. Other CD burning software should have a similar choice and this choice is not the one that you usually use to burn mp3s or files to a CD-R.

The built-in burning functionality of Windows XP does not support the burning of a CD image, so you will need to install additional burning software above and beyond the built-in Windows XP burning function.

Otherwise, the only thing I can think of are:

(1) A bad download. Check the md5 checksum to make sure that you have a good download.

(2) A bad CD burn. Some brands of CD-R disks do not burn well with some kinds of CD burner drives. Or they require you to forcefully burn them at a lower speed in order to get a good disk burned.

(3) Some older CDROM drives will not properly read a CDRW disk. Try burning the same image to a CD-R disk instead of a CDRW disk.

Hope this helps.

Posted by raysr on April 12 2004,16:16

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking it's the cd because I have a Knoppix cd that runs (but doesn't ever completely load). I'm trying to use DSL in an older machine for a back-up. 266 processor, 2 Gig drive, 96 M ram. My other machine is a year old with XP-MDK 9.2 dual boot. I couldn't get MDK to work in the older machine either. It would install but not well. I'll just have to wait for the mail! When I put the cd in all I see is some machine data and the boot disc failure prompt. Oh, I scrubbed the drive before trying the disc, but as I said, Knoppix runs, so does MDK so it must have something to do with the cd. I burnt it with XP and with MDK. It was as an image for sure in MDK, and a CD-R disc. So I got a CDRW and tried that, zip. I ran it with MDK and got a picture of the file. What am I doing wrong when burning the cd? Wrong file maybe?

Posted by Sentry Robot on May 04 2004,20:57

Hmm, if you are sure that you burnt the cd as an image file then the only things I can think of are that you maybe have too old of a cdrom drive or just had a bad burn. I've never toyed with mdk, but maybe you should try another cd burning software like < nero > or < NTI >.