Problem with installing MDK 10

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

Hi everyone, i've been looking to develop a MUD (Multi-User-Dungeon) as a spare time hobby for some time now. Until recently i haven't been looking much into the requirements of hosting one, until the past two days. It was only reading through some files from the internet that i really became aware of Unix and Linux.

Well, to cut to the chase, after reading about Linux i was hoping to install it on an older computer that i have at home. --> Pentium II processor, 450 megahertz, 128 MB ram, working under Windows 98. To 1) Use as a host server for the MUD i'm working on, and 2) work as a server for the other computers i have at home to link everyone to the internet.

I had downloaded the required ISO files from www.linuxiso.org, after a bit of trial and error (4 CDs later ) I was able to successfully burn the ISOs. Problem occurred, i can't install through the CD-Roms at boot-up. I had set up my system BIOS to initiate through the CD-ROM first, but i constantly got an error saying that the attempt to boot through the CD-Rom... Failed.

I then followed through with the document i had downloaded, it told me to use the rawwrite file under dosutils in the CD-ROM, problem is, when i attempted to use the program it would tell me something like "Program is an invalid Win32 program" I then tried using the rawrite, and rawwritewin files, both giving me similar errors. I then continued by booting into DOS mode, i'm not much of an adept at using dos ^_^;; i couldn't seem to switch into the CD Rom Drive, but i could switch between C: and A:. After several attempts, i gave up and decided to try out the DOS prompt offered inside Windows 98, when i attempted to open the rawwrite and rawwritewin files it gave me an error, something along the lines of "File is too large for memory" and rawrite would either freeze up the dos prompt or give an error saying that there has been a critical error and the program will have to be terminated.

I tried seeing if another computer would be able to proccess the information, my second computer working under Windows 98, 256 MB RAM, Intel Pent III. worked perfectly at loading the CD-Rom, but it would give the same error when making the boot up disk.

I tried using the MD5Summer program after reading through about 13 pages in this forum most of which suggested using the program to verify the integrity of the ISO, i have to confess, i got a bit confused with using the program, i think i got the right verification working...

 

I had read through 13 pages of the forum, obviously since no one mentioned a problem like mine I probably did something stupid, but if anyone could shine some light on it, i would appreciate it greatly. Thanks in advance.

[tyme]

what does the directory structure of the CD you burned look like? i.e. what files and directories does it contain.

 

did you make sure to set the option for the cd to be bootable?

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

Thanks for responding, for the files that i have in the CD Rom --->

Folders; Doc, dosutils, images, isolinux, Mandrake, Misc

Files: autorun, COPYING, index, install, License, pkg-10.0-Official-download-i586.idx, README, release - notes, VERSION.

 

As for the second question, I am not too sure about the option to set it as bootable? If you mean the BIOS option, i did set it up to be bootable. In case you mean bootable with the CD burning, i was able to get it started on a seperate computer (loading the installation that is, for MDK)

 

Thanks again

[tyme]

if the install started on another system, it sounds like a problem with the system you want to install it on.

 

do you know what speed you burned it at, and what speed the cdrom drive on the computer you want it to install on reads at? trying burning at a lower speed, say 8x...or swapping a different cdrom drive into the system you want to install on.

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

The rate that I burned the files onto the CD ROM is at 4X speed, the CD ROM that im using in the system runs at 40x and there is a second drive that runs at about 12x its a CD-CDR drive.

 

Thanks Again

[Pzatch]

If you extracted the ISO before burning you'll have to go back and redownload it since extracting it in windows strips the boot information from the ISO.

 

Exactly what errors do you get when you do get it to start loading linux.

[devries]

I haven't tried it in a while but if I remember correctly rawrite only works in DOS and not in a DOS box. Use http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntrawrite/ for writing a raw image ( http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386...-create-floppy).

 

edit: And you could try booting from your second CD, and when it asks to switch CDs pop in the first one)

And I agree with you, the search function on this board is not very good.

