DSL when CDROM will not boot

Forum: HD Install
Topic: DSL when CDROM will not boot
started by: aorta

Posted by aorta on June 14 2005,22:42

Any help appreciated

I am a junior school teacher responsible for ICT. Whilst the majority of our machines run windows in one flavour or another I am trying to explore installing DSL on 30 old machines mainly for web use and to expand pupils horizons beyond just one OS

The machines are
P133
1666mb HD
Atapi CDR-7930 CD Roms
The bios is so old it is unable to allow booting from the CD and there is no update for it.
I would like to be able to install DSL to the hard drive as the CD are only 4x speed.

I have tried the following things
DSL boot floopy with CD (Fails to find the CDROM)
DSL boot foppy with knoppix directory copied to dos partition and install from HD selected from bootfloppy options. (Same fail)
DSL boot floppy with dsl iso copied to dos partition and install from HD selected from bootfloppy options. (Same fail)

The boot floppy doesn't find my CDROM however I know some linux can find it as I have installed blueflops linux and this allows me to mount the CD.

I am a linux newbie and any help would be appreciated

Cheers

Posted by cbagger01 on June 15 2005,02:12

My guess is that you have a bad bootfloppy. Try again with a new blank floppy disk.

Do you get the "unable to find KNOPPIX, dropping you to a limited shell" message?

Posted by aorta on June 15 2005,10:17

Yes the error message is the one you mentined that leaves you with a limited shell.

I will try another boot floppy although I have tried two already

Does the CDROM need to be mounted?

Thanks for your help

Posted by hawki on June 15 2005,14:20

Hi
I did a quick search and I see nothing special about your cdrom drive. It looks to be a Hitachi CDR-7930 and is supposed to be a 8X ATAPI drive. It should use the standard cdrom driver. Make sure the DSL bootable cd is in the drive and ready before you try to boot from the floppy. Also make sure your not using the USB boot floppy. I don't think it will find your drive.
good luck

Posted by aorta on June 15 2005,21:00

Thanks for the research.

I replaced the CDROM and it booted first time (6 years of school abuse was too much for it)

I am now working through a hard drive install

Thanks all

Posted by hawki on June 15 2005,22:11

Hi
Great. Unless you absolutely need a hd install I would use a frugal install for your purposes. There are good reasons for a hd install but frugal starts clean after each boot.
good luck

Posted by aorta on June 15 2005,22:40

Using dsl 2 install followed by dsl-hsinstall it has installed itself nicely to the hard drive and the internet is working
I just need to learn how to set a proxy server settings at school and restrict access to some progs and we will be away. Firefox won't run but I suspect that is because the specs are too small.

Anyway cheers again

Aorta (Phil)

Posted by hawki on June 16 2005,02:19

Hi again
You didn't say how much memory your systems have. If you have the X window environment running firefox should run given enough memory. You should have enough disk space to repartition it and create a swap partition. I would try about 200Mb. That should give you enough virtual memory to run it. It will be slow but I think it will work. It will give you a good browser to work with.

good luck