Color me boggled [Archive]

sdkramer

03-25-2007, 07:03 PM

Okay. I have a bootable Slackware Linux CD. I insert it into an old (circa 1999) Gateway I have lying around my house. The machine doesn't boot from the CD (though the BIOS is setup to boot first from CD then from the HDD). Okay, it's an old drive maybe too old to boot from CDs I think. So I move an extra newish (bought within the last year) DVD-R/CD-RW into the machine and try to boot. No dice. So I try an old bootable BSD CD. Boots right up with either CDROM.

Alright, I've isolated it. It's definately the CD. So I put the CD in my laptop, and see if I can boot from it. Yep, boots right up. Well maybe the CD is finnicky, and I burn a new copy from the ISO EXTRA SLOW. Same result. What the hell?!

Anybody have any ideas? I really don't think it has anything to do with it being an alt OS, but I'll cross post this in Alt OS as well.

Thanks in advance,

Seth Kramer

sdkramer

03-25-2007, 09:11 PM

Okay so the issue does have to do with the OS. Apparently there is a known issue with older BIOSes and booting from CD.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews/showproduct.php/product/681/cpage/2/perpage/30/cat/6

glc

03-26-2007, 09:49 AM

Please do not crosspost.

Some distros have a boot floppy maker - check the directories on the CD.

sdkramer

03-26-2007, 10:10 AM

Issue is resolved.

glc

03-26-2007, 11:39 AM

Would you please share the solution with us so others may benefit? This is a 2 way street here.

sdkramer

03-26-2007, 11:56 AM

Already did. Known issue with Slackware 11 (see link below, specifically the quote beneath it). Find another way to boot, as you said floppy (I'd recommend sbootmgr.dsk image). As for my situation, the fact that they screwed the pooch on bootability irks me to the point I won't install it--my first interaction with your OS should not be a 3 hour treasure hunt to find out what is wrong. Instead I'm using debian for this particular machine.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews/showproduct.php/product/681/cpage/2/perpage/30/cat/6

It may boot on newer PCs but they broke something on this version to the point where an older BIOS won't even see the first (bootable) CD in the drive (10.2 works perfectly in the same drive). This has been widely reported but seems to be restricted to older PCs.

Between this and the fact that there are few real differences between it and 10.2, I won't recommend Slackware 11 or later until this is fixed.