Knoppix saves Windows Install

[Joe The PC Doc]

I became interested in Linux about a month ago as a OS to use for my repair business (keep it in the budget!)

I installed Debian on my home PC as a dual boot and Kubuntu on my business laptop.. Kubuntu works great, Debian is a little trickier, but didn't take to long to get the hang of it.

I was introduced to Linux in large part to a Knoppix 5.1 Live CD I burned about six months ago. I'd like every computer technician out there to get a copy of this for their toolkit.

It boots from the CD-ROM, loads in 2-3 minutes on a 256 MB RAM Celeron, allows NTFS read/write access (very handy) and comes chock full of applications including: media players, CD/DVD writing software, Partition software, and much more (I can't remember if OpenOffice was included)

Well, I had a client ask me to help him out of a jam. His PC had one 10 GB IDE hard drive, and two 160 GB SATA's installed later. He had a friend come over to install XP on his newly upgraded system and he installed it on his near full IDE HD. I realized later he didn't know how to install to the SATAs... (A side note, I couldn't install to the SATAs either... If I installed the internal SATA controller card, BIOS wouldn't let me boot from CD inorder to begin Windows install. I had to pop the card in later, and everything worked fine. Insufficient power issue? He had two CD/RW drives, two SATAs and the IDE running on a 300W)

So, the XP install ended up filling the IDE 10 GB drive to max, and froze up during the install process. Well, he also had a few gigs worth of pics that he wanted to keep on there, so I could restart the install either. I popped in Knoppix to give it a shot... Found his pics, burned them to CD, deleted them to free up space, and rebooted. Presto! XP finishes installing, and he gets to keep his family memories.

I've tried using Ultimate Boot CD and things like that, but so far, I've seen the quickest results from Knoppix. Don't leave home without it!

 

[Joe The PC Doc]

I'd also like to mention... If you are going to use a dual-boot version of Linux on a Windows PC, avoid install GRUB (Boot-loader software) if you can.. It sometimes doesn't mix well with Windows. Let the Windows bootloader find it instead.

 

[Simmy]

Hey Joe,

Firstly, welcome to the forums

Glad you got the problem sorted - knoppix is certainly useful. When you enabled the onboard SATA controller, did you set the CD drives to boot first and did you have the SATA drivers on a floppy? Did you set the SATA controller to IDE mode? It's certainly odd that it wouldn't boot from the CD with the controller turned on!

Interesting you say that about the GRUB loader, because I would prefer to use GRUB over the windows one any day

It's clearly been too long since I used knoppix as the last time I tried it, they didn't have built in NTFS write support. Will download the latest version

 

[Rabid_frog]

I have to agree with simmy, both on Knoppix being usefull and GRUB.

Is there something in particular you didnt like about GRUB Joe?

-will-

 

[greggh]

Another post agreeing with knoppix. I have been using linux for just over 13 years now. I think grub is by far the best boot loader out there. I would never use windows bootloader instead of grub.

 

[Joe The PC Doc]

Well, GRUB in itself is fine... It works wonderfully for what it does, but here's the problem I ran into. After I dual boot installed Debian, I couldn't get it working.. I realized later that Debian was reading my integrated Intel graphics as my display driver, but I had installed a GeForce FX card in a PCI slot and I had to edit a config file for Debian to point it at that instead of the integrated graphics. (I'm very much a Linux newbie)

So anyways, I deleted my Debian partition, and rebooted the PC.. Ooops... GRUB has stopped dead in it's tracks, error 22. Can't load my non-existant Debian, or my XP partition! You have to reinstall Windows bootloader to go any further... So I popped in my XP disc to get into the recovery console, and lo and behold, the company that sold my wife her PC had slapped an administrator password on XP I had no clue about. So I can't use the console. My last hope was to reinstall Debian, and hopefully GRUB would pick it back up.. Luckily, it did.. And I'm still using GRUB because I'm worried about using the alternative.

