From dcorio at zitomedia.net  Mon Nov  5 12:26:35 2007
From: dcorio at zitomedia.net (Dave 'Doc' Corio)
Date: Mon Nov  5 12:34:31 2007
Subject: [Ham-Linux] Unable to boot Linux CDs
Message-ID: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>

    Anyone have any idea why most of my Linux CDs will not boot on my 
new computer?

    The computer is a Gateway Core 2 Duo, running at 2.0 Ghz each 
processor, and has 2G of RAM.

    I have PSKMail, Harv's Hamshack Hack, Puppy, and a few others. All 
of them worked fine with my old computer, but Ubuntu is the only one I 
have now that will boot completely. The rest either give a message that 
a file can't be found (i.e., "Puppy not found on boot CD"), or they 
simply hang up during the boot process.

    The only difference I can see with this computer is the Core 2 Duo 
processor, and the fact that it has a SATA hard drive and not IDE. I 
think the CD drive is IDE.

    Very confused as to why all these CDs suddenly have problems.

Thanks in advance
Dave
KB3MOW

From ka4inm at tampabay.rr.com  Mon Nov  5 13:05:51 2007
From: ka4inm at tampabay.rr.com (Ron Youvan)
Date: Mon Nov  5 13:13:51 2007
Subject: [Ham-Linux] Unable to boot Linux CDs
In-Reply-To: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
References: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
Message-ID: <472F5B7F.5040604@tampabay.rr.com>

>    Anyone have any idea why most of my Linux CDs will not boot on my new 
> computer?

>    The computer is a Gateway Core 2 Duo, running at 2.0 Ghz each 
> processor, and has 2G of RAM.

>    I have PSKMail, Harv's Hamshack Hack, Puppy, and a few others. All of 
> them worked fine with my old computer, but Ubuntu is the only one I have 
> now that will boot completely. The rest either give a message that a 
> file can't be found (i.e., "Puppy not found on boot CD"), or they simply 
> hang up during the boot process.

>    The only difference I can see with this computer is the Core 2 Duo 
> processor, and the fact that it has a SATA hard drive and not IDE. I 
> think the CD drive is IDE.

>    Very confused as to why all these CDs suddenly have problems.

   I had the same problem with a Gateway (Intel mommy board and BIOS)
using Slackware 12, while version 11 booted just fine. (as did Ver. 9)
   I had to set the first boot device as the CDROM and the second boot
device as the floppy.  (the CD contains an image of a floppy)
-- 
    Ron  KA4INM - Please pay your taxes promptly our
                  illegal aliens need the free benefits!
From n0nb at networksplus.net  Mon Nov  5 13:30:02 2007
From: n0nb at networksplus.net (Nate Bargmann)
Date: Mon Nov  5 13:37:52 2007
Subject: [Ham-Linux] Unable to boot Linux CDs
In-Reply-To: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
References: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
Message-ID: <20071105183002.GA25973@mail.networksplus.net>

* Dave 'Doc' Corio <dcorio@zitomedia.net> [2007 Nov 05 11:27 -0600]:

>    Very confused as to why all these CDs suddenly have problems.

I had a failing CD writer and noticed much of the same issues a few
years ago.  Also, some cheap CDRs don't read back if written too fast,
so when I burn a cheap CDR from a spindle, I back the write soeed down
to 8X or 12X and that has seemed to help.

You might try burning the images from another burner, if possible.

73, de Nate >>

-- 
 Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB          |  Successfully Microsoft
  Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @  | free since January 1998.
             http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/           |  "Debian, the choice of
             My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @            |     a GNU generation!"
        http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/       |   http://www.debian.org
From n0nb at networksplus.net  Mon Nov  5 13:33:15 2007
From: n0nb at networksplus.net (Nate Bargmann)
Date: Mon Nov  5 13:41:05 2007
Subject: [Ham-Linux] Unable to boot Linux CDs
In-Reply-To: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
References: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
Message-ID: <20071105183315.GB25973@mail.networksplus.net>

* Dave 'Doc' Corio <dcorio@zitomedia.net> [2007 Nov 05 11:27 -0600]:

>    The only difference I can see with this computer is the Core 2 Duo 
> processor, and the fact that it has a SATA hard drive and not IDE. I think 
> the CD drive is IDE.

