Cloop and I/O errors

Forum: USB booting
Topic: Cloop and I/O errors
started by: peekj

Posted by peekj on Oct. 22 2004,15:22

So I finally managed to get dsl 0.8.2 installed and booting on a scancruzer 256mb usb key.

I tried the frugal method and that never worked. I just couldn't get past the stupid sector error.

I got it to work with the HP utility and through windows.

My bios will boot off the stick and get as far as re-scanning the usb devices.

After that I briefly get to see an insmod error (something about input) and then a mess of Cloop Read Errors. Bytes lost and all that stuff.

It nevers gets into a GUI, just leaves me at the command line. I can see the directory structure. I remember seeing errors about not being able to read from the KNOPPIX file in /cdrom/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX.

Thought it might be a bad image but I checked the checksum and re-did it several times always with the same result. This also happened when I tried Feather Linux.

Any suggestions?

Posted by ke4nt1 on Oct. 22 2004,17:15

Not knowing how familiar you are with USB devices and Linux,
this may sound stupid, but it happened to me once.

When I copied data and files to my USBKey, what I didn't know
at the time was that the writes are very buffered.

Once I saw the prompt return to me, I thought I was finished...
The process being similar in timeframe/speed to a HD write...

Actually, It takes several minutes to cache and write large files..
So I ended up pulling out the USBKey before ALL the cache had been written..

Make sure you umount the key before you pull it.
It may take several minutes before the key is actually umounted.

73
ke4nt

Posted by peekj on Oct. 22 2004,17:24

Hmmm... I suppose that could be possible. I did this in Windows and then rebooted. I never "safely removed" the usb key. I will try that I guess and just give it lots of time. Thanks for the advice.

Has anyone else ever even heard of these errors?

Posted by peekj on Oct. 23 2004,22:37

That didn't help any.
What do these cloop errors mean anyways?
Anybody have any ideas?

Posted by ke4nt1 on Oct. 24 2004,01:11

I only see cloop errors when...

1. Ran out of memory
2. Errors in reading the compressed filesystem /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX
3. Errors in your downloaded .iso file.

73
ke4nt

Posted by cbagger01 on Oct. 24 2004,03:54

Also,

I have seen cloop errors when:

"DMA" aceleration is turned on for a device (hard drive or CDROM) that doesn't work properly with DMA.

Posted by peekj on Oct. 24 2004,06:36

Well I can only assume that dsl is not liking my usb stick very much because I got flash-puppy to work just fine. Must be a knoppix thing as feather linux also gave me cloop errors. From the look of the errors it can't properly read the compressed knoppix/knoppix file.
Too bad

Posted by peekj on Oct. 24 2004,06:37

Quote (cbagger01 @ Oct. 23 2004,23:54)

Also,

I have seen cloop errors when:

"DMA" aceleration is turned on for a device (hard drive or CDROM) that doesn't work properly with DMA.

Why would DMA on a cd-rom drive matter? It's booting from the usb key. Sorry but I don't understand that...

Posted by cbagger01 on Oct. 25 2004,05:04

I didn't say that "DMA" was YOUR problem.

Just that DMA problems can cause cloop errors (which is true).

I guess I could state things better by being more generic:

cloop errors can be caused by any situation where DSL is unable to properly read the contents of the cloop file (in your case, stored on the USB key)

Why does this happen to you?

If I knew why, I would tell you but I don't know.

Posted by ico2 on Nov. 10 2004,17:25

check md5sum of the iso.