I don't think I'm alone in this either though, I read quite a few posts from Linux users who dual boot and recommend not installing GRUB, let Windows find it instead. Either way, I'm just happy I didn't have to reinstall Windows!

 

[Joe The PC Doc]

Hey Joe,

Firstly, welcome to the forums

Glad you got the problem sorted - knoppix is certainly useful. When you enabled the onboard SATA controller, did you set the CD drives to boot first and did you have the SATA drivers on a floppy? Did you set the SATA controller to IDE mode? It's certainly odd that it wouldn't boot from the CD with the controller turned on!

Interesting you say that about the GRUB loader, because I would prefer to use GRUB over the windows one any day

It's clearly been too long since I used knoppix as the last time I tried it, they didn't have built in NTFS write support. Will download the latest version

I used Knoppix 5.1, and I don't think much has happened with Knoppix this past year. I'm not sure if there is a newer version of it out yet. But if it ain't broke...

Yeah, that CD-ROM issue was a strange one... Everything works fine under windows, but during boot up, I had to pop the controller card out of the system in order to boot from CD.. If it was plugged in, I simply got a "PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT" msg everytime!

I'm not sure what setting SATA to IDE mode means, can you explain? And I did have the floppy for the SATAs with drivers, except I couldn't boot Windows Installer in order to hit F6 and use them!

So as it stands now, he's got two zooming SATA 160s and one crusty 10 GB IDE, and his OS is on the 10 Gig... lol. Oh well, he's happy he has a working a system. And it was a freebie job for my friend... He can live with it.

 

[greggh]

Well, GRUB in itself is fine... It works wonderfully for what it does, but here's the problem I ran into. After I dual boot installed Debian, I couldn't get it working.. I realized later that Debian was reading my integrated Intel graphics as my display driver, but I had installed a GeForce FX card in a PCI slot and I had to edit a config file for Debian to point it at that instead of the integrated graphics. (I'm very much a Linux newbie)

So anyways, I deleted my Debian partition, and rebooted the PC.. Ooops... GRUB has stopped dead in it's tracks, error 22. Can't load my non-existant Debian, or my XP partition! You have to reinstall Windows bootloader to go any further... So I popped in my XP disc to get into the recovery console, and lo and behold, the company that sold my wife her PC had slapped an administrator password on XP I had no clue about. So I can't use the console. My last hope was to reinstall Debian, and hopefully GRUB would pick it back up.. Luckily, it did.. And I'm still using GRUB because I'm worried about using the alternative.

I don't think I'm alone in this either though, I read quite a few posts from Linux users who dual boot and recommend not installing GRUB, let Windows find it instead. Either way, I'm just happy I didn't have to reinstall Windows!

GRUB (and any boot files like the kernel) should be loaded on its own partition. You should never have them on the same partition as your / (root.) So if you have to blow away your linux partition, you dont blow away your boot loader.

 

[tartis]

I'm not sure what setting SATA to IDE mode means, can you explain?

I think that he means to try and set your SATA controller to IDE emulation mode in the BIOS.

 

[greggh]

I think that he means to try and set your SATA controller to IDE emulation mode in the BIOS.

It usually means the motherboard supports 2 modes, IDE and RAID for the sata controller. As tartis states the IDE is indeed just IDE emulation mode. But the real distinction here is usually RAID or IDE mode.

 

[Joe The PC Doc]

It usually means the motherboard supports 2 modes, IDE and RAID for the sata controller. As tartis states the IDE is indeed just IDE emulation mode. But the real distinction here is usually RAID or IDE mode.

Ahh I understand now.. Thanks for clearing that up. I believe it was IDE mode then, I made sure not to create a RAID set.

 

[Simmy]

Some controllers come with an AHCI option to enable advanced SATA hard drive features like native command queuing and hot swapping. I've seen problems with CD/hard drives with this option switched on which could be a reason why it wouldn't boot from a CD.