I sped read too fast.  I've read where SATA is a problem for
installation, but a lot of the live CDs expect to be able to read the
hard drive for partition access.  Perhaps there is a boot "cheat code"
that disables looking at the hard drive.

73, de Nate >>

-- 
 Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB          |  Successfully Microsoft
  Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @  | free since January 1998.
             http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/           |  "Debian, the choice of
             My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @            |     a GNU generation!"
        http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/       |   http://www.debian.org
From lists at w1nr.net  Mon Nov  5 14:18:50 2007
From: lists at w1nr.net (Mike McCarthy, W1NR)
Date: Mon Nov  5 14:26:50 2007
Subject: [Ham-Linux] Unable to boot Linux CDs
In-Reply-To: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
References: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>
Message-ID: <472F6C9A.2060708@w1nr.net>

Are you using the latest distributions?  SATA drives never worked quite
right on earlier distributions, even up to a year ago.  There may be
something else on the motherboard that needs a later driver as well. 
Try downloading the latest and greatest and see if that makes a difference.

Another problem might be the CD drive microcode.  I had a Sony drive
that would not boot ANY version of Linux until I downloaded and updated
the drive microcode with a newer version.  Unfourtunately, it was
several months after I bought the drive that they released a working
version of microcode for it.

Lastly, be sure the CD's are good.

Mike, W1NR

Dave 'Doc' Corio wrote:
>    Anyone have any idea why most of my Linux CDs will not boot on my
> new computer?
>
>    The computer is a Gateway Core 2 Duo, running at 2.0 Ghz each
> processor, and has 2G of RAM.
>
>    I have PSKMail, Harv's Hamshack Hack, Puppy, and a few others. All
> of them worked fine with my old computer, but Ubuntu is the only one I
> have now that will boot completely. The rest either give a message
> that a file can't be found (i.e., "Puppy not found on boot CD"), or
> they simply hang up during the boot process.
>
>    The only difference I can see with this computer is the Core 2 Duo
> processor, and the fact that it has a SATA hard drive and not IDE. I
> think the CD drive is IDE.
>
>    Very confused as to why all these CDs suddenly have problems.
>
> Thanks in advance
> Dave
> KB3MOW
>

From Linuxdevr at nerdshack.com  Mon Nov  5 14:43:18 2007
From: Linuxdevr at nerdshack.com (Jason A Miller)
Date: Mon Nov  5 14:58:28 2007
Subject: [Ham-Linux] Unable to boot Linux CDs
In-Reply-To: <472F6C9A.2060708@w1nr.net>
References: <472F524B.6040704@zitomedia.net>  <472F6C9A.2060708@w1nr.net>
Message-ID: <1194291798.26467.11.camel@chipnet.linuxdevr.com>

Here are a couple of additional thoughts on this topic:

1) Though I am not familiar with many of the more popular distros, I
have been using Slackware for many years and have also developed my own
distro. There is a parameter that is passed to 'mkisofs' when the CD
images are created that tells it what size to make the boot loader. It
used to be (until about a year ago) that Slackware used 4K boot loaders
on their boot images. That number has now been increased to 32 because
it is thought that will be more compatible with many newer BIOS's. If
you have another Linux box sitting around which you could use to make
the CD images, pass '-boot-load-size 4' to mkisofs when you create the
images. Some BIOS's expect different sizes of boot loaders on bootable
removable media, but 4K seems to be the de-facto standard size.

2) If it won't boot at all (i.e. doesn't see that there's a bootable CD
in the drive), it's probably the device's boot order. As someone else
had previously mentioned, almost all modern BIOS's allow you to set the
priority for boot devices. Set the first as CD/DVD. If it freezes at
boot after doing this, it's probably due to the boot loader size of the
CD image (see above).

Hope you found this helpful.

73


________________________________________________________________________

Jason A Miller
              IRC/IM Nick: Linuxdevr
Open Source Software Developer
      Amateur Radio Callsign: KB7YWI
Email: Linuxdevr@nerdshack.com
     Ham Radio Email: kb7ywi@qsl.net

________________________________________________________________________