Edited July 10, 2004 by devries

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

Hi, thanx for the continued support everyone :)

 

Pzatch: I haven't even gotten Mandrake to load yet So i don't really have any errors so to say with the installation. On a second system i was able to get it to load. I didn't do much inside of the installation program though, since that system is my sibling's. Also, I didn't extract the ISO into windows i believe, using Nero i burned the ISO image into windows. (That is what i'm suppose to do... right?) :unsure:

Devries: I had downloaded the program from source forge, and extracted the file, I was succesful in writing the cdrom.img file into the floppy disk, there were 3 files that i saw when i opened the floppy. At reboot however, my computer read the floppy and hanged, on the border of freezing really. The only thing that was moving was the blinker.

 

Anyone?

 

::Edit, I didn't burn it into windows* i burned it onto the CD-Rom ::

Edited July 10, 2004 by Zheng Yilone

[devries]

You have to put the CD and the floppy both in your PC, then reboot...

 

(and did you try booting from the second CD?)

Edited July 10, 2004 by devries

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

Thanks for the tips Devries, I had the first CD in the drive when i tried booting using the floppy, so i switched the second CD in and rebooted, the computer acted the same way though. The computer booted, read the Floppy for about 2 to 3 seconds, and... hanged...

 

Thanks again guys.

[AussieJohn]

I still think you have not burned your downloads as ISO images correctly and have not checked the Checksums to be sure that the downloads have not been corrupted during the downloads.

 

Until you do that, everything you do and what others suggest is going to be a WASTE OF TIME .

 

If your machine boots OK from your Windows disk then there is no reason at all why you could not boot from a CORRECTLY burned Mandrake CD.

 

Cheers. John.

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

Thanks for helping me everyone, AussieJohn, thanks for your post, after reading it i decided to look more into MD5, i noticed the way i was looking at the check sum was wrong. I didn't notice the link for the checksum list in the linuxiso.org site. <I used verify checksum and thought that it would check the file for errors... newbish of me, yes> After checking the checksums, i found out that none of the ISOs i have were corrupted, thank goodness. But i did find out that my floppy disk had an error in it... I used a different floppy, and the installation screen loaded

 

Problem occurred again though, it said something along the terms "Unable to boot from disk, insert another disk and press any key to continue" i tried doing so with all three of my cds, none of them worked. I'm wondering if i burned the ISOs wrong as to what AussieJohn remarked, but I am not sure how to check and see if i screwed up the burning or not.

 

Thanks again.

 

Edit: The error screen occured after i pressed the <enter> key to initiate the installation.

Edited July 11, 2004 by Zheng Yilone

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

Hi Guys, after some more testing, i've come to notice that the bootup would load from the Floppy disk, and the computer would read from the CD-Rom as well. However, for some reason the computer will not read from the CD-ROM when i hit enter, rather it will try to find the file it is looking for from the floppy disk. I am not too sure what to do to initiate the CD-ROM read. If anyone could shed some light for me i would really appreciate it.

 

Thanks again.

[Guest Zheng Yilone]

Hi everyone, after spending about half the day fidling around with configurations and stuff... i finally found the problem, apparently for some reason my boot up floppy wasn't done correctly, just for an attempt, i overwrote the bootup disk 3 to 4 times before the installation began.

 

Thanks for the support everyone.

[Guest 10Mhz]

To everyone that has the same problem and can not boot from a Mandrake 10.0 Cd or using the cdrom.img floopy. Burned the isos correctly and their cd can read the burned cds but not boot from them, Here is the solution.

 

Use Smart Boot Manager to initialize the 1st boot cd. IT WORKS!

http://linux.simple.be/tools/sbm

 

Write the sbootmgr.dsk using rawwrite to a new floppy. Boot the computer with this floppy but before put the 1st installation cd in the cdrom and it should boot the cdrom installation even if your bios does not support booting from cdrom at all.

 

Good Luck.